Any news from the guys that started class on Monday?

 

Heard they were pushing hard for 24, but having trouble with people canceling and declining. Curious to see how many they managed.

 

23 people in the class

 

..and another 24 planned after; phone interviews are going on now. No news on the class date.

 

Heard about the second class. Hopefully more upgrades are in the pipeline as well. Guess they got pretty close to their quota.

 

Supposed to be another class of 24 next month, last I heard.

 

What were the final awards? How many TDY pilots and to where? Did anyone from a Florida base get TDY'd to the West Coast?

 

Management was convinced during this last TDY bid that pilots would prefer TDY... so they said if you don't want TDY then don't bid it.

Guess how that turned out. I'll give you a hint... several West Coast pilots that could have held LAX didn't bid the TDY and are now forced to the East Coast for the summer. Hope their children like postcards!

Welcome to the machine.

 

And just to really make the point of how hard they tried to rig the results of the TDY bid consider this point. Management told all the pilots that if they volunteered for TDY, they could bid preference as to where they went presumably in seniority order, however, if they didn't volunteer, they would be sent wherever the company wanted to send them with no pref allowed. This was an obvious attempt at getting pilots to "volunteer" so management could back their claim in an investor meeting that, "the pilots WANT TDY, they volunteered for it", when in fact, nearly all pilots that "volunteered" for TDY only did so because they knew their seniority would likely result in TDY anyway, so they "volunteered" in a desperate attempt to at least get a TDY base within 1000 miles of home. Those that didn't volunteer were subsequently, probably intentionally (to make a point for next bid), sent all the way across the country for TDY. IWA pilots were sent to PIE instead of LAX etc. No matter what, pilots were going to get TDY'd, but the way they designed the TDY's was all an attempt to make it look like pilots want TDY and therefore, volunteered for it. Clever, except that almost no one volunteered anyway. That won't look good next time management is asked if pilots like TDY. So, they IMO, intentionally pushed pilots across the country to make it painful so that next month, they will "volunteer" and management will again, be able to back up their claim that pilots like TDY's. Behavior like this is exactly why we unionized, filed a lawsuit and an injunction.

 

I’m not sure about the exact numbers, if any that went east to west. Even if you are from florida, I believe there will be a day when it will be the reverse of what you see now. Just ask anyone who has been here a while. Or some combination of tdy’s in all directions. I don’t believe florida bases will be immune to personnel disruptions. Relatively speaking that has been the case recently.

Once we win our injunction next month, the company is going to be hopping mad and will take out their frustration on the pilot’s wherever they can.