Originally Posted by
Hotel Kilo
All the above are true, and excellent point you made Breezy, people need to read that, then read it again.
This air line has been grossly and intentionally under staffed since late 2018. It worked until it didn't. The nexus of the PB rug pull, the pre-posted rest, being chronically under staffed and the jacking of the TLV have made this cancellation storm. The only way out for them is to hire more bodies. That's the only solution. We told them multiple times over the past 7 years that we need more pilots. They, however, think they are the smartest people in the room. We told them eventually, the chickens come home to roost. And that is where we are at for 2026.
Their natural management reaction is to toss the blame on us. Well we are much smarter than that. Their actions have all had consequences, and those consequences are an eroding of the "brand". It rests with one person, surprised they still have a job.
Other things I thought about and wanted to point out. She has made the claim that we are staffed pretty much the same as 2019 with less flying. She is either intentionally misrepresenting the numbers or is incompetent. 2019 has been a benchmark of running too hot. Summer was widely seen as one of the worst in our history AND a huge drive behind QOL items requested in C19.
Now, for the numbers part. Network and non FOP management have said that shoulder months of the pre-covid era are completely gone, at least domestically. This historically was a perfect opportunity to drop every ALV to 72 to drive down TLV lookback. Now, in Oct-Nov and Jan-March, ALVs were pushing 80 in some categories.
What also isn't mentioned was the company came to us during COVID and begged for us to lower the TLV window. It was critical to the airline's survival because they had to jack up ALV artificially to keep us in the window.. Bully to ALPA for agreeing to lower it, much to the chagrin of the minority crowd on social media saying it was a concession. They KNEW the company was going to return to running hot and used that as a way to drive up staffing requirements. HT and her band of merry men either are willfully ignorant of this change while still trying to run it at 2019 levels or intentionally misrepresenting our situation to their bosses and us.