disenchantMINT

Why the hell would you advocate for a 6-month lock for what is basically a route qual? Eventually that would screw North Atlantic, LATAM, and Pacific SQ pilots in four or more of our largest bases. Also, monthly bid: not gonna happen.

Fah2

I don’t care about a SQ lock, ETOPs /OTS isn’t hard, but like anything if you don’t do it regularly there is a lot to muck up. Have it, don’t have, I don’t care because I have no desire to do those routes.

Not going to happen? Yeah why should we aim for something that improves lifestyle and costs the company nothing.

disenchantMINT

A lock locks you in, it doesn't lead you to "muck up." That argument makes no sense. There is a route qual training syllabus prior to gaining SQ. Who cares how long you do it for?

And a monthly bid certainly wouldn't cost the company nothing and doesn't necessarily improve lifestyle (lost vacations, anyone?). Monthly bids probably work ok at a small, single-fleet ULCC type outfit, but when you have multiple fleets and training events to plan out and need to honor seniority for current pilots vs. new hires it just doesn't work. The added "lifestyle" you perceive you'd receive would certainly come at a major cost (to other contract sections) which outweighs the perceived (and actually nonexistent) benefit.

Excargodog

With the demise of the Emb190 B6 will still be “multi fleet” but only two types, and those fairly close in payscale. I hardly expect a monthly bid would cause a great deal of fleet-hopping. Displacements are expensive for management, but just monthly bids? Not so much.

Fah2

. And that wasn’t my argument…

Is it a paid training? If you bid off SQ and later bid back on, do you have to repeat the syllabus? If the answer is yes then the company cares. Like I said, I don’t.

(But not a small, two fleet LCC type outfit. Amiright?) actually it works just fine, changing bases doesn’t affect your training dates. The bid is held monthly but the award is always two months out. For example the bud we completed end of August means that pilot starts the new base in October. The only thing it affects is vacation, but that is a consequence of shifting bases and doesn’t affect the company staffing. You get what is left over in your new base. . I don’t know who p!ssed in your cheerios but you really get riled up over something you don’t fully understand and think it would have to come at the cost of other contract gains. Unless it means an equipment change or training, the company doesn’t care how many times pilots voluntarily swap bases, they are covered by the needs outlined in the vacancy. Lighten up Francis.

I was inverted

Not to mention, it doesn’t matter how often the bids are if people are equipment locked for 2 years. They can still forecast overall big picture staffing needs for the next year, but offer monthly/bi-monthly/quarterly staffing bids. More frequent bids (let’s say 6 per year) doesn’t cause any more training events than having 6 effective dates in 1 annual bid plus whatever supplementals are needed to clean things up as the staffing landscape changes over the following 12 months.

povertyeagle

AA does monthly bids.

Excargodog

If the alternative is displacements, monthly bids save the company money.

AYLflyer

I don't even need monthly bids, but give me quarterly back. The once a year is absolute BS and does nothing for the pilots and everything for the company.

Fah2

To be clear, it’s not a monthly bid for the sake of having a bid. It’s that the whole pilot group can participate in the vacancy from new hires and upgrades. If there are no vacancies there is no bid.