Originally Posted by duder

Blue1 to replace Boeing 717s, likely with 737-600s
Victoria Moores Dec 19, 2014

Blue1 Boeing 717 at Amsterdam
Courtesy, Rob Finlayson
Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) has announced plans to “reboot” its Blue1 subsidiary by replacing its nine Boeing 717s, most likely with 737-600s, and using it as a wet-lease provider.

Speaking during a phone briefing on Thursday, SAS CEO Rickard Gustafson said the 717s would be divested by the end of 2015. “The 717 is a bit of an odd bird, creating unnecessary complexity,” Gustafson said.

The 717 also has high unit costs and, under the current plan, the last five 717s will be replaced with 737-600s. Blue1 will then be “rebooted” as a wetlease provider for SAS.

“SAS has reduced capacity at Blue1 by about 40% as a result of the decision to divest four Boeing 717s. The five remaining Boeing 717s will be phased out in 2015,” said SAS in its 2013-2014 full-year report.

Gustafson said this strategy has been boosted by a new agreement with Blue1’s unions, which makes the airline more “effective and competitive.” This includes a provision for grounding aircraft during off-peak periods, which will give SAS greater flexibility in its capacity management.

SAS also recently announced plans to acquire 100% of Danish regional Cimber, which was set to close in April 2015. Under the deal, SAS will transfer its 12 Bombardier CRJ900s to Cimber’s air operator’s certificate. Cimber’s staff, its CRJ200s and ATR 72 are all still slated to leave the company.

Since it was nearly pushed to bankruptcy in 2012, SAS has slimmed its fleet from nine aircraft types down to four. Gustafson described this as a “significant step”. The SAS mainline operation will focus on aircraft with 120 seats or more, such as Airbus A320s and 737s, while Blue1 and Cimber will cover lower-capacity operations, supported by SAS’ other wet-lease providers, Flybe and Jettime.

Through this model, SAS is aiming to right-size its network, support SAS’ hub operations, maintain thinner routes and support routes during off-peak times.

Blue1 is a Finnish carrier, headquartered in Helsinki, which was founded in 1987 and has been owned by SAS since 1998. It also has a hub at Copenhagen airport and serves around 28 regional and international destinations.

Originally Posted by TenYearsGone

I can see it now, SLC or LAX 717 base

TEN

Originally Posted by Sputnik

Can someone explain this "bank" thing?

Originally Posted by crewdawg52

If you fly over 80 hrs in a month, you can "bank" some or all of the excess time, instead of getting paid, for future use.

Ex: You fly 88 hrs. You can get paid for all of the 88 hrs, OR, bank 1 to 8 hrs. You get paid for the 80 hrs, and you pay yourself at a later date for the excess time you banked. Say you wanted to drop a short trip. You dont get paid for the dropped trip, so you pay yourself from your bank to make up the lost income.

In another example, say you only have 73 hrs for the month, and you pick up a green slip. GS start paying double over 75 hrs. Since you only have 73 hrs, the first two hrs of the trip are paid at single rate. BUT, you can take 2 hrs from your bank, and add that to your monthly total, thus giving you 75 hrs. So the entire GS trip will be paid at double time. You can borrow up to 5 hrs to fill to 75 hrs if you dont have the banked time.

Look at pg 12-15, Sect O. of the PWA, Green Slips, sect 23 PWA, and G/S trigger on your monthly time card.

Clear as mud

Originally Posted by RockyBoy

I'm sure someone else will do better than me, but here is my quick take.

If you have more than a certain number of credit hours in a month you can put the hours above that into a bank. It's somewhere around 80 hours and I think you can save up to 30 hours.

You can then use those hours to pay you back when you have a low month for whatever reason.

You can also buy extra vacation days.

You can also "borrow" from the bank and go negative. Then you automatically pay back the debt if you credit above 80 hours at 5 hours per month.

Biggest reasons to use it are to get up to the GS trigger. Some guys use it to buy an extra week of vacation each year.

One strategy is to fill the bank up on 1st year pay, then pay it out on 2nd year pay. You can also do this if you are upgrading.

Originally Posted by Denny Crane

The easiest way to explain it is to have you read Section 12 O. of the contract and then have you ask specific questions from there.

Denny

Originally Posted by Sputnik

Thanks Denny, I'll read it on my commute. But ask another question anyway. How do you actually put hours in the bank? What part of which website do I use?

Actually, where should I go to figure out pay? I can't understand pay statement and really have a poor understanding of what I get paid when. ALPA best? Or do I call hr?

Thanks for help guys.

Originally Posted by RockyBoy

It would be nice if they would just let us add/draw from the bank regardless of the hours we credit.

Originally Posted by Bucking Bar

It would be a bit premature to celebrate this as good news. While Delta is insulated by a profitable domestic market, the Middle East carriers and euro market issues effect our transatlantic business too.

Still, I'd like to see those airplanes show up here sooner rather than later.