jetproppilot

Forgive me for the thread's title.

I'm a non-line pilot, M.D. for a living, trying to figure out this whole scab concept.

If I were a new anesthesiologist with a ton of student loan debt emerging from residency, I take a private practice job that starts me at, say, 300k.

Same job gives me eight weeks paid vacation.

I really wanna pay off my 200k of incurred student loan debt, so I look around and easily find work during my vacation weeks in another city...not stepping on any "competition stones' since the extra work I've found is in a non-competing area.

My partners won't care, and the group I'm helping is thankful for the help.

Switching to the airline industry, why is it taboo to work extra?

Why not keep the extra work within the company enabling company-pilots to make extra income if they so desire?

Can you really force a company to hire others because you won't fill the unfilled trips?

And if successful, aren't you cutting your own throat by bringing in more pilots?

Why isnt there more capitalistic thinking by airline pilots?

You guys fly the planes. The CEO cant fly the plane.

So why don't, say, 1000 pilots put together a contract proposition, complete with overtime stipulations for extra time, go to the company and say

we, Quest Air LLC, comprised of these specific 1000 ATPs (or whatever the appropriate number is), will cover your flights for (x) amount for 2007. And if you are satisfied with our work/coverage, we are gonna propose an exclusive contract for years 2008-2012

Seems like by forcing the company to hire more pilots is counterproductive. Seems like if I were a line pilot I'd like the opportunity to pick up extra work if I wanted to.

Is this pilot-group-proposal concept illegal or something?

Cuz if it isnt it'd put line-pilots in the driver's seat, contractually speaking.

Again, naive, inquisitive post with no intention of inflaming anyone.

jdsavage

I used to be all for going above and beyond for the company. I have learned that if you do that, then management starts to expect it from you. If you don't live up to what you used to do, then you start to get reprimanded for it. Now, because of how management runs things, I do my job and only my job. That's just my view from my past experiences.

2cylinderdriver

There are many things that could be discussed in your posting, but here is the simple answer. A Scab is someone who crosses a picket line, either an employed pilot or a new hire to replace striking pilots.

The working extra concept is well covered in most contracts. In general most airlines woud rather be a bit undermanned and have pilots fly some extra for obvious reasons, fewer employees means lower cost. Some airlines through their CBA's have CAP and BANK systems which limit the amount of pay a pilot can earn each month, say 85 hours. If that pilot worked 95 hours that month he would bank 10 hours and the next month if he only flew 75 hours he could use his bank balance to make that month 85. Kind of a simplistic explanation. Some airlines, like mine, have no CAP or BANK, if you can fly it you will be paid it. At my airline it is good and bad. Good for guys who want to work till they die, good for the company because they do not have to hire as many pilots.

The other concept about not working more comes about during contract talks generally. It is a mechanism that can be legally applied when both sides are released into "self help" as defined by the Railway Labor Act.

Hope this helps, there is much more we could talk about but this is a start.

jetproppilot

Yeah, but picking up extra trips for your company seems symbiotic.

The flight gets picked up (company benefits) and you bring in extra cash (you benefit).

STILL GROUNDED

I definately chose the wrong career. I could of legally been giving drugs to people for 300K a year to start.

jdsavage

True, however they can start to think, "so and so has picked up trips, so he'll do it." Then when you say no, you get the shaft.

Linebacker35

Back in the late 90's AirCanada's regional pilots(AirBC in Western Canada) went on strike. AirCanada then sent most of their RJ's and AirCanada mainline pilots to to cover the flying. So in effect it crushed the regional strike easily. They kept these mainline pilots in the airport hotel in vancouver, so they could avoid the picket lines. These mainline pilots who were flying the RJ's were labled scabs. I was just wondering what you all think of that. Would they be considered scabs or not?
I personaly think it was totaly fair and the AC pilots were not scabs, they were simply filling in so mainline aircanada would not suffer from a regional disruption.

2cylinderdriver

If it was really Air Canada's flying already and they did not have a contract that allowed them to honor struck work then they may have been just doing their job and had no choice in the matter. That is where the scope clause of both carriers come into play. I am guessing AC pilots did not have the right per their CBA to honor the struck work of their feeder, since in effect it is all theirs to begin with. I do not know the whole story.

jetproppilot

Good explanation.

Thanks.

skybolt

It is not taboo to work extra. Most all of us, except in the time of furloughs, work extra. Pilots are just a greedy as are Doctors, but a man has to have a life and the airline pilot job can prevent that if management gets its way. If allowed, management would keep a pilot on duty for sixteen hours a day, seven days a week with no days off. If you don't believe that, you should ask some of the guys stuck in 135 jobs; their employers work them to the FAR limits for months at a time. And don't forget, if you ever knew it, the FAR's were built during the time that the FAA had the joint mandate to "PROMOTE and regulate" the aviation industry, meaning that they are not specifically aimed to providing safe travel to the paying passenger. They are also aimed to help the company make a profit, a sitution that doesn't include allowing the pilots to have lives.

The regulations have decreed that a pilot must not fly more than 1000 hours a year, 30 hours in seven days, or 8 hours between required rest periods. The regs also require a 24 hour break every seven days.

Have you attempted to staff an airline? Just for grins, lets do it, OK? First lets say that your airline will fly 100000 hours every 365 days. If you can fly every pilot up to the FAR flight time limits, you will need 100 pilots. Divided equally, you will fly 274 hours per day. 274 hours per day divided by exactly 8 flying hours per day per pilot shows a requirement of 35 pilots per day, BUT you can only work pilots out of 7 days so you have to adjust these numbers to reflect that, then you need to allow one week a year per pilot off for recurrent training, and another four days a year for left seat checkrides and another two days off per year per co-pilots for their checkrides. In short order, you find that you must hire a significantly higher number of pilots than you would think you need according to the simple math. BUT, the simple math, and business related adjustments did not include any adjustments for quality of life for the pilots. If times are good, the manager says OK, we'll actually give you your weekly 24 hour break in your base, or he says we'll give you a few guaranteed days off per month. All of which increase the staffing numbers from the purely mathematical requirement.

All of which brings me to this, a properly staffed airline will appear to a bookkeeper to be fat on pilots. PERIOD. No question about it. So, when times get a little tough, they money people decide that they've got to cut the fat, and their limited view of our world leads them to believe that pilot staffing is in fact, fat. Then they want pilots to fly more, so being generally supportive of our employers, we pitch in to help out. We burn the candle at both ends so to speak. Then the managers say to themselves, hey look at how much money we can save if we reach this production level all of the time. They ask for more and more OT. etc. Jetproppilot, you just can't burn that candle from both ends for perpetuity. We know that, our union knows that and most reasonable people know that; so we attempt to maintain some sort of balance. We don't like the abuse of OT by either company of our fellow pilots, because it leads to poor quality of life for us all.

It is my belief that you would be surprised at the amount of extra flying that happens on a daily basis by the average airline pilot. We are NOT a bunch of featherbedders who demand to be overstaffed so that one of us can be asleep in the break room at all times. We are a group of workers who spend between 16 and 20 days per month away from our families and who don't like it when our fellow pilots enable managements continued perception that we'll take anything. The abuse of OT is just such an action.

Now, don't get me started on the PFT pukes who will PAY to sit in an airliner cockpit.

skybolt