Originally Posted by
OpenClimb
I picked this statement from your post because it demonstrates that you have a very short time horizon upon which to base your analysis of the current state of the operation.
The current pay system has been in place since roughly 2005. Yes, small tweaks have been made along the way, but our current VP of flight ops was processing the payroll manually a decade ago and not much as changed since then.
Yes, the Company has been busy and distracted over the past DECADE, but suggesting it hasn't had time to address the automation of something as important as payroll is ridiculous. That's like saying I've been too busy for the past 5 years to hang a single picture in my "new" house. I haven't done it because it's not important to me. Or another of my favorite analogies: I'm sitting in a dark room claiming I'm REALLY TRYING to turn on the overhead light… when my fat a$$ hasn't left my chair the whole time. You're not trying or it'd be done.
I don't want to be one of the old guys who says your opinion doesn't matter until you've been here for XX years (believe me, I heard it, too, when I had been here 18 months). Rather, I'd just offer a suggestion that just because you, personally, have only been experiencing this stuff for the last 18 months doesn't mean it hasn't been going on for some multiple of 18 months.
In addition to the ongoing payroll screwups, please also see: Trip Split Automation (hint: Contract 2007); Real time daily open time processing (hint: Contract 2007); Reserve day swaps (hint: Contract 2007); Mutual agreement for hotel accommodations; Crew scheduling assigning illegal trips, etc. All these things have been buggered up for YEARS with acknowledgements and promises made at every recurrent ground school that "we're working on it, but [insert the issue du jour] is a higher priority right now.
I am not a smart man, Jenny, but after a decade of listening to the same rah-rah speeches at recurrent ground school, I AM starting to see a pattern.
These boards are tough because text limits expression. If we flew together Open, I don't think I'd come off as so naive, narrow-minded, or FNGish. And I do thank you for not leveling that charge against me even though it could be fairly leveled.
Ok I hear what you're saying loud and clear. You're right, but my question to you and every Frontier pilot on here is what do we do about it???
When I first showed up here It was bitter-sweet. On one hand I was on cloud-F9 and I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. I'm pushing 45 now and felt that I'd made a great decision for a guy in my shoes, but on the other hand I was scared to death. I had been a Mesa lifer with awesome seniority, a brand new EJet, and tons of new flying on the horizon. It took all the courage I could muster and the gentle prodding of my wife to leave. I was scared to death! Fortunately, I had an extremely positive training experience here with amazing instructors and the mood around here was good because F9 had just received it's new lease on life. My concerns quickly faded.
Then as I settled in, the reality of the brutally low pay started to actually hit me, and the realization that 2nd year was as abysmal. I'm the guy who made all those charts for crying out loud, I get it! I tried to get medical insurance for my family but couldn't afford it. Slowly but surely I started hearing repeatedly about contract violations, and pay issues. One day 'BAM' 5 day trips showed up in the bid packet, I felt physically ill. I start seeing emails to the whole group warning about calling in sick too much, and one CA told me he was asked for a Dr's note. Then I got an email about having my email taken away. Then I started seeing news articles about the end of Denver as we know it. Had a few illegal pairings put on me. Started hearing captain after captain tell me about how they got a raw deal in an open-time transaction. All this started piling up on me and I started freaking out that I had just left a (left seat, top of the list) nightmare for a (right seat, bottom of the list) nightmare.
You'll remember some of my posts several months ago weren't too rosy. In fact, then, I was getting the "S T F Up, you're still on probation and haven't earned the right to b! it ch yet" replies. Those criticisms actually caused me to take a look at myself. I did some soul searching and realized I can go ahead and fall into the negativity trap and drive myself crazy about that which I cannot control, or I can take a more positive outlook, and try to be part of a solution. Because, your recount of F9s history notwithstanding, the future is not etched in stone.
I spent 10 years at a place that has one of the worse reputations in the industry, but in the decade I was there I watched the pilot group make amazing strides. Some inside section 6, others totally outside section 6. The place actually became better over time. Sure, there was nothing ground-breaking, but I saw many annoying problems addressed and fixed. We lost ground sometimes, and we gained sometimes, but nothing ever happened to our benefit that we didn't directly make happen. Mesa is still a crappy regional don't get me wrong, but I'm speaking in relative terms. So no-one cares what happened at Brand X - I get that, but the principle of working together to achieve gains is universal.
The bottom line is this. What choice do we have Open? We live or die alongside F9. I'm not leaving for Delta, are you? It falls squarely on our shoulders, the pilot group's, to make this place better. Lets do it!
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