First I would like to say that the 757 instructors were not trying to get some kind of sweet deal. They simply were trying to get clarification of what they could expect. I believe that any of you would consider that to be prudent, as opposed to one day waking up and finding out that you just took a $40,000 a year pay cut and had to pay back thousands of dollars in POP. (By the way the old contract did not require the repayment of POP if you should elect to down bid) It is very naïve to think that the program could be stood up without people that already had experience as a LCA or Flex at this company. It takes a year to get someone completely qualified as a Flex and probably another six months before they get really good at it. By having people that the FAA has already observed and worked with on other airplanes it makes it much easier and smoother for the FAA to sign off on stuff. Regardless if the FAA required it or not, it was wise to stand it up with individuals that were a known quantity, in that, you could examine there past performance and make an informed decision as to the quality of their work. Now having established the wisdom in standing the program up the way it is, I must say it would be asinine to expect people who were receiving wide body pay to take a pay cut down to narrow body pay. I believe that 99% of all narrow body LCAs and front end Flexes are receiving wide body pay. So where were you supposed to get the LCAs and Flexes? They did post for those positions and some of the people that were hired were given very little time to decide whether or not they wanted to join the program. What is wrong with them asking for clarification on issues that would affect them? Those issues would be: Will I still be paid the POP that I am currently receiving, how long of a commitment is it, and so on. Now, concerning a Flex biding a Captain position in Paris and then receiving POP for it. That is allowed under our new contract. The old contract would only trigger POP if someone junior to you checked out in the contiguous 48 states. The new contract removed that wording so that POP can be triggered by someone junior to you in any base (assuming you had bid that seat in that base). Weather or not they would be forced to go to Paris at the end of 2 years would be up to the training manager. If the individual is an excellent instructor than they would probably want to keep them. If the individual was weak or they were fat on instructors than off he goes to Paris, unless there was another bid that he could have moved on.

Many have expressed concern that these flexes did not work closely with the union. Well let me ask you this. Lets say you just purchased a house and you have foundation problems. You hire a lawyer who is worthless and sells you down the river. Then you buy a car and it has problems. You use the same lawyer and he performs the same way. How many times would you continue to use him as your advocate? Most of us would tell you that you were crazy the second time you went back to him let alone a third and forth. Yet you expect the flexes to do just that.
The flexes were sold down the river in section 11 of our current contract. Then we were all sold down the river on age 60. Then again on the retroactive issues of age 60. Then again on the LOA. HOW MANY TIMES WOULD YOU ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE BITTEN BEFORE YOU NO LONGER SUBJECT YOURELF TO THE SOURCE OF THE PAIN????????????????