Originally Posted by
BobZ
Management is facing a training churn in the coming years that will perhaps be unmanageable.
The argument for pay banding is it mitigates the economic incentive to bidding similar seat positions for incremental bumps. Its a concession on our part, and a bad idea.
Pay protecting, for some period of time, those senior to a junior bidder.....limited by category, or base, or as training limits/capacities dictate would provide an equally effective mitigation to biding seat position for an incremental bump in pay... and limit flooding the training pipeline.
Of course that solution would not be concessionary..... for us at least.
You're correct, the upcoming training bubble is unmanageable. Every time a 777A or 747A retires, it drives 7-9 initial training (IQ) events, often referred to as the waterfall effect. The average DL IQ footprint is about 27 days. when 600+ folks retire in a given year, it's clearly unsustainable.
I would respectfully disagree about your position on pay banding. It's not a concession if the rate is right. Pay banding is but one method to discourage training churn. I personally like the UPS model, as long as the rate is set high enough. At DL, I think it would have to be somewhere around the 765/330 rate. If that were put to a vote of the membership, i suspect it would pass by a wide margin.
As you said, seat locks are another method to reduce the churn.
Why not incentivize the seat lock (similar to the training bypass model) The company could offer, or a pilot could proffer to extend (or enact) a seat lock in a given seat that he/she is current and qualified in, in exchange said pilot would be pay protected for what ever seat he/she could hold on the most recent AE, for the duration of the agreement.
This method is effectively pay banding... (as the junior (B) guy on the 765 is a 2015 hire...)
Said seat lock agreements should/could be extended by mutual consent in 1-2 year increments... it pay protects a pilot for what he/she can hold and keeps him/her out of the training center, unless he/she wants to actually change fleets for lifestyle, not $. It puts the pilot in control of his/her destiny, and it gives the company some additional predictability about training, at a cost.
Pay banding could reduce the # of pilots required, and that's not necessarily good, I think we agree on that. Green slips reduce the # of pilots required also... Ask any 717B right now...
I'll stand by to be corrected.