Originally Posted by sailingfun

Another post with forum histeria without any real thought. As already discussed it requires 3 pilots verses two for each flight on a transcon turn. There has been nothing to stop any airline from flying these as a augmented turn for at least the last 30 years. No airline does them because it makes no sense. Even JetBlue who really wants transcon turns never considered augmenting them.
One other consideration. If Delta did decided to fly transcon turns if your not in the top 20 percent in category don't plan on seeing one. A SFO turn would pay around 12:30. Fly 6 a month and you will have 75 hours. Two three day groupings would look pretty nice as a monthly schedule! Not going to happen however, just to costly for the company

Originally Posted by Dorfman

The check wasn't mandatory until 0200, 3 hours prior to report/start of duty period.

Originally Posted by Check Essential

gloopy-
You are one of the calm and rational voices around here.
I respect your analysis.
I gotta tell you. I'm coming to the same conclusion as you.

I've been trying to approach this on a sort of "pro/con" type thought process.

I see quite a few cons but I'm having trouble listing pros.

I don't know why we would agree to this thing.

Originally Posted by forgot to bid

From our Chairman's letter:
• Provides augmentation for a non-ocean crossing FDP.

I'm going to take this to mean it can be a domestic turn such as ATL-SFO which has 7 flights going and 7 coming back per day (and let's just say that's what it is everyday) and let's for arguments sake say it averages out to 5.15 each way.

Now what you are seeing is:
• You will need 1 CA + 2 FO on each flight x 7 flights per day, figure $219/hr for A and $150/hr for B x 365 days per year the company with the TA will now shell out $6.97M to do this route,

• Current PWA is 1 CA + 1 FO x 7 flights per day x 365 days per year the company shells out $4.96m to do this route, thus the pilots gain $2M more per year in salary on this route alone.

• And for the pilots they can be done after 7 days of work (73.5 hours) and we will net for this route alone 2200+ more credit hours thanks to the 3rd FO. Actually the airplanes fly 2237 hours per month on this route regardless but with our current PWA we get 4474 credit hours and with the TA 6711.

Big win, amirite? You see big gains across the board, more pilots, less days working, more money?

But I see it a different way. Currently even with short overnights it would take 12 crews to complete all 14 flights per day between ATL-SFO because none of these 2-man crews can turn that jet around and fly home.

• Why 12? The first two crews of the day could do the first two ATL-SFO flights and the last two SFO-ATL flights. But you would need 5 additional crews to do the middle of the day stuff.

• So right now per month you need 12 Captains snoring at the hotel and 12 FOs in the room next to them to complete 1 day of ATL-SFO-ATL flying. With the TA you need 7 Captains and 14 FOs per day to complete a day of ATL-SFO-ATL flying.

So we lose Captains and total pilots but we as a group gain credit hours (even though aircraft hours remains constant) by adding that 3rd FO. So yes the pilots make more money but that is offset by reducing Captains required and pilots required.

in the interim the company saves money on hotels, upgrades, training and hiring which as a wag given its SFO that would be a huge money saver. What is a hotel for SFO for an airline? $75/day? 75 x 24 guys x 365 days = $650K? What's fewer Captains upgrading and going through CQ save?

I figured the drop in As and increase in Bs but loss in total pilots alone washed out to around $300K gain in our favor but I think the company comes out ahead after its all said and done. ymmv.

This is back of the napkin math here but your turn, would augmented crews on a non ocean crossing FDP reduce Captains and total pilots required on routes like ATL-SFO?

Still waiting for the details, this is all going off the MEC letter for now.


And are we still required to do talk about other mans trash? Fine...

Originally Posted by Dash8widget

I get that - but on a transcon augmented turn, the landing pilot on the first landing has to have 2 hours rest in the second half of the FDP as well. So the same pilot does both landings?

Originally Posted by sailingfun

As I posted there are some limited situations where it might make sense in the Central America/Carib or NRT market. Many of our competitors did Carib turns augmented in markets they only flew a few days a week. We double crewed those because our contract required it. It's still not likely we will see much of that because the contract requires a rest seat. You're not going to see Delta deploy lie flats into low yield vacation markets on a regular basis. Other airlines prior to 117 allowed a cabin seat most even in coach. 117 may have changed the seat requirements but not sure.
The devil is always in the details. If the TA allows a standard cabin seat you might see some in Carib. If not then it just is not going to happen. I suspect we will see the TA by Wednesday.
Edit: talked with a friend much smarter then me. There are a few markets in Central America we might be interested in flying into where the company does not feel they can layover crews. There are also a few markets we could be losing because of declining layover safety. This could be a solution to serve those markets.

Originally Posted by groundstop

We took concessions in the last contract in a upswing airline industry, why not do it again? The pilots voted it through.

Originally Posted by Starcheck102

Really? Name one concession.

Originally Posted by scambo1

It could make Nairobi and Mombasa out of Dakar or the Canaries possible.

Originally Posted by DFW Refugee

FTB:

You might apply your logic to another possible augmented route: 'Anywhere' to Alaska. Remember, we're frenemies with AK Air. :roll eyes: