One theory posited on the company forum was that the vote lines up nicely with Memorial Day and the kick-off to summer travel season.

Should create headaches for the company with local and national media outlets running headlines like, “Alaska Pilots Vote To Strike” just before the busiest time of the year. Maybe (hopefully) the wake-up call they need.

Just a theory though.

100% yes here.

 

Of course I’m a pro-strike vote…the NMB will still give Management as many years as they want to negotiate. Pray tell, what exactly do you think is going to happen after an affirmative vote?

 

I have no idea. Plenty of prophets on here. Im not one of them. You seem like you have a pretty solid opinion of “what exactly will happen though” which is curious to me given this is new territory for both the company and a large portion of legacy Alaska pilots, while I’d bet most if not all of the pilots who have been down this road before came from Virgin or were hired after the merger.

It might depend on whether the mediator and NMB think the company is negotiating in negotiating in good faith or not. Guess we’ll find out.

 

In my younger more impressionable years, I used to be really into the conspiracy of these boards. But you quickly realize it's all nonsense. BUT the only thing that's been on my mind lately is what you just said. The months leading up to BT's retirement, he couldn't stop talking about his transition to the chairman role. And then what? In 6 months he walked away from it so abruptly. I'm not ruling out anything. And I don't want to encourage any more conspiracy nonsense (because it's unlikely any of these merger fodder are actually true), but BT departure simply doesn't make sense.

 

It’s not “curious” to me AT ALL as this is the 4th strike vote I’ve taken in my career with ALPA. There really isn’t any secret to this. It’s box checking. The timing is worth something…only as PR value though. Why don’t you go ask a Frontier pilot how long the NMB let them languish in a post 9-11 contract after their strike vote. I never suggested it’s not worth doing. However, judging from the reaction on that other board. It’s pretty clear to me that there’s a schitt ton of pilots that don’t really understand what this vote means in a practical sense.

 

I'm with EJ on this one. Yes we're doing a vote but this is just going through the motions, a procedure that is required to be completed. But nothing is going to change. Do you really think the NMB is going to declare an impasse for any airline right now with multiple quarters of quarter+ billion dollar losses? To stick it to management and favor labor in this barely post Covid environment? And remind me again who filed for NMB negotiations in the first place, the company or ALPA? Since the company did, do you truly believe that they would have pursued that route if they had any inkling that it would lead to an impasse declaration within 6-9 months? Or is it likely that they thought this out thoroughly studied very well, knowing nothing would happen for a looong time?


To be honest, I get the disappointment. I'd been fed this line that attrition was going to bring them to their knees. I was led to believe we had leverage going forward. Turns out, we really didn't. Not only did they stall negotiations, but they've gone ahead and cut capacity for the entire year. I read the nerds on airliners.net who actually study flight schedule changes, and this is the kind of stuff I see:

"Staffing issues continue to plague AS, reflected in this weekend's summer schedule update.

For example at PDX, PDX-ANC down to just 1x daily, PDX-ABQ/AUS reduced to 4x weekly. PDX-MSP reduced to 5x weekly. PDX-DAL/KOA/LIH/PSP all gone. All PDX-Montana routes (BIL/BZN/FCA/MSO) are now only operating on Saturdays. Long list of other cuts as well. I'll be here all day if I list them all out."

"The planned second daily summer frequency on CMH-SEA is gone after May, back to 1x daily."

"I'm seeing drastic cuts in both June and July."




How many millions do you think these cancellations and capacity cuts cost? I think we can agree that cutting capacity by ~2-3% results in millions of lost revenue and as a result, lost profits. Which brings the point I made in the previous post, as long as the formula still holds true then I don't see us going anywhere. Cost of attrition + cost of pilot training + cost of over-hiring pilots + cost of capacity cuts, loss of profits < cost of new ALPA pilot contract.

Why did Sun Country get a new contract? It was simple, they lost something like 180 of their total 400 pilots in about one year. For that formula, the cost equation finally flipped and so they got their new contract. Not because Sunny management decided they love their pilots, is just boiled down to the math.




If my post was TL;DR then sum it up with:

"It's nothing personal - it's just business."

 

Alaska’s staffing trouble is about to be eased for a while as the Airbus retirements are accelerated. They will just slow the Max deliveries and essentially further stagnate the airline to meet staffing levels. Fewer people will come here and more will leave but management will buy themselves more time on the staffing front.

 

Good luck gang! I'm hoping you guys hit paydirt over there at AS and can fix everything you all need to fix. I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, your actions will help the clown show over here at Delta.

 

Where are you guys at in the process? Has the NMB declared an impasse yet?

 

No, we're doing a strike vote in May.