Scope is a joke. I was told by a negotiator that "scope is tight!" What?!


This is the worst scope I've ever seen in a contract. That alone should be a no vote, regardless of the rest of the contract, even if they doubled the pay that's in it. You want to know how important scope is? Just as the chief pilot in Florida. They voted in similar scope "with the top pay in the industry" at his prior location and they "farmed" the flying to UPS within months after signing. Thus he was out of a job and came here.

This really is a contract with the devil. Allegiant Air is owned by Allegiant Travel Company. The planes and pilots are just an expensive asset. Do not think for a heartbeat that they won't take advantage of that scope and use another entity or for MG to start a new one that's not unionized as "a business venture" to grow instead of our airline. The scope is set up for them to do it.

If this passes, don't be surprised if those 36 airbuses have a different paint scheme. :-(

If it passes I guess I'll enjoy the pay until the inevitable happens, but any career-minded pilot here will be very disappointed in that result I think.

 

You're thinking like a pilot. You need to think like managment. Maybe they don't currently overstaff, but if they determine the new pay raises and and premium pay costs them more than having a couple more pilots in your base, they could easily choose to do that. That would also solve a lot of the cancellation problems they've had in the past.

 

1. I'm not new here, but if you are new here, you don't know if your dream job will ever call. I have friends who haven't been called by the legacies in over a decade of applying. Treat the airline you are at like a career because you never know what might happen in the future with the economy, fuel prices, anything. You could spend many years here and if you vote knowing that you're screwing over all the other career pilots at Allegiant in the long run then you are a despicable person.
I can't believe N1SYNC would even suggest this. That tells you a lot about his character.

2. No, I would not have voted for this TA 3, 2, or 1 years ago. And I won't vote for it now. It is sub-standard by a lot and I do not consider myself a substandard employee or pilot. I'm a union supporter too, but this TA is inadequate.

3. First off, Scope is useful, but it has been and will continue to be dismantled by lawyers time after time. The scope written in this TA is not very good either. It is poorly worded and allows for too many loopholes, like the rest of the contract. Second, there is no reason to believe we would have to give any of this up. We currently have no scope. That is what we are negotiating against, not this TA. New negotiators certainly wouldn't settle for less than this TA.

4. Speaking of scope. The fact that Allegiant was so willing to give full scope in this TA tells you without a doubt that they have absolutely no intention of selling, merging, or buying another airline. If they wanted to merge, they would have done it BEFORE they offered a union contract. Frontier and Virgin America have recently been for sale.

5. If it took 90 days, would you be happy with $50,0000 more pay, industry standard work rules, a defined benefit retirement plan, and better contract language that doesn't have loopholes or allow for company abuse? How about more days off?

6. No, most of my issues are not related to CBI/Merlot. It is a terrible scheduling program, but I have had pretty good luck getting what I biid for. My issues are with a terrible TA that is nowhere near adequate for pilots working at the most profitable airline in THE ENTIRE WORLD.

The company is trying to secure $1 billion in loans to buy new Airbuses. They came to us with a TA. They need a contract bad and that suggests they will make a better offer in a reasonable amount of time. They are also having trouble finding qualified pilots to hire. In one of the most recent interview classes, only two pilots showed up and one of those was a HELL NO. If they want to attract qualified pilots for their expansion plans, they're going to have to offer something better than this lousy TA.

 

Easy there Bigtime... We're on the same side, I want what's best for the pilot group. Unfortunately I think we're stuck between a rock and a hard place, what do you really think managements next move will be if we vote this down? It's a big gamble... they have needs and are tired of this process just as we are. They have options and avenues to fix their problem that we do not.

I'm not a huge fan of the TA, I think its crap in fact. It was WAY over-hyped and seems to only make the most senior guys happy because mission mode is up for grabs and they finally have a rate close to SWA (even though its not in reality). I think we need to ask ourselves the really tough questions though, like what happens if we vote it down and somehow in a few months we drop down to tier one pay? That's insult to injury and we'll be wishing for what we could've had. Meanwhile the NC negotiates a concessionary TA and we have to work under our toilet paper work rules.

We need to see exactly what the union has to say about this thing and why a lot of it is the way it is. Many of us are certainly disappointed and owed some explanations. I'm sure we'll have some clarity in the coming weeks but we need to consider all the consequences of a yes or no vote.

 

Is the roadshow schedule out yet?

I'm leaning yes. With questions.

 

Yes came out and hour or two ago

 

There seems to be large disagreement on whether the proposed scope is good or bad. I see the section regarding alter ego airlines and that seems pretty standard scope in all contracts I have ever voted on. But I do not see any kind of limitation on the number of aircraft that might elect to code share with us aka an express style carrier. The legacy airlines currently limit the amount of aircraft along with a limitation on the number of seats.

For those of you who are not satisfied with scope, is this the specific reason why or is something else missing?

 

"Nothing in this section shall preclude the Company from entering into a capacity purchase, code-share agreement, a marketing agreement, an interline agreement, a pro-rate, block space agreement, or joint venture, so long as such agreements do not result in the furlough of any of the Company’s Pilots."

My understanding is that they could buy all the seats on another airline and use that as a "capacity purchase." I think this is similar to the PIT flying we do. Apple purchased all the "capacity" and we fly it.

This is bad since there would be no growth. While you won't lose your job, it would make your vacation month bad. Expect a lot of 6-1-6 since you only need 5 more days off the rest of the month. The regional's at-least specify if you have vacation your min days off is 14 or so...

 

So we vote no, then what protection do we have form them starting a new division and putting the AB on that. what will that cost to capture back in concessions for a contract.

 

+1

I feel like people have forgotten what we have now is zero protection. In the end we lose if we lose this contract! Companies in this industry survive because they alway get what they want! We do not win in any scenario!