Wolf424

I agree.

You missed my point. If they drop an AE today, (a standard one w/o displacements), they have 150 days to convert everyone on it (beginning of Sept).

They can’t afford to have that much movement this summer.

LandGreen2

just curious...GS seem few on 330A, I imagine 320A pays better with all the overtime? I know QOL is way better on 330 just wondering if or how big a pay cut for 320 guys going to 330?

NuGuy

This. If they run out the conversion clock, they wind up with NQAT because people start turning into pumpkins. Now you have serious problem because you lost staffing in the previous category, and you have a person who counts for the new category that can't actually do any flying.

The 210 exception is pretty specific, they have to award 10% of the posting as displacements. That's a fairly high barrier, especially if there is a large amount of upward activity, so the default really is 150. That's 5 months from award to pumpkin. Granted, NWA used to do it in 3.5 months, but that was a finely tuned position machine with TDY to micromanage the staffing gaps.

The problem with the current system is the nature of 2 or 3 postings a year causes a lot of churn. Better really to have monthly, or even every-other-month awards to let the system to seek its own level.

FangsF15

Excellent analysis. There will be a huge difference between the “years to hold WB A” and “seniority number to hold WB A.”

gloopy

But if it paid that, you'd likely be more senior where you are but more junior there and might not be able to hold what you can effectively bid now.

gloopy

We always desperately want the waiter to bring us another menu. Its intoxicating. Even if there was a MOAB, a month later there would be knashing of teeth for another one. Its just too fun and addicting to imagine where we would slot in real time during periods of rapid movement.

But as long as they have adequate positions for new hires, I don't see why they would post an AE right now. Some have brought up the ability to shift existing pilots to other bases, but how much would that really save them? Especially if they couldn't do most of the training of the AE til after summer anyway, but they'd be starting the clock on all the other freezes for no reason. How many BES's are heavily overstaffed right now? If there are any, its probably very few. Those can be covered with a small productivity hit in DH's and a petty cash outlay for hotels.

Were there mis calculations made earlier for staffing and network and all that? Seems like it. But an AE right now just for a small amount of base shifting wouldn't do anything if they can't do the training in the first place. Unless of course they run out of new hire spots. But that doesn't seem like a near term possibility. Not dropping an AE right now seems like the smarter course of action to "go to war with the army we have."

Famos_Amos

You do. It's called per-diem.

Meme In Command

Have we ever had small monthly upgrade/transfer/transition bids where you get it awarded and just go to training the following month or has it always been this AE system?

NuGuy

Not at DAL. The current system has been in place since C2k. There was a TDY (temporary duty) system, but it was gone with C2k as well.

NWA had a completely different system that ran monthly with a 3.5 month "conversion window" (it was called something different). Bids closed on the 5th and were awarded on the 20th. They had 3.5 months to get you to your new position, so you basically knew when you were going to training.

The downside was there was a TDY system that could be assigned involuntarily, but TDY was positive space/full hotel & per diem, so it always went senior voluntarily. Pilots on TDY bid after all the permanent position holders, so nothing was lost for the pilots in those positions. Not every month had a huge number of openings, but there was enough churn that people could go base to base without much trouble. There was zero of the angsty drama that seems to surround our current system.

I'm not saying everything (or even most things) about NWA was great, but this particular facet was much better to the extent that position bidding was such a non-event that it never warranted even the slightest conversation. If you wanted to change your "card", you did it and they ran every month until you got what you wanted. They also published the list of everyone bidding a position (and the number choice it was) every month so you pretty much knew where you stood.

Meme In Command

Yeah this seems very unorganized. I come from a regional where you had 60 day conversions. You bid and got it awarded this month, had next month to do all your CBT's, and then trained the following month. You could even see a live list online of everyone by name,seniority #, base/seat and you could use filters to game how many people were bidding ahead of you for a specific thing. I've been here a minute and I'm still shocked at how archaic some of this stuff is.