Originally Posted by
Powderkeg
A concession implies giving something up without gaining anything else. Assuming you’re talking about swap/drop etc, they didn’t ask for a concession. They asked to bring us in line with the rest of the industry. Which is also what we are asking for in regards to pay and benefits. We can either accept industry standard pay and industry standard scheduling flexibility (or lack thereof) or accept less somewhere else to keep our flexibility. I’m not being a company sympathizer or Debbie-Downer but this is how a mediator is going to look at it.
My old APC account died a looong time ago and it was attached to a dead email. I was fine with the idea of never posting again but I felt the need to add something to your definition of "concession".
Back when Frontier filed BK the company had a long list of asks/concessions. We didn't have any leverage so most of the "asks" became reality. Even then, add, drop, swap, survived Ch 11 BK. A few years later we were acquired and found ourselves in another restructuring, this time out of the courts. There was literally a "menu" of asks and we negotiated, debated, and fought for the CBA language we wanted to protect. At that time there was a bottomline $$$ we had to reach to avoid another BK filing. We hit that number by giving up pay, sick accrual, vacay accrual, freezing some seniority, as well as other concessions. We did not give up add, drop, swap.
To put it another way, we bought add, drop, swap by giving up real $$$ in several other areas of the contract. We now own add, drop, swap. We paid for it. It is ours. We didn't give it up in Ch 11. We didn't give it up during the RAH restructuring. We sure as heck should not give it up now. Again, those provisions haven't been lying their idly in the CBA they were literally protected via other significant contractual concessions. Somewhere I have a screenshot of the whiteboard that listed all of the "asks" and their monetary value. I'll see if I can dig it up.
If we give up ANY add, drop, swap under the guise of "industry standard" then we must recoup the concessions we gave up in our efforts to protect add, drop, swap multiple times in the past. Those concessions were significant. Finally, I will add a conversation I had with an involved party from another airline during the same exact time frame. They were asked for concessions, and they opted for a completely different strategy where they allowed the gutting of CBA language in exchange for smaller hourly rate cuts. That strategy didn't work out at all for that pilot group. My point is the existing CBA has been through quite the journey, and a lot of blood sweat and tears went into each letter of the CBA before our existing owners were even on property. I completely realize that is meaningless to them, but that doesn't make it meaningless. It is actually quite the opposite.
A concession is giving up anything. Period. Frontier pilots are experts in understanding concessions because we have been operating under a concessionary CBA (in some, way, shape or form) since 2008. Final final point, giving up quality of life items in exchange for higher rates is a complete and utter disaster of a strategy. Did the Union go to the company and ask for a hiring bonus/loan? No, the company was forced to incentivize applicants because the market forced their hand. The market will do the same with rates. Don't fall for the banana in the tail pipe. We should be looking to improve quality of life, not give it up. Rates will have to improve on their own. The two are not and should not be linked.