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Old 10-04-2007, 05:16 PM
  #46  
NorthTxFlyBoy
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Joined APC: Jul 2007
Position: Citation X, SIC
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Originally Posted by Pilot_135 View Post
Great info from those who have read the proposal. It was asked earlier, but I would still like to hear more about what the pilot group will have to "give away". I come from the school of thought that says "nothing is for free". There MUST be a reason for the huge pay bump and the pilot bases (the two largest issues). Are they trying to out-pay the competition in order to suck in all the best pilots? Is there a hiring shortage because the majors are finally hiring again? (I doubt that though) Are they driving up the pay so that IF the competition match, they will go bankrupt? Is there some fine print that isn't known about 401K, benefits, health care, etc.?

Bottom line is, what's the catch?
First, even with the current pay and basing issues for FO's, there's still no shortage of qualified applicants.

One thing the company gets by extending the contract, even at higher labor cost, is a known future cost vs. an unknown cost. The last contract negotiations were pretty ugly, with owner satisfaction numbers way down. The company leadership doesn't want that replayed in 2010 when the current contract would expire. This IBB has resulted in zero effect on productivity, and was essentially transparent to the owners.

One way this contract would save the company money and increase productivity is by extending lateral seat locks from the current 24 months to 39 months. It won't keep FO's from upgrading on time, but it does slow down captains who want to change aircraft every couple of years. I see this as a plus since it frees up more training slots at FSI, meaning as we buy all the new planes we plan, sim training shouldn't be the choke point in upgrading new captains. The differences pay for the XL/XLS guys also goes away, but the total savings isn't that significant overall.

Cuts in retiree heath care will save the company some money as well. Our union leaders say the current system was destined to fail anyway and they want to explore other alternatives.

The company also wanted to close a couple of big loopholes in scheduling that cost them in productivity. For example, senior pilots who had earned four vacation periods per year and knew how to work the placement of their H-days on the reserve schedule could manage to work only about 7 days per month, four months out the year.

There are different opinions out there, but the chairman has been quoted as saying the domicile system really wasn't working out for the company either. They could have increased the number of domiciles without renegotiating the contract, so I don't think this was truly a motivator for the company to go to the bargaining table.

Mostly opinion here, so take it for what it's worth.

- NTFB
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