Originally Posted by
Alan Shore
I certainly agree on no erosion of QOL or productivity.
That said, I'm intrigued by Option B in Question 28 of the survey. This is the question on pay banding and asks if we would be in favor in a staffing neutral way, e.g., more vacation. This could give the pilot group fewer trips to Virginia Avenue in exchange for more vacation, saving us more negotiating dollars for $$$, while not reducing pilot staffing or requiring more work.
Thoughts on that?
I think the big score from a company POV is longer freezes. Even with banding or even LBP, pilots would still change categories. Especially with the company's never ending base shuffle/fleet parking/etc last second mid bid OCD. But longer freezes would pay huge dividends to them under any scenario. There will always be freeze waivers for displacements and first upgrades and such, but baseline freeze increases are a huge gold mine for them for cost and "productivity" resulting in reduced churn overall.
They might even get creative and increase the freezes by not increasing the length, but rather just when they start. Move award to actual training start date, whic they can control, as the start of the freeze and you add 6-12 months to the freeze while still being able to call it a "2 year freeze". Or they could try and raise it to 2.5 or 3 years. Either way we should resist that.