DLax85

First, thank you. Second, so it is different than the "Minus 1, Bump and Flush" of yesteryear. The company now has more power and control. The changes we agreed to did matter.

Lets ALL look forward. Eyes WIDE OPEN.

Together!

In Unity (for everyone),
DLax

DLax85

Thanks for all the details. I'm only quoting your most salient point.

In Unity (for everyone),
DLax

NotOldNotYoung

Bump and flush is far from the good old days. I’m not sure we want to go back to that system. It allowed a bunch of guys who passed voluntarily on opportunities to upgrade or go to the seat they wanted during the good times (ex: last bid 21-01) and then use the bad times (bid 23-01) to force people out of seats that they had bid to and gone to training for. More people were forced into training as a result. When you go to training and endure all that comes with it, you don’t expect to be bumped out just because another guy has buyers remorse. I’m sorry you can’t use your seniority to bump somebody out of a seat that they bid for and held on the last bid (and you could have held also) and it may seem frustrating to you that guys junior to you might be able to go to a seat you want. However, those individuals are being forced from their seat or they are in a seat that is overmanned and so they’re choosing to go to keep somebody else from getting forced out of that seat. If enough people bid to your seat as the process plays out, your seat can become overmanned and the senior guys in that seat can choose to bid out or junior guys get forced out.

Just because Fedex decides to reduce manning in some seats at the airline does not mean it is a free-for-all and anybody can go to any seat that their seniority holds. That would be stupid like bump and flush was stupid. At your seniority you could have bid to almost if not every seat on the last bid.

Fortune favors the bold. Go to the seat you want when you can. You never know when you’ll hold it again.

pinseeker

I'm not sure I agree with the statement that it gives the company more control. Control over what? They have always had control over staffing levels, that didn't change. What did change is that there used to be two types of bids, an excess bid and a vacancy bid. How do you think things would have been different under the old excess bid for those 75FO's? They weren't excessing out of that seat, only adding to it. So, those pilots wouldn't be able to bid to relieve excess until the 75FO seat was over capacity. That wouldn't preclude a junior pilot from a seat that was being excessed from being assigned to a 75CM seat while the 75FO who was senior couldn't bid. To add to that, in this realignment bid, the 75FO's were senior enough to hold that 75CM seat on the previous bid, otherwise they wouldn't have pilots junior to them being assigned to the 75CM seat. Bottom line, I'm not seeing the big give here. If after this bid they decided they weren't going to have another bid for 48 months, but I retire in 45 months and thought I would bid 77CM in 12 months hoping there would be a vacancy bid, should I be able to now bump a junior pilot out of the 77CM seat because I didn't bid when I had the chance?

UnusualAttitude

Agree with you on this. I think Sec 24 has some warts but it’s not in this process. Senior pilots who were “waiting for the next bid” now want to bump junior pilots who took a chance and accepted being junior in category. That’s not how it works.

Merle Haggard

Yes, that is how it works pretty much everywhere. The consequences of rash and stupid management decisions are much greater when it works that way. It helps to prevent rash and stupid decisions. Bidding is about seniority, what it's not about is "who's willing to take a chance".

UnusualAttitude

Lots of senior FO’s could have previously held Captain. Not sure I’m following you. They didn’t bid it but want it now. Unfortunately, now there aren’t vacancies for them to bid in to.

NotOldNotYoung

Use your seniority to bid for the vacancies that exist. If you are in a seat that is or becomes overmanned, use your seniority to bid to another seat or stay in your seat allowing somebody else to bid out or get forced out if nobody wants to leave. Seniority still is honored.

Bump and flush was awesome…it allowed the over 60 crowd to get back to captain seats when no vacancies existed and forcing a subsequent cascade of people getting pushed to lower paying seats or lower seniority within their seat.

Are you advocating that every bid should allow you to go to whatever seat your seniority holds even without vacancies? Now you would never know if you would stay in your seat.

opt0712

This^. You can't pass up an upgrade you could have held two years ago, and then cry foul when you want to upgrade and bump someone junior who did upgrade. Like it or not, this is pretty standard practice across the industry. But I came from the regionals where we always take the first upgrade, 'cause you never know when the music will stop.

FXLAX

From reading this thread, to me it seems like the difference between this bid and the old excess bid form the old contract is that we end up with less training required. The one thing I think I would change is allowing those in same equipment and seat who are not subject to assignment to be able to bid another base (currently 767 & 777) that doesn’t have a vacancy but the max > min and if they are senior enough to hold it. That wouldn’t trigger a training event.