Where to begin...

“I want more hours and at the same time more days off.”

A few years ago I went back and looked at some lines from the “glory days” of this business, you know when things were right and true in this world and the USA was a fair place to live.

The senior 727 lines had 20 days off and 74 hours pay, reserve guarantee was 68 hours and 12 days off, schedule cap 76 hours and max pay was 78 hours. If you happened to project more than 78 hours it required a trip drop, yes that’s right no overtime pay. (Or something really close to this, I don’t have a copy of the contract from those years anymore)

Then when tough times hit management came and got relief with a 78 hour schedule cap, effectively getting 2 more hours out of each line.

Now just think of no overtime, 78 hours max pay time (credit not actual), and reserves with 68 hours (fixed days off, none of that movable stuff) all like when we had real duty rigs (did I forget to mention HoJos hotels, 8 hours between debrief and check-in... you get the idea) the whining would be epic!

With the exception of losing the defined pension plans, these are the good old days. So let’s not give one penny up and bring back those pilots flying mainline who aren’t covered by the UAL Pilot Contract.