Originally Posted by
Wingnutdal
Thank you for correcting me
You're arguing apples, and I'm talking about oranges. The 6.5 TFP is pay for the pilots. The company doesn't want to pay that, that's been negotiated. Very rarely do they fly a trip that is less than 6.5 trips a day, occasionally reserves do when they have to adjust a trip for the reserve. They don't build trips that are worth less than 6.5 trips a day.
What I'm talking about is the number of pilots that would be here if we did away with ALV caps. If SW limited the amount of hours that could be flown, or credited or whatever metric you want to use, they would have many more pilots.
If Delta does away with limits on how much an individual can credit, what do you honestly think would happen. There would be guys flying to the FAR limits.
A lot of guys.
And when talking about productivity, what I said is what it is. They don't carry extra pilots. They have an incredibly lean structure. They count on guys picking up time. The place would fall apart if they didn't. They don't carry extra reserves. I'll say it again, reserves fly every day they are available! There is no going to the sim because you haven't flown for 90 days.
They also have the Lance Captains, who are senior F/Os who are captain qualified and can pick up trips as Captains. Those guys fight over open time. How many Captain spots do you think that costs? They cut their own group off at the nuts in so many ways it's not funny.
I stand by all of my statements, and it's logically sound to me. Get rid of the ALV limits=guys on the street.
(I respect most of what you post Scambo, this one just got me.)
Thanks for the kind words, I was unclear about what you were saying about getting rid of ALV and guys flying to the far limits...all I read was get rid of the ALV. I think it is slightly more complicated than that, but I still cant make that clear linear justification for furloughs. FAR limits are weekly, quarterly, rolling and annual. Most guys only focus on the annual. 83 hrs/month hard time gets you to the annual. Its pretty easy to get there if you want to. Credit time (ie deadheads and greenslips) dont count towards FAR limits. You can build a line requesting max credit. The max credit trips do less damage to the FAR limit than hard time.
I can concede that if everyone flies FAR limits, hard time, we'd be overstaffed by some number of pilots. I doubt that would be anywhere near 1000. However, the way I've seen the system operate in the real world, you have guys that want to fly waaaaay less than that and others who would fly ATL-HSV just for the extra cash.
There is no doubt SWA is more efficient than DAL. Domestically, those numbers speak for themselves. They are not, however, miraculously more efficient, they average 10 hard time hours more per month than DAL domestic pilots. If we flew those 10 extra hours per month, then I can see where 1000 furloughs come from.