thinkstraight

While I am 100% opposed to the T/A when it comes to the OE trip pull, I propose an alternative solution.

Keep current bidding process, If a first officer is awarded a trip with a LCA and the trip is to be used for OE, call the first officer on the night before the trip drop and offer the following:

1. Allow the pilot to drop the trip completely. No credit/ no obligations.

2. If the pilot elects to keep the credit. The pilot will be obligated for recovery flying during the first 6 hours of the original trip. If not used the pilot will receive full credit for the trip and can W/S or G/S at their discretion.

3. During the recovery period the pilot will be the absolute last resort for scheduling prior to premium flying. The pilot will only be used behind all reserves and white slips.

4. OE trip removal will be no later than 24 hours prior to report. When contacted by scheduling the pilot will be given the options. They will also be told exactly how many reserves available and open trips are in the pot.

5. The pilot removed from OE will be allowed to request a specific trip in open time and awarded the trip ahead of white slips. The trip may not exceed the credit of the original trip and must also be over the same dates of the original trip. If the requested trip is less calendar days than the original trip this will satisfy any recovery obligations and the pilot will be released.

Again I am not in favor of the T/A's solution to OE trips.

The company has made it clear that this is a priority for them and I am only proposing an alternative solution that is fair to all parties.

Thoughts?

rahc

We negotiated the recovery flying to go away recently... why would we give it back? Your proposal is still a concession.

GunshipGuy

Can I get 0.24% added to the 0.26% on 1/1/2016 to get to a full 0.50% for that concession?

GunshipGuy

BTW, notice how we conceded the ability for Reserves to be out of communication for the first two hours of EACH day of reserve during the last TA (FAR 117 negotiations)??? (That TA change only allowed that on the first day of each new block of reserve).

And in this TA Reserves get that option back for each day of reserve.

So what are we giving up in this TA that is being set aside for the next group of negotiators to "win" in the next negotiation?

Gotta love the cycle: Give it up...get it back...give something else up...get that something else back. Why can't they do that with 2004 pay rates????

3 green

There are way more trips going to LCA than 91 on the md-88/ATL..

UnderhillsAcct

My thoughts are that if it is a priority for the company, then it is a huge concession to us. And your solution isn't much better than we had prior to 2012.

When the TA first came out, there was a graph available on the DALPA MEC website that was attempting to show how few pilots this OE trip drop change would effect, but it actually did the opposite. It showed that over 1000 pilots received trip drops last year. I haven't been able to find the graph since. I believe it was taken down because it proved exactly the opposite of what Dalpa was trying to prove.

To put it in perspective, if a pilot got just one 4 day trip dropped sometime during the year and is then able to pick up another 4 day (or a 2 day greenslip) during that time, that is an increase of 21 hrs credit for the year. So for a typical 960 credit year that would be a 2.2% increase for the year.

So if we take that away, it is a minimum of 2.2% PAY CUT for over a thousand pilots on the seniority list.

And that is at the low end. If you are getting 2 trip drops in the year it is a 4.4% pay cut, 3 drops 6.6%, etc.

That pretty much negates the 3% year 2 and 3 raises.

This is just the compensation view of this change, It is not taking into account the loss of quality trips to bid, and the change in staffing required.
I say "NO" thanks!

like2fly2

Aside from the obvious concession that this will negatively impact all FO's, IF this goes through, the major problem that I see is that there is no incentive for the company to adequately plan ahead for the number of trips that they will need for training.

I'd rather see this not pass at all, but if it must...here's an idea for a small modification:

The company can withhold up to 75% of the trips that they wish, but any withheld trip that does not operate a training rotation must go out as a GS/WS/YS/Reserve coverage with premium pay attached. If this was the case, there would be appropriate incentive for the company to not withhold more trips than they expect to need...

Pilotfo64

Greenslips would dry up like the Martian Soil. This is a huge concession for all FO's and Junior Captains.

IF YOU ARE AN FO YOU HAVE TO VOTE NO!

Here's my take on what I believe to be the worst part of the TA (followed closely by the JV concessions), LCA bidding changes.

I know a lot of people are thinking that the LCA bidding concession only affects a few fat cats at the top of the FO feeding chain.

Actually, that is incorrect. Top 2% FOs are the ones who will be affected least.

Imagine a hypothetical and oversimplified aircraft/base combo, where there are 100 capts and 100 F/Os. Slightly understaffed, there are 7,200 hours to fill this month, and with an 80 hour ALV, that works out to 90 regular lines and 10 reserve lines. Because it’s oversimplified, every pilot in category puts a 3 line bid in PBS for trips: 1) Award LCA, 2) Award “Best” trips available, 3) Award Reserve. There are 720 hours to be flown in OE this month (conservative in the current environment) 10 LCAs in category.

Under C2012, we could expect that the top 10 FOs would get LCA lines. Because they’d pull these out of the middle of the pack, that would effectively give all other FOs a 10% bonus in bidding power, i.e. FO#11 would get the #1 most desirable line… and so-on. FOs 91-100 get reserve. During the month, those top 10 FO’s pick up most of the trips that make it past the reserves as green slips, but a few greenies trickle down to the middle of the FO pack.

However, under TA15, all but 180 hrs of OE would be blocked from bidding. What happens now? Well, for the top 2 FOs, it doesn’t affect them much. They still are awarded pure LCA lines. #3 gobbles up the last 4-day LCA trip, and fills the rest of his line with the most desirable trips. #4-10 now get regular lines - taking the ones that the FOs behind them would normally have gotten. This trickles down the line, with each FO essentially being bumped down in bidding power by about 7 positions. In other words, FO #25 now gets the line that FO#32 would have gotten under C2012.

Oh, and FOs 83-90, instead of being lineholders, now join the other 10 junior FOs on reserve. And most of those open trips get picked up before anyone gets a chance to pick them up as green slips (and of course, the top FOs get first dibs).

So pretty much every FO except the top 2% lose QOL, and many lose money as well.

But junior Capts, don’t worry, you don’t get left out either. FOs #15-20 had been planning to bid over to your category in the next AE, and they’re junior to you, so that doesn’t affect you. However, now that TA15 is law of the land and greenies are no longer, FOs #3-8 decide that they’d rather make Capt pay, and they bid over. Sure enough, three of them are senior to you. This phenomenon affects WB FOs as well.

Who isn’t affected by this? Senior Captains. I guess we have to count on your sense of unity to help keep this from negatively impacting your fellow pilots. And if that doesn't do it, the JV concessions should.

BigGuns

Keep in mind that is only the guys that bid to fly with LCA. It does NOT include LCA trips awarded that were not specifically bid!

thinkstraight

Again I am not in favor of concessions but if you think they are not going to change this you are kidding yourself.

If we vote down the TA we'd better have alternative solutions.

Me personally, I'd rather have all trips available to me and have options if OE is assigned.

My proposal is only an idea and if you have better solutions please offer them.