Originally Posted by
Carl Spackler
When the bidding systems intertwine to make the benefit in question better or worse, the comparison should so state. Our contract comparison didn't do that. Instead it simply showed us at 3:15 per day, SWA at 3:15 per day and FDX at 6:00 per day. Very, very misleading..
With regard to vacation, all it would have taken is an asterisk and footnote saying: "due to the non-PBS bidding system at SWA/FDX, their vacation credit can produce many more days off than our vacation system at Delta."
I certainly agree that characterizing SWA vacation at 3:15 per day is wholly inaccurate, because a SWA pilot can receive more vacation pay in a year than 3:15 per day. OTOH, a FedEx pilot gets 6:00 per day period. He can drop more trips with pay in one vacation, but he must then make that up somewhere else. The
value (in terms of pay hours) is accurately described as 6:00 per day, and that's all that DALPA's comparison shows.
Nor would it be correct to say that a FedEx pilot gets more days off due to his vacation credit than we do, other than the fact that it's 6:00 as opposed to our 3:15. He can certainly drop more trips due to a vacation than we can, but he must make that up someplace else or lose $$$. At the end of the day, he gets 6:00 per day of vacation credit toward those dropped trips and we get 3:15 per day of vacation toward our initial line in PBS.
One could certainly talk about the way that good bidding (and seniority) can let him get many added days off surrounding his vacation, but one can say the same thing in PBS with good bidding (and seniority). SWA, on the other hand, has an awesome deal -- better than Delta had when we had trips touching for vacation.