Originally Posted by
13n144e
That pretty much just got shot to hell - flying out here just took a turn for the worse. Adding a 5-day NRT/HKG/SGN/SNG/GUM pairing starting Nov. Once a day, everyday. We've been telling them for months we're not even close to being staffed for this but apparently the bean-counters aren't drug tested. As it stands now WITH the TDY's just about everybody will have to do at least one. But the contractual period for TDY's runs out next month and it's supposed to go to a SEVEN day pairing. Don't know if it's even possible but I doubt the union is in any mood to waive the TDY issue right now. I would hope not.
I'm around the middle of the seniority list and I think I may have to do two. Reserve could be pretty nasty now that we are so short - with the potential of having to do three of the things per month. But even without, there will be so much open time, particularly for FO's, reserve could get pretty ugly. Dec will be much worse.
This flying is all connecting traffic off the UAL 74. Before anyone on here starts whining about "whipsawing", we lost our HNL-GUM-NRT 76 route to UAL 74. Frankly I could have done without it...
I last flew the HKG-SGN tag a couple of weeks ago. We had well over 300 pax each way - and this is in the off season. The SIN tag usually carries a similar load. This down gauging of equipment comes just in time for the Christmas and Chinese New Year season. Ia a sense we will be adapting passenger loads to capacity as opposed to matching the equipment to the needs of the market.. Now 4 aircraft will be doing the work of 2 since the 747s will be overnighting in HKG waiting for the the incoming 737s.
According to the station the newly appointed manager of the region that made this decision has already left.
On a positive note this will free up a lot of capacity to HKG, since we now will so limited on through passengers we can accommodate.
Is this what they call synergy ??