Excargodog

I’m not sure I adequately explained my position. I AM OPEN FOR THE BEST DEAL WE CAN GET, but I think that some people have misgivings and erroneous perceptions of DTZ. It’s not so much that only a small percentage use DTZ or that those people are running some sort of a scam that benefits them to the detriment of the rest of the pilot group as it is that practically nobody uses DTZ ALL THE WAY TO ZERO frequently. And when they drop - even when they drop to zero - it is rare for them to stay there, they are dropping for the purpose of rearranging their schedule into something else and what it mostly amounts to is a free market trading board.

And while I agree that DT 40 or DT 50 or DT25 might well be adequate (or even excessive) in the overwhelming majority of cases what that means is that the incremental cost to the company (and to the pilot group in bargaining leverage) is non linear; that is the incremental cost of reserve coverage for just DT50 will cost more - a lot more - than the incremental cost from DT50 the DT 25 which will still cost more than the incremental cost from DT25 to DTZ.

BECAUSE DTZ is rarely utilized as an actual drop to DTZ, and rarer still for someone to REMAIN at zero after the drop, the incremental cost is far less than the apparent cost simply because it is nonlinear. You can’t drop to zero without already dropping through 50 and 25. And few people actually STAY at those levels after a drop. NK pilots are money grabbers just like B6 pilots, and generally want to make money too. So ALVs (which are the only thing the company really gives a damn about) aren’t going to fall precipitously because you go from 50 to 25 or 25 to zero because few (if any) people actually drop and stay there.

so like I said, I’m open to the best deal we can get, but DTZ isn’t some plot by a clique of NK pilots trying to put something over on B6 pilots or their fellow NK pilots. The only ones getting screwed at NK historically are the first year pilots and except for the insurance and training pay, the recent TA has gone a ways towards rectifying that. We need to fix the reserve peoples ability to drop which apparently WAS screwed up by guys checkerboarding their drops to basically make themselves unassignable except for day trips (before my time but that’s what I’ve been told) but rather than condemn all future guys in reserve to no drops and no pickups it ought to be possible to craft some rules for limited pickups and drops without checkerboarding that the management can live with.

But like I said, I’ll go for the best deal we can get, but I think some people are coming down too hard on issues they only dimly understand. We have the time for a polite debate and learning from each other that will help us get the brstJCBA possible, but not if all we do is dug in our heels dogmatically on things we only dimly understand about each other’s operations.

My opinion anyway.

Bluedriver

Only guys that think like you would consider industry leading everything and DT25 A concession. You'd call $1,000 per flight hour and DT1 a concession.

You're previous comments indicating that DTZ, every hour of Z, to be more important than all of the other improvements my group wants. THAT is concessionary speak. THAT is telling management that they can give us a chit contract, and the "bag draggers" will take it, as long as it has DTZ.

And frankly, this discussion would have to happen before surveys anyway, in my opinion.

BKbigfish

The thing I think you’re missing about DTZ is the degree to which it primes the open time pump. If everybody were to rely on the swap function in Flica, what you have is a bunch of pilots waiting for something to drop in open time to swap with, which would rarely happen without DTZ. With DTZ, guys are much more willing/able to drop trips into open time, knowing that they will be able to rebuild their line easily in Daily Open Time (DOT) throughout the month. You should see our Initial Open Time (IOT) trading period. It’s worthless. Just a few trips leftover from PBS that nobody wanted. But the real action takes place after IOT when DOT starts. A cornucopia of trips, some good, some bad, some in between, find their way into DOT because of DTZ. Because guys KNOW that the pump will be primed and they aren’t nervously holding on to their uncommutable high credit 4 day because they’re worried something better won’t come along. Somewhere out there there’s a guy who lives in base who is nervously holding onto his lower credit commutable 4 day. Without DTZ these guys most likely will never end up having anything worthwhile to swap with. With DTZ they both confidently drop their unwanted trip into the DOT pot. It’s really hard to appreciate this without experiencing it firsthand. It’s not just the system, it’s the mentality that it creates.

Bluedriver

I understand your point about non-linear costs. Of course. And I'm fine with starting with "best of everything in the industry" including DTZ. But when things need to be trimmed, some, it should come from an area of the CBA that gets used the least, and benefits (or harms) the smallest proportion of the group possible.

While I understand your logic and theory as to why the ZERO has an non-linear cost, are we guaranteed management will see it the same way? Are you SURE? Does management always follow the data? Or do they sometimes have philosophical lines in the sand? Would it not be plausible that the company negotiators say "you are asking me for this thing, saying you must have it, but no one will use it?"

If they, for whatever reason, simply refuse to place a low value on the FULL ZERO, why is it not reasonable for the group to take BIG wins in other areas in exchange for DT25?

If it's a non-linear cost to the company, is not a non-linear benefit to the group? As in, if few use the FULL ZERO, then wouldn't the majority still benefit greatly with DT25? How about DT25 plus BIG wins in other areas?

My problem is the absolutism that I've seen from some. Has to be DTZ, FULL ZERO, can't even be DT-0.5, or it's a concession no matter what else is in it. That's an irrational starting point and one that if allowed to go unaddressed would almost certainly result in a JCBA that is weak in other areas, areas that we all use, at the expense of 100% perfection in an area few FULLY use, the FULL ZERO.

As I said, I want best of everything, but also a JCBA where the benefits are equitably distributed among the largest proportion of the group possible.

Bluedriver

I like your argument, and although I've asked repeatedly, no one has articulated this.

And to be reasonable, are you saying you simply wouldn't see any of this if guys could only DT25? Again it's the absolutism I don't like.

So if guys with 75-80 hour lines could drop 2 4-days at a time, or multiple shorter trips, down to 25, the system would be totally ruined and no one would drop anything?

I will say JB has drop to zero on the trade board. And even there, which I acknowledge isn't the same, but you don't see much in the way of trades being actually mutually beneficially executed.

Anyway, I appreciate the additional impression of the drop benefits. I am for having a great drop provision, I just don't share the absolutism and frankly have been disappointed with many at NK who don't seem to value other hard benefits or hard pay numbers or other contractual improvements to anything approaching the extent of DTZ, which makes me fully believe they will sacrifice all of that for this one provision.

Which makes me wonder, if DTZ is more important than the rest of the contract, why is NK having a bigger attrition problem than the rest of the Industry? Not an insult, but a serious question? The guys who live with this provision, are leaving in search of other things, and only some of that can be explained with widebody aircraft.

Let's just agree we all want an amazing contract, it will require some balance between everyone's most prized interests to get it all.

BKbigfish

No offense taken. We’re having guys leave for two reasons and I’m sure you know what they are. Pay and seniority list progression. Ultimately DTZ isn’t what most are going to make lifelong career decisions over. The thing is, you want the NK grid system. That’s what costs money. Not DTZ. I’m not a hardliner. I don’t know what the number is that we should be able to drop to but I think it’s a lot closer to zero than you think. I just want to make sure you guys don’t discount the value of DTZ when you don’t fully understand the benefits of it. The grid is what we’re going to have to fight to keep. DTZ just maximizes the utilization of it.

JulesWinfield

Yeah, keeping control of the grid is definitely the key.

Excargodog

Absolutism on EITHER side is unreasonable. But I think people need to make an effort to understand the TRUE costs and benefits before they go making decisions, dogmatic or otherwise. And will management see things the way we do? How would we ever know that until negotiations start?

You and I went round and round about the issue of a REVENUE SHARING proposal in lieu of a profit sharing proposal once. Instead of asking for a percentage of profits (which are prone to accounting trip manipulation) why not just have revenue sharing where a certain percentage of ticket sales simply goes to the pilots - a cost of doing business akin to a sales tax and not subject to manipulation by changing how you are amortizing equipment and other scams. It’s also self adjusting for inflation. Now I’m pretty sure the management would scream bloody murder, but that doesn’t mean the NC shouldn’t throw that out on the table, and see how management prices it out. Or if it intimidates management into coming up with a deal on profit sharing less amenable to management manipulation.

Dogmatism and it-wasn’t-invented-here-ism, and parochialism on either side should be avoided, IMHO. We all ought to keep open minds. The JCBA could be great leverage because management NEEDS it, rather than management benefitting by stalling like happens with most CBAs.

We need to not screw this up.

Bluedriver

Can't argue with that... We hold the keys to the single operating certificate, hope we remember that when it counts and the NC uses it to it's maximum advantage, without caving on the 10 yard line as I have seen too many times.

BunkerF16

I can almost guarantee DTZ will not survive the JCBA process. I wrote this in another thread. It will be sacrificed on the altar for improvements in JB's current system. DTZ is a great QOL tool that I realize most NK pilots love. The problem is it's a non standard benefit in the industry. When we were negotiating our first CBA, we lost a lot of benefits, like PTO sellback which was an amazing benefit for the pilot group. The reason we were given by our NC as to why it didn't survive: It was non standard operation in the industry and it would be almost impossible to argue with a mediator/arbiter and win that benefit. I guess I'm saying that I don't have to not have lived DTZ to understand how important it is to NK pilots or how much it benefitted that group. I'm just saying that the chances of it surviving in our JCBA is near zero. The quicker that realization occurs, the more we can focus as a combined group on the areas we CAN make improvements in, in both QOL and compensation.