Originally Posted by acl65pilot

Sailing,

First the 48 hr layo rule is one way to domesticate a pilot. It allows nine hrs of block. There are a few ways to reroute to efficiency on this sort of thing too. Yes, the nine hrs is hard time, and as you know as a NYC ER pilot there are many routes to JFK that fall well under that. A diversion is always a possibility, and one I would hope that DAL chooses to not make a major event by keeping IRO's on all flights over 8 hrs. It comes down to a math problem for their position and what they want from our PWA.

We can add a IRO when it looks like there is going to be a need on the Westbound leg; ie, NYC weather in two days, weather in Northern Europe ect. We could also DH that IRO over and they could put him up in Europe or Asia as a SC/LC pilot in our AMR and CDG ops plus a few other places. I would be watching for changes in the PWA that may allow that sort of thing.

You may say its outlandish, but rerouteing and out of the box thinking is exactly how this could be a jobs killer. Yes, the FT/DT is layered, but there are ways to make a pilot fly 9 hrs westbound. Yes, the current PWA prevents any ocean crossing over eight hrs from not going augmented, but that is a major ticket item. One that to me is not negotiable. We are currently protected from this, and IMO need to strengthen it. Ala the Caribbean turns.


Another front that concerns me is ULH pilot staffing. What does a 12+ hr flight via the FT/DT require versus what we staff on each of those flight? Could we see ULH rules that we currently enjoy changed? What could that do to staffing? Staffing in each seat?

The areas that could be jobs gainers are:

How we pay reserve pilots and rotation guarantee once assigned a trip. Reroutes will deal with many of the duty limit issues, and this is a sure fire way to make it net positive in that department.

We also are going to have to find a new normal wrt to the needed min time off per week that the FT/DT requires.

There are many nuggets that I am sure the scheduling and negotiation committee are looking at as areas that could cost pilots jobs, or pilot staffing gains. We just need to be very careful on what we agree to.