skypine27

Yes, leaving the base in CAN would have been far, far better than making it HKG. People who wanted to could still choose to live in HKG, because of the 100 mile rule. And, we would have avoided the 8 to 10 day hub-turn pairings. Now, the pairing never starts over because you never return to your base. Ie, CAN is your hub, but HKG is your base. Kind of funny, since there is not actually one single flight that you operate in or out of your base.

Brilliant move on the company's part. Kind of hard to drop/move/trade 8 day parings vs 2 day ones.

RedeyeAV8r

So you can choose to live in Guanghou. Then you can avoid the 3 hr ride and get more sleep and still collect your housing allowance.

skypine27

But I still don't have the flexibility of being able to drop/move/trade my pairings because they are inevitably going to be longer, because the the Hub vs Domicile problem.

When your trip returns to your domicile at the end of each leg, for example in every base except HKG, it starts over, giving you much more freedom in changing your schedule after the bids close.

As quoted by a MEC member, "I never knew why the company was so eager to make HKG the crew base instead of CAN. Then the sample bidpack came out, and it hit me."

RedeyeAV8r

I was under the impression that the Company wanted to and intially intended to open the Domicile in CAN. It was the Union that convinced them other wise and I thought most folks agreed that HKG was preferable to CAN.

It would have been much more Cost effective for the Company to Put the Domicile in CAN.
If the base was in CAN the 6 hour hub turn trips placed together (like MEM and SFS) are cheaper, and yes can make it easier to trip trade and drop.

When they have to schedule a full string of 6 hour trips together to create one 8 day pairing, it is much more costly to the company especially with the Trip rig change to 1-3:75 in Jan 08. They have to give a 1 in 7 in the field and they must pay the additonal GT duty to/from HKG.

I have no dog in this since I'm staying put in MEM (although I will be turning through CAN in the MD sometime in the near future), but personally I would rather live in HKG than Guanghou if I had a choice.

Good luck in whatever you decide.

FDXLAG

If only we could have seen openers we would have known who to blame. But things haven't changed much we are still being treated like mushrooms.

RedeyeAV8r

Deleted........

RedeyeAV8r

Not trying to start anything, but you (we ) saw the openers with our new contract.

Are you happy with how our scheduling and work rules turned out?

Rhetorical question.

FDXLAG

No, not happy, but I know who to blame. We got what we asked for. We just traded to much to get it.

RedeyeAV8r

So Who's to blame?
What's the diff with the LOA? (and realizing the company had the ability to open the FDA sans an LOA, they couldn't just impose a new contract.)

FDXLAG

I guess I would just like to know if invol STV was their idea or our idea. Just like I would like to have some confidence that when we come out of this last round of negotiations (on their best and final offer) we aren't going to come up with some other wacky idea.

With the contract we got what we asked for and I am equally to blame. There was Due Diligence.

The LOA we got what the MEC thought we would swallow. The membership and particularly the membership with first hand knowledge of the area were not consulted. No due diligence.

You may not see a difference but I do. It was not a communication failure it was a system failure.

Again, most of us want the FDAs to prosper with any FEDEX pilot who wants to flying the freight. Targeting the LOA at a small percentage of the crew force while telling us all of the growth will be in the FDAs was not the answer.