Originally Posted by
dailyops
I've stayed off these forums, especially since the announcement of the AIP, so I could form my own conclusions without the inevitable outrage the forums will have no matter what the deal. That being said, whatever Tumi verison we are on, this definitely seems to be one of them.
Before I start, let me preface by saying I know this TA will pass, the pilot group has waited too long and is too eager to vote in the first deal in front of them. I still firmly believe if Tumi 1.0 didn't have the massive amount of concessions and was basically a pay raise for a contract extension, it would have passed.
As for the new TA (Tumi 4.0?) I don't quite understand how we got here. We are still in the best negotiating environment this industry has seen in decades, and yet our TA is still riddled with concessions. Let's get the big one out of the way first:
1. Direct Entry Captains. United has slowly been becoming a regional mentality airline with (sometimes) higher pay rates. We've see for years how direct entry captains and the ability to displace first officers into captains have kept regional pay and QOL pathetically low until very recently. Now, we are the first major/legacy carrier to allow this. Worse yet, we were not even polled or surveyed about this huge change. It seems like this was a final item deal done at the last second to get an AIP out the door. The company can see the current TA is not good enough to get pilots to upgrade, so why can't ALPA?
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4. LTD. We still have to pay a premium for our LTD insurance that is capped, while AA and Delta pay no premiums, and have no caps. Our retirement portion of LTD will also only be going into the market based plan, not a 401k, like AA and DAL. On top of this, our pilots currently on LTD will see no increase to their monthly benefit and will not receive a retirement contribution, again unlike AA and DAL received. I would gladly pay a little more each month to take care of the pilots on LTD, and hope to receive the same treatment if I ever needed to use this benefit.
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As was explained on a prior thread, FOs can currently bid to the left seat as long as they have 500 hours on ANY aircraft type at United. Under the TA, they must have 350 hours in type PLUS another 100 hours of supervised OE. Completely agree that we, and other airlines, are in a whole new world regarding quick upgrades. However, one of these scenarios is much better and safer than the other (HINT: it's the one in the TA.)
In regards to the LTD, you say you don't like the fact that you still have to pay premiums as a pilot but then in the next couple of sentences you mention you will happily pay more premiums to improve payments to those currently out on LTD. You can't have it both ways. Also, we have been fighting for years to get improved LTD ($8,000 to $11,000 to the new TA numbers) to include the 16% from the company so pilots are still building for their retirement. We finally got that from the company. The new LTD section is a HUGE improvement over what we have now and, for me, more than checks off the box of improvements I wanted to see in this section.
I admit that I am a "yes" voter as well on this because every item I have on my personal list was addressed. I have yet to talk to anyone I know who is a "no" on this TA and most have different reasons other than mine.