Originally Posted by
nightfreight
Redeye,
I don't know about your idea of bidding ANC for the $$$. I was awarded MEM on the Sep05 bid, but got my training pushed back 4 months due to Purple Nuggets. How were we supposed to know this would happen. I don't think it would have helped me at that point to bid ANC. The bidding system is flawed and should be fixed. How about bidding for training and a training date with it? This way seniority rules and the most senior people choose their training dates. This isn't uncommon, they did this at my former carrier. Seemed to work well. It takes this whole passover pay out of the equation.
Anyway, you shouldn't have to out think the system and shouldn't be told a month out that your training will be pushed back 4 months and you aren't going to compensated for it. We make a big deal out of bidding vacation and only have a little bit of life planning in this job. Now your family plans change out a month out or so. That is part of life at Fedex, but if they change your class date, you should get paid. The bottom line is that we had our training delayed so new hires could fill these classes. Where you are domiciled at that point should have no basis in regards to passover pay.
It is a bad system, and this will continue since the union let this become a precedent. New hires will keep going to junior bases (now ANC) and guys will continue to get their training delayed. Why bother to plan vacations if you have no idea when you can take it? There must be a better way...
This seems to be the mentality of many of the newer hires. Many think that just because someone junior to them is flying higher paying equipment that they should be getting passover pay.
The contract is explicit in this matter. Same seat, same domicile, same (or later) bid in order to get passover pay. The training delay has to be due to a junior pilot training for the same seat AND domicile as you, and that isn't what happened in most of the cases. I think the jury is still out on at least one though if the MEC negotiated a backdoor deal with the company.
Now the company may have found a loophole to staff the ANC domicile, and we may need to work on that, but they are simply following the contract and using it to their advantage. Bidding for training dates is maybe something we should address in our next contract, but it doesn't change the current agreement.
If you want widebody pay bid ANC and take your chances. If you didn't bid it because you don't want to go up there then be at peace with your choice and don't begrudge the junior guys for getting the better deal.
I'll bet these guys won't complain when they want to lateral over to LAX (if they do) and then go ahead of a guy senior to them who is waiting for a training date. That senior guy won't be due passover pay either.