The other thing needing fixing is this red/redder bs. I wanna drop whatever I need to drop. Even LCCs have better rules about it. The only green trip I have ever seen is a 1 day.

 

I think it’s safe to say after reading through this thread that U.S. Airways and America West had way better work rules than LAA but with way less pay. Accurate?

We need to fix the LAA work rules, like, yesterday. Pilots here need to stop falling all over themselves over just pay rates.

 

To put it in perspective, I'd be a 6th year pay Airbus CA at LUS right now making...$117/hr.

Way less pay is an understatement.

There were a few workrules that were nice, but they added up to little. Example, as a DH on reserve it went above guarantee. There was no line guarantee except for the last trip of the month. Reserves tended to work less because they were over staffed (pilots were super cheap to have on hand). Schedule wise you could drop/swap trips within two days, but that was a function of just how overstaffed we were. Overall I don't really recall anything in particular that stuck out as being stellar.

Hands down the biggest increase in QOL would be a fix to red/redder. I don't expect to be able to drop my entire schedule but it would be nice to be able to at least swap things around. Hands down this is my biggest frustration with our contract. I really don't want much more $, since ~50% of the pay increase leaves the door in taxes. We would get way more bang for the buck increasing QOL items and not pay.

I would like to investigate bankruptcy proof deferred compensation as well.

 

Hopefully we'll see less of that as the pilot group gets younger. I feel like the newer blood is more dialed into where we stand in relation to our peers, and the recent union vote shows increasing dissatisfaction with "that's the way we've always done it".

I'm with Name User and Arado with the red/redder situation being the prime problem with our QOL. I'm a 6th year guy in LGA on the 737 so I have it better than most when it comes to schedule flexibility, but it seems to me that this is something we should be able to fix without it costing the company all that much money, and therefore negotiating capital on our end.

 

Simple. APA has a history of fighting for one or two broad general goals... those are, 1) protect total jobs instead of THE job, and b) focus on pay rates and let the rest go by the wayside. These are areas that Delta and United ALPA have figured out long ago.

As a result, APA has never properly fought for hotel language, trip protection/ownership, premium, double dipping when bought off trips, j/s weight protection....etc, etc.

So for trip trading and drops, which is the example above, APA has ALWAYS allowed the company to dictate the terms on trip trades and drops, because APA doesn’t fight for those things the way the others do.. because APA doesn’t deem it as important as protecting those almighty pay rates.

APA is firmly stuck in the 1960s mindset and refuses to adapt. This is why we’ve always played second (third, fourth?) fiddle to everyone else, and will continue to do so under APA.

This is also why the APA model is way past broken and why we need to switch to ALPA...if anything, to start anew with new union governance, policies, and industry standards...which legacy ALPA is very familiar with. It would also “break the APA chains of the past” and keep us way more connected with the UAL and DAL contracts.

 

To be fair, most of the ALPA critics (including myself) are from regional carriers. I am beginning to wonder whether there is a significant difference between legacy and regional ALPA.

 

How is it not true?

I am on a preassigned 10am RAP for the month. On prior trip they fly me until 9:45am on my day off. I lost the night home in my own bed, missed my Dr appointment on a scheduled day off (get nothing for losing my day off, no extra pay or return day off), of course I don't live in a trailer in the airport parking lot so it takes a while to get home (so lose until around noon on day OFF), then start at 10am RAP again anyway like normal. Well, you are the only one avail so we can schedule reserves until noon on days off.. WTF? It's ridiculous they can do this. They do it all the time now, especially with redeye finishes at 6am..

Long call gets a benefit with the shift, but for a short call it doesn't help.

 

Wholeheartedly agree here. This is a glaring failure within our contract. I live within 60 miles of my hub airport, so I'm not a commuter, and yet there's still no way I (if I were on Reserve) I would be less than angry as hell to be scheduled into a day off - just because they can!

That has to go away.

 

Arado

there is a reason Delta and united consistently get kick a$$ contracts... because legacy alpa (warts and all) caters to the big 2 and fedex (big 3 if we join) with their massive resources assets and negotiators (much of which APA hires out for our own negotiations.)

It is not if but when the pilots of AA need to rejoin ALPA... APA is broken beyond repair due to the governance, structure and “stuck in the past” mentality. We need this change to snap out of the vicious cycle we’re caught in.

If EF and the current BOD fail in getting us an ILC in this day and age of massive leverage in our favor... then we’ll know it’s way past due.

 

I mainly agree with you, but what good would ALPA on property be if you have the same db's running it? It's like the chicken & the egg thing: APA is broken because of the people running it, and vice versa.

ALPA is not without faults of course, just look what a "recent" merger between two ALPA carriers have caused: years of misery.

I believe the biggest drive of change is the generational shift. Let's see if that is going to happen under APA or ALPA.