Airfix

If we go with PBS it seems to me that being able to interact with open time after the Schedule Adjustment Period (SAP) will have a huge effect on our quality of life.

In the SAP period we will only be able to pick up, swap, trade or drop anything that doesn't require manual input i.e. no partial trip trades and no trades out of base.

This is pretty much useless to me to improve quality of life. Currently if I am looking to use Flica to improve my quality of life it is not very often I find a pairing in open time that I can trade one for one with a pairing on my schedule. I almost always have to split apart a pairing to make it commutable.

Therefore I doubt I'll be making many changes to my schedule in the SAP period. If the company now decides to assign all the open time to our reserves immediately after the SAP, as they are allowed to do, then I will not see any quality of life improvements with the new contract. I thought this contract was all about QOL improvements!

Why can't our MEC get language in our contract that states open time will be made available to all line pilots until 48 (72, 96) hours prior to the start of open time pairing.

Our MEC in an email today said:

I think we SHOULD have something in our contract to guarantee open time availability. This will be part of our QOL improvements.

Do other carriers have open time availability in contractual language?

AirWillie

vote no, how's mapd doing?

paxhauler85

Great, how's GoJet?

IBPilot

sweet stop throwing stones Willie.....

Window_Seat

You won't get any benefit without having enough reserves. If you Junior man, you don't have enough reserves. Mesa pilots will not see a benefit from this. New TA is horrible... sorry

Airfix

Window_Seat, how do you make sure your company has adequate reserves? Our MEC is telling us MESA will not allow us to specify a minimum number of reserves. I suspect not many companies will allow their pilot group to specify reserve coverage.

I guess with Mesa it also has something to do with our agreements with majors requiring us to be properly staffed. Disclosing minimum reserve numbers will expose Mesa to arguments, contract violations and possible lawsuites with our major partners.

paxhauler85

Don't apologize. I agree completely. It's a piece of trash. Luckily, all of the guys/gals I have spoken with feel the same way.

I worry that the junior folks in the house (just off probation) will see block or better and vote yes.

If there's any Mesa guy/gal out there who thinks this is a good contract, please contact me and I will go through the TA with you step by step.

It is worse than what we have now, and that's incredible.

The Duke

I feel the same way. It's as though each contract here is worse than the previous one. Is that how contracts are supposed to go? I always thought contracts should get better, not worse, over time.

I'm not angry at the MEC at all, it's now our job to reject the TA, send it back, get the necessary improvements. The language is downright scarry in some areas. This is all part of the process. If this contract passes, I'll be looking at options outside of aviation.

NoJoy

It is a bad TA. The MEC is using the Jedi mind trick to convine pilots at the road shows that this is a pretty good TA for the "times we live in" hmmm. Maybe if the TA were only good for one year vs two (which we be at least three) If this TA gets voted down, the MEC will get the message not to send a half-ass contract out to be voted on. See more lively debate @mesahub.com