FixTheMess

Is there anyone who is able to shed some light as to why this hasn't been done? Perhaps a crew news question about this is in order. We want this flying, have the staffing for it already, and we provide a superior product. Seems like Airways should have used its upper hand while they were renegotiating the Mesa contract to get this flying on PDT property. Its ridiculous for MAG to operate 6 lone dashes. Oh wait, let me guess, Mesa can do it for 20 cents less per leg.

BSOuthisplace

I think operating costs is one factor. I think the other is that Mesa is already out there, they already have the aircraft, and they already have infrastructure in place out west for the operation. In order for Piedmont to move out west it will cost US Airways some $. Why spend a bunch of $ on a new operation when you already have one in place? My guess is they will keep Mesa dashes out there for the foreseeable future.

The only thing that may change this is if Mesa or it's creditors determine it's not cost effective to keep only 6 of one type of aircraft and all the overhead that goes along with it. I remember JB talking in CQ about how if PDT got down to about 30-35 aircraft there would be no point in keeping the airline around because of all the overhead costs involved in the operation. I can't imagine 6 dashes would work but then again it might be different for the fee-for-departure carriers.

FixTheMess

I agree that there would be costs involved. That is why while Airways was negotiating cheaper rates and a 10% stake in MAG, they should have negotiated the dash's as part of the deal, allowing them to offset any costs involved. My guess is that if time, effort, or thinking is involved with something positive happening at Piedmont, mainline is not interested.

higgi8f6

Ok, so just a little change of topic. I was told by a friend who does alot of scheduling stuff with ALPA that, under the current NPRM for Crew Rest Requirements that our trips are already 80% in compliance. Very little would be need to be adjusted for us to be 100% compliant. Where we are not compliant is under reserve rules. Reserves are the only pilots who would really be affected by this NPRM.

What I couldn't get out was if we would require more staffing under the new rules.

Phuz

That's because the new FT/DT rules are manure.

ALPA has been rather silent on the issue, but CAPA has put together a really good 5 page PDF that you should see:

Flight Time/Duty Time (FT/DT) CAPA Talking Points | Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations

I know 5 pages is a lot, but this will most likely be the only time the rest rules are addressed for the next 50 years.

mjarosz

I'm going to have to disagree with that. Unless, of course, F/O BM told you that, I'd take it with a grain of salt. The majority of my trips would not be legal under the proposed regs. Of course, I was on reserve for the last many months and maybe I got all the rejected trips from more senior people so that skewed my experiences. Oh, and the vast majority of my made-up reserve trips would have been illegal, so if anything, PDT will have to bring in additional reserve pilots.

On a different note, I had a 'very senior member of our management team' on my jumpseat recently. This person said that mainline is finally willing to accept market prices for Dash-8 leases instead of constantly trying to lowball them. Take that for what it's worth...

DrivinTheDash

Beyond whether individual day-today pairings meet the requirements, you also have a few other factors. The 7- and 28-day duty limits would limit the company's ability to schedule people on long duty days throughout the month, even if each trip alone was ok. Also, more reserve staffing would be required, or more slack built in, to compensate for the significantly reduced allowability of exceeding the duty day limits. Whereas we can currently be on reduced rest every other day, the NPRM would never allow reduced rest. Whereas we can currently go right up to 15 hours day after day after day, the NPRM would only allow us to exceed the new maximum duty day (by more than 30 minutes) once every seven days. I'm sure any of us who have been here for a few seasons can remember weeks in winter when we've had big delays causing extended days for days in a row due to snowstorms, and the same in summer due to thunderstorms.

It would definitely be interesting to see not just what percentage of the pairings comply with the proposal, but how many of the lines comply, both as scheduled and as actually worked in hindsight. The change of "monthly" limits to "28-day" limits also presents some complications, particularly in terms of more potential interface conflicts if we continue to bid by calendar month.

BSOuthisplace

Are they trying to get the 300s now or are they waiting till next year?

I don't understand what, "willing to offer market prices" means. If I go to BestBuy willing to pay market prices for a new big screen TV, I'm going to come home with a new big screen TV. There must be something else going on otherwise I think we would have heard something by now.

mjarosz

By market price I mean that they're willing to negotiate within a price range of what Dash-8s are going for. Before that, what they were offering for a Dash-8 lease was so ridiculously below what other customers were paying for them that they had zero chance of obtaining an airplane. Whether or not this leads to additional aircraft on property has yet to be seen...

stoki

I heard about from someone in recall about the 3 planes as well. They said in class this person from training sounded pretty confident about it happening.