flyguy81

Got rerouted on my last trip. Changed our overnight on day 1. Day 2 was a earlier show to a different overnight than originally scheduled. Day 3 was a 2 leg dhd to work our originally scheduled last turn.

Original trip paid 21 with 17:30 block. New trip pays 38.5 with 18:30 block. Shorter overnights but I’m not complaining for an extra $2k

captkdobbs

Didn't think about that idea. This would work with many of our fleets doing hub-to-hub. Any trip that was built to 'balance the flying' between bases would start and end hub-to-hub. Another win for the commuters.

NoDeskJob

And a zero cost item for the company.......if only they could improve IT.

Hillbilly

Agreed. I will be very surprised if the company entertains the idea of mutual pull-down language or a test basis for any provisions in the future as the result of our MEC’s handling of the VB test that never got tested and the SIL pull down. At least until the lead labor relations attorney for the company has retired and I would think that is way down the road as he’s relatively young.

FL370esq

Wonder when the FRB gets pulled down?

MJP27

Good question. The MEC was fishing for that in their “survey”

sailingfun

It’s only zero cost if you eliminate rigs on any altered rotations.

crewdawg

Hasn't ALPA published that more pilots are getting paid as a result of fatigue calls with the FRB than before? I'm not saying I'm totally for them, but if true, why would we get rid of them? Unless of course we can get contract language like SWA has wrt to fatigue calls...then by all means dump it.

notEnuf

Without the ability to exercise it, what does unilateral pull down language do for you. If its not included in the future that's fine. Getting the camels nose under the tent is usually the reason for pull down language. It seems so much more palatable if you know you can shut down an experiment no matter when you decide its no longer a good idea. My guess is they will use it again because its a salable out that can be used to get a tough pill by a voter in the TA.

Hillbilly

Using a pull down provision is not the issue, it’s the manner in which you do so. It makes a difference, particularly in the VB instance, that will carry forward into future negotiations. We sat around knowing full well that the company was expending a lot of man power to get the IT in place for handling VB bidding and administration and just as they got it done, yanked the rug out from underneath them.

I don’t want you to misconstrue me on this, so let me be clear, I was never in favor of VB, I would have never gained from VB and I was in favor of it ultimately getting pulled down, but not in this way.

Anytime in the past that VB has been brought up, it’s been the boogeyman for us because we have a sum total of zero data points on it to truly nail down the effects on staffing and schedule quality so we can cost it out accurately without guessing. It is my opinion that the MEC should have called a meeting right after the 4th of July. The June VB in MCO would have already taken place and they could review what actually happened to staffing and schedules for that month and July. The bidding would already be in progress for August. The MEC makes the call to pull down VB at that time. The required notice would have allowed for the August bid period and that would have been the end of it. The big difference would be that we would have 3 months of data to use going forward. We may have discovered that:
1) The company didn’t like it and was just going to quit using it and we wouldn’t have to deal with them asking for it ever again; or
2) The company looooved it and if it ever got brought up again at the table, the price tag would be yuuuge; or
3) Something in between 1 and 2.

Either way, we would have followed through and actually allowed the test to take place under the intent of the agreement and no one could question that we upheld our end of the deal. What we did was perfectly allowable, but by denying the test itself at the last moment after the work and expense had been incurred, we stuck them with a hot poker. They won’t forget that and that’s why I don’t think they’ll ever agree to it again. I wouldn’t if I were them. Heck, it was the very catalyst for the company to say sorry, we aren’t going to be able to put any IT manpower into working on reroute automation.

Management had made some boneheaded moves leading up to the April pull down with the 350 delivery, no movement on the AM JV talks and the scope infractions, but as time has shown, what we did has had zero impact on any of those issues. So if we did it under the auspices of eye for an eye or to stick it to the man, then we’ve shown that as a failed method of achieving things for the pilots.

You also have to consider that we might be the ones trying to achieve something in a future negotiation that the company is hesitant on and a test period with pull down might have been used to nudge them over the edge and get what we want in the future. That’s a tool that I believe has been summarily removed from the tool bag currently carried by our negotiators.

Also, we would have the necessary data to quantify a stance on the VB issue rather than it being the bogeyman. As it stands today, we still don’t know squat about it definitively.