^^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^

And don’t forget, bids can be canceled and they’ve done it in the past! So can airplane orders. A380 anyone?? 😡




I am not a union apologist or secretly a volunteer. And I understand the frustration of not knowing our position. After attending a LEC meeting where the President of the Negotiating Committee spoke (I think that’s the correct title), he explained that retirement is perhaps the biggest deal in our contract and that negotiating a retirement setup that pleases everyone is nearly impossible because everyone’s financial situation and goals are different. However, he promised what’s being proposed would increase everyone’s position. Releasing the position might cause some to be upset and further divide the pilot group.

IF and when we get a TA, if the NC and company go down the wrong road with retirement, then it is up to us to vote accordingly. We the pilots are in control. If a TA is voted down, the leaders can be recalled and we elect leaders who will listen. Right now we need UNITY and PATIENCE. We have leverage. We must not throw it away like we did in 2015.

I also like the negotiation scoreboard. What is worrisome is some of the sections the company opened up. Specifically, vacation. They didn’t open up vacation because they want to give us more days off or more credit. They want concessions there. Or more “efficiencies”.

I refuse to give up anything in Section 7 Vacation. Absolutely nothing !!!

I refuse to have my quality of life get whittled down here and there.[/QUOTE]

I wear the lanyard and both pieces of flair and I pay my dues. I hope our union succeeds in delivering a quality TA.

You sort of drive my point home for me…a retirement plan is impossible to satisfy everyone (true statement). The union is promising a retirement package that benefits everyone (can’t be true if the first statement is true). Releasing the position could upset some and cause division….well not if it’s truly good for everyone as he promised.

So, here we go blindly down this path and months later we have a TA and we finally discover what our sides retirement position is…and now that it is public it is going to drive tons of decision because they can’t let us know now because it is divisive. So we vote down said TA because nobody likes it and we have a recall. Was all this necessary? Not if we were allowed as a body to voice our opinions first. Instead it’s a secret and if we vote it down we have now wasted finite resources for no real purpose which hands the company the easiest win on the planet.

I hate the pancake plan concept and I’ll vote it down if that is what is presented to me. However, if it was put out to us in a survey with several
clear retirement options and I saw that 70% of pilots support it, well in that case I’m not going to vote it down because I’ll see that I’m in a small minority on that issue thanks to up-front transparency.

If someone is ever trying to convince you transparency is bad, they are likely doing something behind the scenes that isn’t in your best interest.

Regarding aircraft orders, yes they can be cancelled. We have made big moves in Europe. We cancelled an Airbus order over a decade ago. We recently replaced the Airbus fleet in Europe with the 76. I’d be willing to bet that the next order we place is for an Airbus type…it’s a diplomatic play, its an efficient product, and it would get us access to newer airframes at a faster rate than further increasing our Boeing orders.