Originally Posted by
Itsajob
I’m not saying that Kirby isn’t taking risk and trying to make this work out to his advantage, but I don’t think that the 4,500 is based on zero recovery. That would mean Chapter 7. The 4,500 is getting people in place for the planned 70% recovery. Unless we see a rapid and full recovery, the airlines are just going to be smaller for a while and there is nothing we can do except make sure that the contract is followed.
Agreed. It’s about cutting costs quickly to buy the company time. International will not recover as quickly as domestic, and it makes no sense to pay WB pilots and NB captains to sit idle. The reason for this bump is to lower the monthly guaranteed pay of as many pilots as possible while no work exists. One could even argue it is management’s version of trying to mitigate furloughs by saving cash now to keep more pilots on the payroll (in a NB FO pool) in hopes that demand will recover. Yes, management will manipulate the process; this is why we must defend our contract vigorously.