mathteacher

Just given my track record at UAL I'm assuming I'm furloughed for the third time for a few years...I know doom and gloom but that has been my experience as an early 2000 hire...I just asked my Dad, an old time Pan Am guy and my uncles, old time PSA guys...have they ever heard of one moron getting furloughed by the same airline three times? They had never heard of
a. someone like me dumb enough to keep coming back to get kicked in teeth every 5 or 6 years (that's from my Dad), or
b. any airline being that inept without going out of business.

Anybody ever hear of one airline furloughing three times for the same relative seniority group?

CLazarus

2678 is a high side estimate at how many guys systemwide are going to wind up as Bus/737 FOs. I’ve been on my back all day after a workout mishap, so I decided to figure out what I alluded to above. I did it by looking at displacements at each major hub and seeing where they could be displaced to within their current base.

I came up with 2678, but that is almost certainly the high end. Why? I didn’t try to guess if a displaced DEN 737 CA or LAX 787FO would bid over to SFO 777 FO. Odds are a couple hundred pilots will do exactly that, as the Eight Ball Jr SFO 777 FO out of this is seniority #7301 (vs. 6801 for the senior most DEN 737 CA being displaced. If he stays in DEN he’ll be a Bus/737 FO).

Does 2678 equal future furloughs? Way too soon to know. Could be more than this after follow on displacements if flying doesn’t come to life. Could be much less if flying does come back and displacements get cancelled. Also, we have roughly 50 Max aircraft coming our way within 12 months when the grounding ends and they will certainly pick up a lot of the PS flying as the 757 fleet shrinks. I think the 17 Max 8s we have coming will take the DEN to HI flying too. So the proportion of Bus/737 FOs company wide is going to to rise no matter what the final damage is. Even if flying comes back at a painfully reduced level over the next year, I think we might top out well below 2678.

One thing this exercise makes clear is that the 4476 line pilot displacements does NOT equal anywhere near 4476 furloughs. Sadly, with the company starting the displacement training ball rolling ASAP it will make it easier to have a very large first round of furloughs this fall. God Save The Ball.

Here is the picture for each base:
245 - DCA
147 - DEN
723 - EWR
203 - IAH
270 - LAX
318 - ORD
772 - SFO
———-
2678

I was surprised to see such high numbers for EWR/SFO, but I doubt they are an accident on the CO’s part. Knowing how many super Jr guys in these bases are going ashore with the first wave, all of those EWR/SFO displacements make uncomfortable sense.

If someone has better visibility and can crunch numbers to boot, I’d be all ears to what you have to say. But if you just want to throw out random or cherry picked numbers and start arguing about them I’ll pass. Should have used the time today to update my resume...

Nucflash

The seasonal laborer metaphor is one I like. Every few years I come back to this place, work for a while, and then am off for a while. Look at it that way and you will begin to think of this not as a career, but just a job. You really don’t have much invested in them, and they certainly don’t have much invested in you. You put in minimum effort most of the time and possibly a bit more....but only if and when you feel like it. What you do here doesn’t define you; other things you do in your life define you and you pursue other employment and activities during your long stretches of off time.

So that logically segues into the concessions discussion. Since you’ve accepted the fact that you are just a seasonal laborer, would you want your part-time job to offer max pay and benefits and good working conditions for the periods of time you were active? Or would you want conditions, pay, and benefits to be variable, unpredictable, and uncertain every time you reported for a stretch of work? The choice is clear. Full pay and good conditions until the last day (for now) of my seasonal job, please.

guppie

It’s your numbers. They need revision.

Round 1 and already Captain (6800) is at 22 years seniority (15 years CAL), and WB FO (7876) is at 21 years seniority (13 years CAL). Everybody else....straight to NB FO.

They‘ll have follow on displacements to rationalize the overages in some categories, but they can furlough straight out of the NB FO categories.

nopac6

I’m an optimistic person too but when your company is taking in 3% of its former revenue with no end in sight and people who’ve been through something similar tell you there’s serious pain coming and you rudely dismiss them as nothing more than “doom and gloomers,” then YOU are the one with the problem. You’re not an optimist, you’re delusional AND you’re a d!ck about it. Then you act all insulted when someone you were an a-hole to comes back and says, “I told you so.”

Brahma Fear

So if I predict that UAL will go out of business (something not that far fetched if they really do furlough 5000) and we actually close up can I come rub it in their faces? It’ll be fun since all of us furloughed people would already have and available jobs. It was an insensitive and ridiculous comment.

oldmako

What? If you measure "better" to the .00000001th position, you might be right. Let's face it, flying for a regional sucks if you look at their ENTIRE contract and compare it to the big 4. Minimal advancement per decade is a lousy measure of advancement.

IF the mainline pilots wet their pants and cry into their blankies, the regionals might advance another inch during the current spasm.

First post eh?

Huell

Thats easy for them to say that knowing they will never have to make the decision to keep coming back ... In all honesty I love flying and faced with it I would probably keep coming back ... teeth or not. Actually I did go through similar once ... Lucky I guess. Hang in there.

nopac6

Like I said, nobody should be on here gloating right now, but MOP acting all hurt cause somebody he was a pr!ck to threw it back at him is lame.

MasterOfPuppets

im not hurt just calling it like I see it. I told you so doesn’t belong on here when people are hurt. Keep it to yourself, there are people, who will never admit it, that are taking great joy in all of this knowing that somebodyelse is going to be eating the **** sandwhich this time. Those who say I told you so are most likely those people. I have no love loss for someone who’s screen name is IHateYou