September 28, 2016

NEW YORK DOMICILE TO RE-OPEN

Fellow DFW Pilots,

Today, Envoy Management announced their intentions on re-opening our New York domicile with the EMB145 aircraft and also released the subsequent vacancy bid to fulfill those pilot positions. This is great news for Envoy as well as our brothers and sisters who were previously displaced from New York and have been forced to commute for over a year. According to the Company, the vacancy bid will shift flying from Chicago to New York and the bid will not contain a displacement.

However, this news is tempered by obstacles in our current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). Our CBA language precludes current First Officers from being able to bid different equipment types as a First Officer. This means ex-New York First Officers, who were displaced to the CRJ-700 in Chicago or the E-175 in Dallas/Ft. Worth, will be stuck on that equipment in those cities and unable to bid for open First Officer positions in New York since New York will be an EMB-145 domicile only. In other words, only those First Officers presently on the EMB-145 aircraft in either Chicago or Dallas/Ft. Worth will be able to bid for a transfer to New York.

Likewise, ex-New York based Captains will be faced with a difficult decision. While our CBA language allows up to 30% of current Captains to bid to different equipment types as a Captain, they will be forced to face the reality that the attached training freeze could delay their flow through to American Airlines. This means ex-New York Captains not currently on the EMB-145 aircraft will have to make a tough decision on whether to continue to commute half-way across the country or to be based at home, knowing it could delay their transfer to mainline.

The MEC has discussed these important issues with Envoy Management but, thus far, Envoy Management has been reluctant to provide a solution. Your LEC 083 Leadership Team is hopeful that management will do the right thing for our pilots by working with the Association to “undo” previous displacement bids caused by the 2015 closure of the New York domicile. Our pilots shouldn’t be forced to commute to work when they live in or closer to another Envoy domicile.

In Unity,


Captain Neal Spanier
ENY LEC-083 Chairman

First Officer Kyle Flynn
ENY LEC-083 Vice-Chairman

Captain Pat Couture
ENY LEC-083 Secretary-Treasurer