Yakattack

Because the seniority list has already been integrated, and there's no chance that someone junior to them could displace them out of their seat. One would expect that they would get what their seniority (or lack thereof) afforded them.

And honestly, it's probably not likely to come up with our SLI. The WB guys seem pretty happy where they are, and our plan is the expansion of the WB fleet. The only guys from the 737 that seem to be salivating at the thought of WBs are the very very senior. I'm just hoping it creates movement on the NB side. If WB flying had been super important to me, I could have and would have gone to a carrier that flies them.

But something just sticks in my craw about "career expectations" and how there seems to be a fair amount of looking down the nose at the NB pilots and their fleet because the WB fleet is "superior." I spent a good amount of time at a regional and I have no use for that mindset. I'm just stubborn enough to campaign against an otherwise fair SLI for no other reason than I don't like their attitude. We're the purchasing airline, gosh dang it.

word302

Again you’re taking it personally and it’s just business.

FXLAX

Out of morbid curiosity, I clicked on the last page of this thread and read it. So as someone who has zero eggs in either of these baskets, these comments caught my attention and I want to throw my dos pesos in, for what that's worth.

Everyone seems to say that staples are illegal. That seems to come out of the McCaskill-Bond statute passed after AA stapled many of the TWA pilots and other employees. But that statute is only invoked if the two unions are different. In your case, both are ALPA. But under the federal statute or ALPA merger policy, staples are not explicitly prohibited. If one can make the case that a staple is fair and equitable, then an arbitration panel can use a staple. The only example I could think of at the top of my head is if a legacy airline bought and merged with Cape Air, as one possible example. Surely they will be able to convince anyone that a staple is fair and equitable.

The staple would work with the status and category stovepipe. Generally they are (total number of pilots in each seat from each airline), WB captains, NB captains, WB FOs, NB FOs, constructive notice pilots, lastly, furloughed pilots. With a legacy buying a propeller aircraft airline, the prop pilots would be slotted just before furloughed pilots in the stovepipe, stapled. With the AMZN flying in question, presumably rickair would create a separate status and category for them and put them behind NB FOs. That would seem to be the best way to staple the AMZN pilots, if you can convince a panel of arbitrators that that is the most "fair and equitable." Again, keep in mind that the stovepipe doesn't use pilots actually holding those particular seats. It takes the number of total seats occupied in each status and category for each airline and assumes all pilots exercise their seniority to the fullest extent.

As for not being able to use the equipment a pilot flies as a basis of career expectations, unless I'm misunderstanding, doesn't a pilot who is expected to fly narrowbody aircraft for their career have a different career expectation than a pilot who has the possibility of flying transpacific wide body aircraft? How else would one measure career expectations without basing it at least in part by what equipment they fly at their respective airline?

blackbox348

If that was the case I’d just transfer back to 330P or go for the 787…I don’t think stapling the Amazon pilots work here. And as previously mentioned probably 1/2 of the FOs were hired after the merger announcement. All the CAs primarily came from the 330P and some 321. We shouldn’t be punished because of a new status and we went for it, I’m sure many of the VX guys in the northeast would love a paid commute to work. Another likely scenario is freighter lines get built in to pax lines, just like your 737 cargo. Do those guys get stapled because they picked an “ACMI” line?

On the captain side the freighter CA upgrade is maybe 6 months junior to 330PAX, both status have the junior captain around the 6-7 year mark. In our last vacancy both CA and FO went senior, with all the captains at 20+ years seniority coming over.

Are you going to staple a 1999 DOH because they decided to move from 330P to 330F?

rickair7777

In theory, yes a staple could occur under very extreme improbable circumstances. Such as FDX buys and merges a startup cargo operator which flies Caravans and is three years old... you'd expect that to be a staple or nearly indistinguishable from it.

Based on 21st century legal precedent and ALPA rules, anything resembling a staple probably isn't happening beyween extablished airlines. Even merging a regional into a legacy would see some regional lifers getting a surprising amount of credit for longevity. The law and arbitrators don't consider the airline pilot caste system.


I think that comment was in the context that you cannot segregate the HA pilots, who are of course all one list, by pax v. cargo and then apply a different career expectation to that subset of the HA list, on an individual base. All of the career expectation weight for pax WB's, and any hypothetical penalty for AZ cargo ops, would be applied evenly to the entire HA list. IMO AZ sub-contractors have lower career expectations than Big 6 pax NB pilots.

FXLAX

Why can't you? If one believes that CMI flying prospects, which this HA AMZN seems to be, aren't good long-term, then why can't a merger committee propose a separate status and category for those seniority positions? It's just a matter of using as many facts to make a case for it and hoping the arbitration panels buys off on it. In this case, not only the distinction between passenger and CMI operations but it's also aircraft specific, A330 and 787. So the theoretical status and category is actually easier to delineate. Like another poster wrote, "I can't name a single major legacy airline that has a portion of its pilots flying exclusively farmed out airplanes as [CMI]."

As for the staple, I was merely commenting on your post where you wrote that per law and ALPA, you can't. Actually, neither prohibits it. It's a misconception, but I'll give you that maybe it's perceived by the reality that it hasn't happened since the AA/TWA merger. Has it even been tried?

PineappleXpres

I get the ACMI thing, but our B scale makes more money than your narrow body on an hourly basis. So for a crap widebody it makes you richer than an Alaska pilot.

word302

The rates sadly aren’t that far apart. There’s also the question of the stability of that flying long term as it is subcontracted labor. Again I’m not arguing which way it should go and the reality is currently it’s a very small percentage of what HA does so I don’t think it’ll make a huge difference either way.

WindWalker999

Disregarding the staple discussion (let's be real, we know that isn't happening). But regarding DOH, how would a straight DOH integration work? The current Alaska list (at least the somewhat out of date one I have) shows quite a few places where people's seniority number and DOH are not congruent. I assume this was where the Virgin pilots got mixed in.

How would straight DOH be practical if the existing list is already not straight DOH, without re-shuffling those pilots again?

rickair7777

An AS NB pilot can generally bank on his lower rate consistently for a career.

AZ hired gun? You're at the mercy of Bezos.