Originally Posted by
89Pistons
I was one of those 2172. I know that some of those prior contract provisions required many of us to get hired with the block hours being flown in the first place.
As for the other carriers, how many of them retired every single one of their DC-10s, 747-200s, 727s, and 737-200's within the span of a couple of months? United was the only one to retire that many fleets in such a short period of time.
You're out of your mind to blame the furloughs on the contract. In fact the furloughs got as high as they did because the contract wasn't protected. It wasn't taken away. It was given away. And when we were done giving they came and took the rest.
One of the things that upsets me the most is that the No Furlough Clause wasn't defended. Maybe it wouldn't last through court but don't throw your hands up and give it away like it was.
Lastly, many say the term manpower positive including myself. The correct term should be manpower neutral. The goal should be to stay away from negative.
As a fellow 2172, I have to agree with
guppie. I'd prefer a much leaner operation where there are, as he stated, we should be allowed to drop below minimum days and fly over vacation on a
voluntary basis.
Originally Posted by
guppie
No fallacy. We should be allowed to drop further below minimum days off on a voluntary basis. We should be allowed to fly over vacation on a voluntary basis. I have no use for the rest of those bullets. Just my opinion of course. In general, I am happy with the JCBA as it removed most of the crazy UAL ALPA rules that were "manpower positive" in our old contract. I say keep it coming. The more productive, the better. Lean and mean. Profitable. That's how you grow.
In the next downturn, management is going to park some of our older equipment until they right-size supply with reduced demand. The best way to minimize furloughs IMHO is to have pilots allowed to fly a ton of hours during the good times so that all that's required is to reducing the number of flying hours in line construction, as is currently listed in 5-B-1-(a)-1. But I'd tighten that up a bit, not allowing the company to construct lines above 80 hrs if any pilot's furloughed.
In addition, I'd open up 20-P-1-h to allow pilots to drop down to zero hours rather than have to do a voluntary furlough.
The downside to allowing a ton of flying during good times is that some pilots will get hooked on 100+ credit hour paychecks and will not be happy when their hours are reduced. But by cutting the number of hours they're able to fly, furloughs would be significantly reduced.