RyeMex

I'm not at Southern, but I am at Atlas. So, I will be able to answer (to the best of my knowledge) some of your questions rather objectively.

1. The most recent vacancy award at Southern that I see shows the most Junior CA position for the 777 awarded to a 11/01/2010 hire.

2. As far as days off go: I don't know if the recent LOA has been completely implemented yet, which would impact what the answer is. If the LOA has not been fully implemented, then my understand is that the Southern guys fly 20 days and then receive 10 days off. *I think* that the LOA will go into full effect sometime this summer, in which case the schedule is up to 17 days per month (not including days to travel to/from work) with the possibility of being extended an additional 3 days.

4. For monthly credit, it's a bit complicated. Essentially, it's the greater of minimum guarantee (50 hours for the 1st year, 62 hours thereafter), actual block time, or CRT. CRT is basically 4.85 hours of pay for every 24 hours on the road, but keep in mind that this is prorated. For instance: if your report time on the first day of work is 23z and you finish up at 1z on the last day, you'll get 4.85 hours per day for the time in between, and 0.2 hours of pay for the first and last days.

5. To my knowledge, the 777 essentially goes to the same 5 or 6 locations in a round-the-world style pattern. I don't believe there is very much variety outside of that.

That's all objective to the best of my knowledge.

As far as my opinion goes:

Atlas and Southern pilots are in this current fight together. Personally, I think that it will be another 2-3 years at the earliest before we a new CBA is a reasonable possibility. Depending on the outcome of pending arbitrations, there is the very real possibility that the Atlas and Southern pilot groups will have no say in what goes into our next CBA. Rather, it will be decided for us by a third party arbitrator.

There are so many things that are lacking in our current CBA that can make things here very frustrating. For example: we have no sort of pay protection besides minimum guarantee. That means that if you ever call in sick, have training in a given month, take vacation, or are sent home for home reserve, the only money that you will be making for that month is 62 hours (50 hours for the first month).

I try to tell guys that are thinking about coming here that if you can't survive on minimum guarantee, life can be pretty stressful here. That's all that you can reasonably expect to make (at least on the Atlas 767 side, and on the Southern 737 side as well, I would imagine).

Hope this helps with your decision making. Let me know if there are any other general CBA questions that you have. (I'll have more insight into that, now that Atlas and Southern essentially have the same CBA).