Originally Posted by
O2pilot
Because this displacement is artificial. It is designed to keep people from bumping for multiple rounds. Our contract doesn’t allow a “flush bid” but this gives them something very close to that. They aren’t saying this is going to be the size of the airline, but they just didn’t want people displacing for months on end to get to where they could finally train some guppy and Airbus FOs.
They’d rather have more people getting paid Airbus FO and Guppy FO than CA on any plane as well as WB FO. This is not because they are going to furlough 3,000 pilots. This is because they are trying to reduce payroll and maximize short-term training. This also gives them flexibility to “bounce back” since they just have to cancel some displacements or have an outright vacancy bid in the fall, since we won’t be grandfathered anymore.
All those junior WB FO and NB CA actually cause a problem for the company during a displacement, and they just figured out how to get around it within the contract.
^^^
This
Normally doing something like this would not be in the company's best interest, but with nobody flying and the desire for maximum flexibility this is actually a rational plan--at least from the
company's perspective. I'm confident that neither the company or union thought of this type of scenario when negotiating the UPA.