sailingfun

All the discussion about locks and timing bids to extend them does not have much bearing on reality. Bid timing is driven by simulator availability and network. With the training department running near capacity sim availability is critical and they can’t leave slots unfilled. I doubt going forward they even look at freezes. In addition the majority of pilots are not jumping equipment the minute their freeze is up.

Spudhauler

I am not a sky is falling guy, but of course they look at freezes. It's all about cost containment. Much of executive pay is in stock, and Wall Street loves to see costs kept in check, which drives up our stock price. If they weren't looking at freezes they'd go away or the MOAB spacing would be different.

sailingfun

What has the MOAB spacing been?

bugman61

Are you saying that because 2 MOABs are spaced 22 months apart that posted vacancies go unfilled? Just because an individual pilot is still seat locked that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of other pilots to take that spot and generate secondary vacancies which may be back filled.

They started the MOABs when they had large numbers of displacement. By using all of the vacancies for the year they were able to minimize secondary displacements which are far more expensive than an individual vacancy.

I’m not saying there is no overall effect on training cycles with 3 year “lock,” but it’s probably way less than people here think and has more of an effect on an individual instead of the whole group.

Scoop

Yes and no. I don't feel seat locks are the main driver of AE spacing and I strongly believe that the once a year 365 conversions are more about minimizing displacement induced training. All other things being equal the company would like to space them to minimize training churn so it makes more sense to tactically adjust them by a bit here and there - like we are seeing with this current AE, but I don't think that is a huge factor in the AE placement.

Looking at the current AE - no immediate training capacity for the heavies, so why start a guys clock ticking now? I would do the same thing if I was planning training. However with all of that said if you are seat locked until June and a MOAB comes out in April or May that you are not eligible to bid for it may have the same affect.

So on an individual basis Pilots may get caught up with a longer artificial seat lock here and there, but you will always have this problem to some degree or another with any bid spacing. More frequent smaller bids would greatly minimize this issue so hopefully we will start seeing those.

One final thought - I believe we have longer seat locks than both AMR and UAL, not sure about the cargo guys, so we should definitely be looking to improve them.

Scoop

Gooner

Ding ding ding, a nuanced logical answer to a complex process. The internet can do it.

fishforfun

Just general info from UAL, as long as you are moving up a category there is no lock.

Falcon20

I remember everyone complaining about the small AE’s that came out about every 9 weeks. The cries of when are we going to see the MOAB with the huge movement were constant. Now that we have had them we have cries about the bids not being frequent enough and guys are stuck in a base or seat locked for eternity.

So it seems we want huge frequent AE’s all while stating that training is at capacity and can’t handle anything more. I guess we will need to cave on company wants/needs for training. Wait the. There won’t be huge frequent AE’s.

Thanks it, I’m mad, confused, and can offer no help.

sailingfun

Keep in mind delaying the widebody portion of this bid will extend locks when the positions are awarded but also may allow people to bid the positions who will be locked out in Nov but good in Jan.

Broncos

The company has been posting MOAB AE's roughly every 11 months for the last several years. The last one was in March 2019. They are going to run into a problem though in a year or two if they keep trying this strategy, as you are only allowed one year-long AE per calendar year. Assume they do a MOAB in Feb 2020, and another 11 months later in Jan 2021. Then what? They can't do another one in 11 months, because that would be December 2021, which would be two in the same calendar year. So this attempt to stretch a 2-year seat lock into a 3-year seat lock will come to an end, barring a PWA change.