Mesa CEO Jonathan Ornstein, AKA Lorenzo

[tintube]

Personally I hope no one ever have to go as far as a strike to settle contract negitiation. Period.
I am sorry to hear that you would find pleasure in above situation.................

 

[tired_pilot]

mesa pilots need to strike call the bluf

Until you've worked at YV you dont know how bad it is.

 

[enigma]

OK, I'll bite

Tired Pilot.

Not that I doubt you, But.

PLease specify just how bad it is.

Is it money?, working conditions?, days off? schedules?, base instability?, maintenance?

regards
8N

 

[tired_pilot]

life at mesa

Got laid off from a 727 back in Feb 2001...called Mesa HR was able to get an interview 3 days later...easy interview got the job..was hired as a 1900 Captain at $23,000. I show up to class in PHX and am told I was put in the Dash 8 as an FO seat locked for a year at 13,000. Towards the end of the first week..the chief pilot (SC) struts in class like joe cool....and says and I quote "Theres only a few givens here at Mesa...one of them is not all you guys are going to make it through ground school..we interview every wed"....and struts out the door. Since most of the class had under a 1000 hours..he scared the s**! out of them. I was like what the hell was that.
It cost me a $1000 for my hotel during training..they dont pay for it for new hires. Infact once your a true "employee" and go in for upgrade or recurrent your put up in a make shift dormitory...not even a hotel..new hires can stay in the dormitory..but they charge them $30 a night.
My sim training was horrible..unorganized all from 1am to 5am..I understand training is 24/7 but instructors who cant give you answers to easy questions like a target power seting for an ILS?? I've been through 3 airline classes..it was just bad.

In August 2001 it took 8 months to be able to hold a line on the dash 8. Reserve was 23 days a month 16 hours a day..at the time a 90 min call out. I was getting a 2 week pay check of $456!
The ALPA contract says pilots will receive 8 days off a month.. twice a month 3 days off and one time 2 days off. Only 3 of those days were what they called "golden"..where they could not change at the last min. Per diem was $1.00 an hour. If you wanted to get your per diem or pay over garentee you had to fill out by hand a pay sheet..listing every flight you did all month. I always filled out something wrong according to them and never got mine on time..infact they still owe me 200 in per diem. Its unbeleivable to me they dont give you a print out of your flight time..instead making you do it. I ended up resigning to "have a life"..I didnt want to give up that much of my life...just to build hours.

I know this is a cut throat industry...but what disheartend me the most was the bitterness towards the pilot group there. I just wanted to be treated like a human being more then anything else.
I've sat at the same table with Ornstein for lunch..he is a very elloquent dynamic speaker and could be a great leader of a great company if he treated his employee's in a moral decent way..but I know thats not his plan.

FYI...he has destroyed 2 airlines Westair and CCAir for those of you saying he's just built airlines.

The guys at Mesa need our support now more then ever..lets help them in whatever way we can!

PS..call Mesa airlines emlpoyee message 877-MESA-CEO see how powerful a speaker Ornstein is..he updates it on fridays

 

[enigma]

tired_pilot,

Thanks for the specific reply. Man, Mesa's negotiating committee for the current contract must have sucked. That's a terrible contract. We had it better twelve years ago. My memory of JO is only as a money man, when I worked for Mesa, Larry was still in total control. I would even say that Larry was the one that hosed Westair. About CCAir, I'll take your word for it.

regards,
8N

 

[bobbysamd]

WestAir

I wondered what happened to WestAir. Now I know.

MAPD was no day at the beach, either, especially regarding maintenance. One time, they stuck a Bonanza with inop flaps on the line and told us to fly it. The flaps were placarded. I refused to fly that airplane. This was in 1993, when Larry was still in charge.

By the way, they had the dormitory system back then as well. Before they built the dormitory, they put up new-hires in this fleabag motel on the main drag of Farmington. I don't remember the name of the place, but I remember visiting a couple of my friends at the place in 1990 who were in class.

 

[STEVE CANYON]

Hey Tired_Pilot:

Who was the Cheif pilot? I heard J.O. now has his own personal DHC-8-200.

 

[STEVE CANYON]

Just to add to Tired_Pilot's post. The employee turnover rate at Mesa, not just pilots, but all departments were easily over 50 percent. I went to one of J.O.'s luncheons as an existing employee, not a new hire. It took alot to keep my mouth shut. What he says and what he really does is two different things. The former editors at Pravda couldn't have been any more prouder. The sad part is his reputation spills over onto others in his organization. Larry Risely was the better CEO of the two.

 

[enigma]

Re: WestAir

Before they built the dormitory, they put up new-hires in this fleabag motel on the main drag of Farmington. I don't remember the name of the place, but I remember visiting a couple of my friends at the place in 1990 who were in class.

The Zia Motel in beautiful downtown FMN. And those Zia babes, wow.

regards
8N

BTW. everything in New Mexico is ZIA something or the other.

 

[bobbysamd]

Zia "Motel"

That's it, all right. How quickly we forget.

I believe the dorm was across the street from Corporate in Farmington.

Larry Risley was the better CEO of the two.

Can something like that be possible?

Lest we forget about another member of Mesa's fine "management" team, Mr. Beech 1900, Grady Reed. I heard that his son actually was sharp and nothing at all like Grady.