Originally Posted by
captsurf
Is it at all possible for them to post a displacement bid this summer just to see how the senior folk will bid? Do a “cost analysis” of a planned furlough by running a bid and seeing what/how many training cycles will be required. If it’s cost effective, pull the trigger. If not, cancel the displacement bid and come up with plan B,C,D, and E.
(My percentages and timelines below are completely made-up for the sake of this example)
Say their models and future bookings show a 60% return in demand for October. Run a displacement bid with 30% less capacity (leaving a 10% surplus to staff additional growth in demand for the following months in Q42020/Q12021). Now let’s say the cost of that displacement bid has a breakeven point of 12 months, meaning we’d have to see demand reach 100% by October 2021 to save money by NOT furloughing and activating the bid. Could the airline cancel the bid if they see the cost of displacements outweighing the pilot salaries based on demand rate of return? Or the contrary (furlough and activate the bid). Or even a mix of both, cancelling individual displacements from the top down in the bid to match changes in their forecasts
the problem with this is pilots don’t bid logically. You could put out 3 bids and the pilots would bid 3 different ways. Large displacements become a game for those who will be staying on property. Some try to maximize pay for as long as they can, some try to see who long they can sit at home not getting trained.
also one bid will not capture the secondary and tertiary displacements. We could have 100 pilots bid 737 CA in GUM and they wouldn’t be able to right size GUM until a second bid.