Mozam

I don’t think so. VSP was about 1150 TFP average left on the table .

e6bpilot

Right, which I am sure was part of their calculus.
VSP, however, was a surprise to all of us. I am sure plenty of those pilots had some sort of burn down plan, as many 60 plus guys that I fly with do.
Sick bank = PTO = whatever you want to call it. It is earned TFP in a bank that allows pilots to take paid time off when it is not feasible to come into work. Changing the name doesn't change what it is. As far as I am aware, all the 2016-18 sick bank harassment calls and meetings have stopped.
Systems respond to incentives. If they want to save themselves money and pain and incentivize pilots not to use it all, then come up with some sort of cash out plan for retirement. There is just zero reason to retire with a fat sick bank, and I think as the years go on and less koolies hit retirement age, the sick bank balance is going to just get lower and lower.

Let's all be honest. You can tell a lot about a pilot by looking at that one number.

4V14T0R

If that's true that saves the company ~$190M +/- a few million.


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Mozam

No kidding, on either side of the fence . I still can’t figure out the pilots that have been here 20 plus years, bragging how they have never called in sick. How many times did they come to work and get others sick.

flensr

One change that *could* be positive to the company would be to add PTO bidding into the scheduling timeline before or after initial bid award. You just submit your PTO request and in seniority order scheduling starts pulling trips. It would almost have to be that way to avoid everyone taking holidays off, etc. Trip pulls after PTO awards would just get dealt with the same way training and other pulls are handled, bundled up and handled in second round, MOT, ELITT, open time, just like other month-prior pulls.

Of course we would have to negotiate stuff like what does a PTO day pay on a day off vs. a day with a trip pull. You can't just automatically say it would pay 6.5 no more no less, because in that case why not just sick out and get the higher value of a nice fat trip that pays more than min? That might make the company favor a plan to have PTO requests/awards due BEFORE first round awards instead of afterwards, to limit the number of people who can bid for a well paying line with the express purpose of taking PTO. But again, if the rules don't favor us people will just vote no and keep bidding whatever they like and calling in sick.

What the company gains with PTO is NOT reducing the cost of pilots getting paid to not fly their trips. What the company gains is a process where they can wrap up all those dropped trips back into the normal scheduling process as early as possible, to make second round, MOT, and ELITT offerings more cost effective. Less DH legs, less premium and less running out of reserves due to sick calls.

The ability to look ahead and plan for extra dropped trips is an obvious benefit for the company. What does it do for US? If PTO drops don't pay the higher of 6.5/day or actual value of the trip, it does nothing for us. Even if it does pay that way, it would be seniority based so junior pilots would be sitting with PTO they can't use as they like, and smaller sick banks than now. So it wouldn't really help senior pilots (again, they can already just sick out whenever they want), but it could HURT junior pilots in a measurable way.

So do we really want to split PTO away from sick time? It may not help anyone but the company, and could realistically hurt junior pilots who lose PTO bids due to lack of seniority in addition to slowing/reducing their sick bank accrual. The only thing that helps everyone is avoiding the emotional kick from having to make BS sick calls just because you couldn't clear that weekend to see your kid play in the tournament, or go with the fam on that vacation, or or or or or whatever. Lots of us have already gotten over that anyhow so why change what works if the company doesn't offer up something big in return during negotiations?

Profane Kahuna

Which kinda proves the point. The company knows people burn that 1600 down in the last few years before retirement, they continue to complain about it every chance they get.

The surprise VSP allowed the company a chance to get a big group out the door before they had a chance to execute their burn down plan.

Profane Kahuna

Well, you definitely put a lot of thought into it but I think maybe too much?

I haven’t heard anyone propose “splitting” out Personal Time Off from Sick Time or a Seniority based system. That would clearly benefit the company by reducing the ability of pilots to exercise their earned time off.

Most pilots just want the name changed from “Sick” to “Personal” to remove the moral dilemma and move the company into the twentieth century of leave plans like the majority of other employers.

THEKERNALKLINK

If they waste my time, I'm done! Which it sounds like they will. I'm not trying to start a fight or be negative, but here is my take on it. During the "Pandemic" things were really bad for the people who were there. A bunch of terrible schedules, going in to fly a 2 hr turn then back home, several days in a row, big sits, long overnights.

Basically all the things we were known NOT to have as much of as the other airlines.

1.) I volunteered to take one for the team for up to 5 years. Part of that deal should have been a guaranteed amount of time I'd be away, if we had that, we could make a plan. Some people might want to go back to college, in my case, I'm transitioning a farm into it's 2nd 20 year plan, the last one before it goes to my kids.

2.) The fact that I could have held out and made minimum guarantee, and it would have all been paid for through a forgivable loan from the government, we should have all been recalled immediately so we could be paid our guarantee! Park us if you want to, but we had the money coming, we were WILLING to stay gone for up to 5 years if needed! If this had gone a lot worse than it did, we had stood up and raised our hand.

3.) I am not the same person I was before. Just feeling a lot of bitterness and regret. If I end up sitting half the day at an airport not getting paid consistently, and commuting 4 hrs every day for turns, I will leave. If it was the way it was before, I will be as happy as can be, feel like I have the best part time job in the world. I'll call in sick a lot.... my other business just doubled in size, it comes 1st. Other than that, I'll be good company man.

Sorry for ranting.

RckyMtHigh

I’m happy I had the opportunity for ExTO, but it has not been without it’s sacrifices - which for me will be compounded by an early return. At a minimum, I would like the company to automatically grant a leave of absence, as long as it’s within an individual’s original ExTO footprint, to any who want it. Not sure if anyone has pressed-to-test on that subject yet.

thedus

Topic came up on a FB group yesterday and 2 denials reported with no approvals. Small sample but seems like the company is not being very understanding.