Originally Posted by
FXLAX
Then why is ASL flying more block hours than TNT was before FedEx bought them?
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If the pilots would’ve polled low on items like retirement or pay rates (or insert any other major pillar of our contract), would you be okay with those sections not being pursued? Or should leadership decide that even though scope/retirement/pay/benefits/QOL didn’t poll highly, they should pursue strengthening them, especially scope considering the weakness of it? Sometimes people need to lead. Not trying to strengthen scope is a major failure of leadership. I’m sorry to say that but I feel it’s true. I was so underwhelmed when reading the openers for the first time. Gut punch.
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To your first point, is there real factual data that shows that ASL is taking CGN 757 flights away from FedEx pilots? According to the union yesterday, the increase in ASL flying we're seeing are the ASL flights from the Liege hub which were moved to Paris. The NC also discussed how our Scope section gives the company the flexibility to open up markets using smaller contractors and then grow them into the Express network. This setup has allowed FedEx Express to become the huge network it is today. The NC said the ASL flying is the result of the TNT agreement with the EU when FedEx purchased TNT.
I do agree that we should look closely into what's happening in Europe to ensure FedEx isn't changing the status quo. The company has said they intend to do European flying from Memphis with 757s. FedEx management craves control. The biggest problem they have with FedEx Ground are failures associated with subpar contractors. In the trucking business, there's plenty of companies standing by to do the same work and/or compete with. The same is not necessarily true in the aviation world.
Call me naive but I think FedEx, a company that exploited the contractor model for their ground system, seeing what UPS in the 80s experienced with their air contractor system, doesn't want to go to that type of model.
To your second point, that is a cheap shot again at our union leadership who in my opinion are doing a really good job. Get involved if you want change. How many LEC/MEC meetings have you been to? Why haven't you gone to a meeting and put a motion on the floor for the MEC/NC to adopt protective fifth freedom language?
Our scope rules have been status quo and in line with industry standard. We are a Union. The leadership can't decide to pursue issues that they feel is important to THEM. They represent us. If they see a problem then they can educate the crew force. Currently they do not think there's a problem (back to my point above).
If you want protective scope language for fifth freedom flights in our contract, you are going to have to build a consensus and have that issue poll well. And I am in agreement with you that we should explore ideas but walking into the National Mediation Board room and tell them we want additional or new changes is going to be disastrous for us.