What is the penalty for undermanning the B-767?


If you've read the LOA or any of the discussion about it, you probably think you know the answer. Look a little closer.

With any other widebody airplane in our fleet, The Company has to man it so that they don't have airplanes sitting idle. If they run out of A300 pilots before they run out of A300 airplanes to fly, A300s sit idle. They can't just offer extra money to a B-727 pilot to come fly the idle A300. Sometimes they can persuade A300 pilots to come in on their OFF time by paying a 50% premium for Draft and Volunteer, but sometimes they can't. They have to man the airplane to avoid having idle A300s, because it's better to have idle pilots than idle planes.


However, with the B-767 and this LOA, they'll have another pool of cheaper (narrow-body) pilots to fly the idle planes. When they run out of B-767 pilots, they can pay a narrow-body B-757 pilot to fly the idle planes. No idle B-767 airplanes, and no idle B-767 pilots. The only idle pilots are earning the lower pay rate of the B-757.


But that won't happen much, because there's a penalty for undermanning the B-767, right? And you know what that is, right? Our Negotiating Committee Chairman (in the most recent video with the MEC Chairman) said, "It's an enormous, unnecessary, and avoidable expense to them."


Really?

The 50% premium paid for Volunteer and Draft trips is also an unnecessary and avoidable expense to them, but that doesn't stop them from manning to levels which requires Volunteer and Draft flying to get through peak levels of flying. It's a cost of doing business in a business that fluctuates from month to month.


So, what's the real penalty for undermanning?

Do you think it will serve as a deterrent for undermanning?






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