All Bizniz

We went first because our contract was up for renewal first. I heard that at some point along the way, there were some in ALPA that wanted to slow roll the negotiations but I guess by then the momentum was such that a deal was achieved when it was.

Like yourself, some are understandably upset that given that it's a pilots' market, we didn't manhandle management into agreeing to 340 - 360/hr. But having gone first, with literally the worst contract at the time, it was simply too heavy a lift to get to 340 - 360/hr, along with achieving all the sweeping improvements to the signicantly deficient areas of our contract.

Should we have waited? I have no problem with that debate, but I think that the 82% YES voters prioritized getting out from under that QOL dg sheet of a contract we had, rather than drag this out any longer, given that the hourly rate met their expressed desire (The ALPA/New Hampshire polling), and the SNAP UP clause (or whatever you wanna call it) provided some backstop to not being left too far behind.

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ReluctantEskimo

We were not up first. JCBA 2018 put us at the back of the line. We settled first.

Provided zero backstop. But it was a nice selling point in the roadshows. The fact that the snap won't trigger this year when 3 airlines go to $360 on Jan 1 should tell you everything you need to know.

All because 82% voted in favor does not mean it was the correct decision.

As long as pilots are on property to rationalize and excuse working for less by only looking inwards, then there will be no catching up.

Av8rRr

When you go to negotiate a contract, ALL areas need to be addressed and fixed. Not just the few selected from polling. Our NC dropped the ball and only negotiated the top five things. That’s not at all how it should work. Look at every other airlines contract after ours. They’ve managed to address more than just a few polled areas. As far as work rules go, what we managed to get seems so minuscule to what the other carriers are getting. I very much doubt our NC was paralleling what other NC’s were negotiating. That’s very evident now. Especially after looking at our snap up language compared to the others.

Twr199

Reached the bottom of the bottle already?

G650guy

With all due respect, have you ever been correct about any of your predictions? The last post I recall you stated that 787s would absolutely be on property shortly and within 24 hours you retracted your statement and it became just a guess. What else is just a guess?

All Bizniz

I respectfully disagree.

First, I do want all the great contract language that the big 3 have, but in the real world of wage negotiations, where neither side has the overwhelming leverage/advantage, compromise is part of the process in arriving at an agreement. You therefore have to figure out how much negotiating capital you have, and determine how much of it you wanna spend on improving any given area.

All the top tier airlines had much better existing contracts whose language in most areas were night and day compared to what we had. Our improvement differential was therefore orders of magnitude much greater than theirs, which means a much heavier lift.

Is there room for improvement? Absolutely! But if you ask me, I'd say the NC negotiated faithfully on our behalf and overall did a good job in achieving the results they did.

How soon we forget...

ReluctantEskimo

The wiser course of action would have been to wait for assistance in that "heavy lift."

But instead, we chose to Leeroy Jenkins it.

ShyGuy

The pilots walked April 1 and demanded to STOP STALLING.


Management stopped stalling, gave a new contract.


Now still complain. Sounds about right.

Mudhen200

"Let's do this!"
Some seriously funny stuff!

TransWorld

Industry wide, what worries me the most, after shortages of pilots, is the looming retirements and shortage of A&P Mechanics. That is going to smack the airlines as much.