When is the next pilot contract being negotiated?

 

it becomes amenable in July, numerous negotiating meetings are already scheduled for the coming months. With how far behind our contract is, I would not expect anything soon, although the better than expected travel rebound and the fact everyone else is hiring should help.

 

Totally agree. If it gets done by 2024 it will only be because management can't attract and retain pilots. If they had it their way I'm sure they would love to drag it out. Labor/Management relations are pretty terrible here. Management has been all over the place with the first contract and everybody who negotiated that first contract (from the union and the company) are long gone so its basically a free for all.

I don't envy our negotiating team, lots of work to do.

 

With every airline hiring for the foreseeable future. There’s no way G4 can keep enough pilots around with the contract and pay rates they have now.

 

The real game changer now is that the legacy recruiters are starting to call a lot with no TPIC and nothing else that stands out on the resume. We could see attrition rates close to the pre-contract days.

 

Senior guys here want to get rid of work rules for better pay. Easily going to be 3 years before anything is signed.

 

I don’t doubt the latter but I don’t think it will be for disagreement amongst the pilots. The senior guys I have flown with lately are not free of work rule complaints. For example reassignments. They are being reassigned from 2 leggers to 4 leggers that finish as many as 4 hours later so scheduling can fix someone else’s weekly or monthly FDP or flight time limitation issues via a reassignment without using a reserve (which we barely have due to the furlough and canceled upgrades). That and the fact that our **** poor performance is making even 2 leg days 10-12+ hour workdays.

the company’s arrogance and disdain for pilots and the union will be the reason this will get dragged out.

 

Are there any rumors as to what the goals are for the new contract?.. pay work rules etc. I keep hearing the company offered “Delta pay” but the union immediately turned it down. Coincidence this rumor is going around right before a hiring wave!? Also any insight on Allegiants history with working through a new contract? Timeline of the past..

 

Even if that is true a contract like that will never be brought before the pilot group to vote on. There’s a lot needing fixed especially around reserve rules. When we signed the last contract I was fairly sure it was a 5 year agreement with negotiations for the next one taking another 5 years. Now not so sure with all the hiring that will take place soon. The airlines are starting to compete with our leisure travel model and this puts us in quite a bind. Couple that with the bottom half of our pilot group being picked off by the same airlines and little upward movement from retirements and I think the company is going to have their hands full with a talent shortage. They are going to have to get more generous and look for candidates that live in small outstations who want to stay there forever.

 

The union sent a survey out months back to get pilot input on the problem areas. The results are mostly confidential as to not tip their hand in negotiations but it’s safe to say all areas of the contract need major improvement with special emphasis on scheduling, work rules, and reserve. Not to mention with the company going all in on many small bases the 3 are of paramount importance. In my view pay, while important, is not the primary factor.

We are only on our first contract and in negotiations for the second now, but the company accelerated the last one unexpectedly after a year, the word I heard the reason was to get attractive financing from Airbus when we purchased 12 new airplanes. Airbus didn’t want labor issues. 90% of our aircraft are used paid in cash, this was the first time we bought new, I think AB was clearing out the older CFM aircraft.