I agree with few of your other points but are you thinking of some of them good ‘ole Kentucky teeth here??
This $2.1M Kentucky TOOTH is a dream come true for brown because even though the penalty is an additional cost the contractors themselves are dirt cheap. You need to factor in the subcontractors’ pay rates. I got aprox numbers from an Austrian pilot who transitioned from emirates to turkish airlines for commuting purposes. He said that Turkish Airlines pays 25-30% less than Emirates. ..and the Turkish pay is about twice of what contractors out there get. So basically their senior captains (turkish subcontractors) make about half of what our junior FOs make. YUUUUGE savings for our company.
So while the company has to pay us a staggering
$2.1M for this flagrant outsourcing of our flying, they still save millions of dollars for every year non-ipa pilots fly our cargo.
Having said that, our scope is being challenged by the company and we all need to stick together. Many new hires and new-hire wannabes read these threads and I think your (cl300, harrisburg, pastv1, etc.) absolutely valid criticism should be put in context of our union negotiating with a big brown wall.
Maybe the scope isn’t as great as we thought it was or maybe it is? I don’t know, those decisions were made before my time here and it’s all WAY above my pay grade. ..but what other options do we or did we have?
What we do know is that our EB needs us to stick together and to follow their lead. I’m proud of our union and know that you are too. We all know that our lives would’ve been absolutely miserable without the work rules and the benefits IPA negotiated for us. Case in point, after my next 11-day trip I’ll be off for at least 39 days, possibly longer if I manage to get the first 2 weeks off in the 18-04 bid. ..and all I had to work with were 2 weeks of vacation! So 2 weeks of vac + OCV = LUV!!! LOL!
I showed my schedule to my fdx crashpad roomie and he was absolutely flabbergasted.
Yes, I’m worried. Yes, I’m mad at the company for their poor planning and their constant disregard of our contract.
However, I’m also optimistic that the union will defend us and that in the end we’ll be ok. The company wants to grow. So do we. I’m hopeful we’ll see a solution that’s acceptable to both sides.