Originally Posted by
BKbigfish
The thing I think you’re missing about DTZ is the degree to which it primes the open time pump. If everybody were to rely on the swap function in Flica, what you have is a bunch of pilots waiting for something to drop in open time to swap with, which would rarely happen without DTZ. With DTZ, guys are much more willing/able to drop trips into open time, knowing that they will be able to rebuild their line easily in Daily Open Time (DOT) throughout the month. You should see our Initial Open Time (IOT) trading period. It’s worthless. Just a few trips leftover from PBS that nobody wanted. But the real action takes place after IOT when DOT starts. A cornucopia of trips, some good, some bad, some in between, find their way into DOT because of DTZ. Because guys KNOW that the pump will be primed and they aren’t nervously holding on to their uncommutable high credit 4 day because they’re worried something better won’t come along. Somewhere out there there’s a guy who lives in base who is nervously holding onto his lower credit commutable 4 day. Without DTZ these guys most likely will never end up having anything worthwhile to swap with. With DTZ they both confidently drop their unwanted trip into the DOT pot. It’s really hard to appreciate this without experiencing it firsthand. It’s not just the system, it’s the mentality that it creates.
I like your argument, and although I've asked repeatedly, no one has articulated this.
And to be reasonable, are you saying you simply wouldn't see any of this if guys could only DT25? Again it's the absolutism I don't like.
So if guys with 75-80 hour lines could drop 2 4-days at a time, or multiple shorter trips, down to 25, the system would be totally ruined and no one would drop anything?
I will say JB has drop to zero on the trade board. And even there, which I acknowledge isn't the same, but you don't see much in the way of trades being actually mutually beneficially executed.
Anyway, I appreciate the additional impression of the drop benefits. I am for having a great drop provision, I just don't share the absolutism and frankly have been disappointed with many at NK who don't seem to value other hard benefits or hard pay numbers or other contractual improvements to anything approaching the extent of DTZ, which makes me fully believe they will sacrifice all of that for this one provision.
Which makes me wonder, if DTZ is more important than the rest of the contract, why is NK having a bigger attrition problem than the rest of the Industry? Not an insult, but a serious question? The guys who live with this provision, are leaving in search of other things, and only some of that can be explained with widebody aircraft.
Let's just agree we all want an amazing contract, it will require some balance between everyone's most prized interests to get it all.