Noworkallplay

yes yes yes!

Sluggo_63

Exactly my point. I always hear the Memphis bubbas telling the commuters that they should commute into Memphis to take the scheduled DH out, but never hear them tell their fellow Memphites to take the scheduled DH home.

opt0712

Ah I see. Yea the majority don't care how you get to where you're going, as long as you're there when the ground transportation is leaving to start the day.

Emmerson Bigs

I'm a commuter and I'd love to see the result of everyone coming to MEM to take the scheduled DH. That's purely a matter of DH availability. Everyone knows the company bets on us deviating and alleviating the single-point of failure that looms every week on Monday. There simply aren't enough seats on the flights to get all the pilots where they need to go. But again, that's because it's one airport with a finite number of departures.
How is a MEM local staying on the back-end DH instead of a convenient jumpseat going to have any affect on the operation? We're talking hundreds of DHs from hundreds of cities. Even if they ran out of seats to get pilots back to MEM, all they would need to do is extend their trip a day somewhere to find a seat on a different DH flight or they could even use the company JS/fly-window option in section 8. That pilot making his way home is done flying, so that delay is nowhere near as critical as a Monday morning outbound DH that's position pilots to move freight that night.
Please explain how it matters in the least whether a pilot who lives in Memphis take the scheduled DH home?

Emmerson Bigs

My comments above are only with respect to choices pilots might make during negotiations.

Now if you want to talk about why taking a company JS back to domicile is a bad idea in general, that's another conversation. When a huge percentage of our pilots do that regularly, that data gets used against us when our negotiators have to try to argue to keep commercial deadheads in the CBA. How do they successfully fend off that attack when our own pilots voluntarily thumb their nose at the deadhead so many commuters rely on.
Taking the scheduled DH home would need to be a routine solution, not just something expected from MEM locals during negotiations. The data gets collected year round, year after year. Not just during actual negotiations.

HvypurplePylot

What makes you think there’s enough jumpseats to Memphis?

Emmerson Bigs

I never said there was. But between the available JSs, the myriad of routings on commercial air into MEM from around the country and possible trip revisions to find alternatives on later days, I'm saying that pilots choosing to DH to MEM at the end of a trip isn't as big an issue as doing that on the way out to start a trip.

C17B74

Geez, all this information (all the commuting responses) sounds like the biggest headache especially during negotiations apparently. Understand that sometimes you have DH’s built into the line or do you always have them? If not, “Peak” has got to be the worst to commute in - how bad is it let’s say today prior to Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Years to get back home prior to the event. Or Dr slips just run rampant and the locals jump on the $ perhaps. Granted, maybe they just fly you over the holidays no worries I guess. This all sounds horrible. Y’all need pax rotator birds.

*Just like a Delta guy 2 decades ago told me - Half your job / half your pressure is getting to work and home again bottom line. Better contractual DH exist now of course, but that was then for even the Majors.

HvypurplePylot

it’s really incredibly easy. The internet just always has a solution to bring the company to their knees. Solidarity is always way down the list.

C17B74

Thx, well said. Didn’t want to believe it would become that much of a mind numbing event a few times a month if you so choose. Granted, probably a lot easier living in/near a decent sized city (airport) so you can almost live anywhere. Some much easier than others of course.