It would take too long to highlight all the areas where the APA negotiated contract lags our peers. But I think it's safe to say our contract has significantly trailed our peers for a long time. We will always have comprable hourly pay rates but beyond that all bets are off. I don't think APA is up to the task for closing the gap in work rules, QOL, and total compensation. A merger with ALPA is probably our best hope for catching up. Possibly a few thousand retirements off the top will help. A lot of our senior pilots don't even realize how far we've fallen behind our legacy peers and I doubt they care much.

1999 hire, lol.

I think there are a couple exceptions in the schoolhouse.

You mean you read a reddit thread and couldn't do the math?

If he truly is the random dude that is a 787 CKA waaaaay out of seniority to hold it, he is a little biotch working at 737 rates to fly a 787…

I mean to be fair, I have flown with plenty of 6-year CAs with wide bodies…

is his name Tim Martins????

Give examples. You are speaking in bland generalities to slam APA with zero specifics. If you are advocating switching unions at least make an intelligent argument.

tell me you’ve been 121 for at least 17 years without telling me. Poor Timmy, probably still needs to have the best story.

that one flew right by everyone, I think.

You've been living in a hole for the last 4 years?

This might be true but I'd still take American over WN or any LCC or ACMI. In your 20s? Probably Delta or United is a better bet for stability. 40+ American probably still has the most rapid seniority accrual in the first 5 years (giving the choice between decent FO line holder or super junior NB CA). WB is a wild card but I fear it will stay a small percentage of the fleet and FO will take a long time and CA is probably impossible.

Sick time to start. Also, how about all those areas of the contract that were only added after United announced their TA and APA had to quickly play catch up and pretend they did the work knowing full well they got us the bare minimum because “the company said no”. The amount of senior pilots I flew with that never read our TA was astounding. Many still don’t know the contract. I remember Ed sounding like a bumbling goon on town halls. Hotel language was another one Ed brushed off. Check out where we stay in RSW and then ask your United buddies where they stay. I guarantee it’s not in a shopping center or next to the highway.

We asked for qol improvements but they said no. I guess apa will have to look into that next time when we are in a down economy. We’ll get it then

For real. Our annual accrual and sick is ridiculous. Not up to snuff and have a 3 day? Boom, you just burned 25% of your annual accrual on one trip.

Gains? Sure, a bit. Im glad new hires dont have to deal with the 0 sick for 6 months crap like before. ESB is a major gain IMO too.

However, only 60 hrs/yr is garbage. Not having a way to get back sick, ala sick day 1, but well by day 2 but too bad, you burn 3 days worth of sick. Why not have an option to get your 10.30 of sick back via a self-repair/RO/LC type situation is also garbage. If not? Ok, fine, charge the full amount of sick.

I can't believe anyone complains about the RSW hotel. I always catch up on my furniture shopping when there. :)

Seriously though...that has got to be one of the worst-planned commercial developments I've seen. Hotels and furniture stores are about as far apart as you can get on the spectrum of complementary businesses.

"So, uhh, I really like this couch. Do you guys deliver to Phoenix?"

Never know when you’re going to need to pick up a sweet end table after getting a cheeseburger dog from 7-11. I was speaking about the long stays there. Just as terrible. Had a family member pick me up once and laughed that we stayed there.

What gets me about the RSW hotel, which they moved to an even worse hotel, is the company claims there are “no other options” in the area. Meanwhile, Delta stays at a full blown resort there…

And if it were just RSW… I stayed in better hotels at the regionals. It’s honestly embarrassing.

You talking about the Hampton Inn that’s by the bail bondsmen?

There aren't in options in their price range. Hotel language needs to be cleaned up and cost considerations removed. We don't need Ritz Carlton but no more mediocre 2-3 stars.

FWIW I've been here ~12 years and have 520 hours in combined banks, but I don't have kids at home making me sick.

I do agree with self repair, total BS to burn 20-30 hours sick on a 4 or 5 day trip when you could work again sometime during it. I know there was some reason AA management was against it, but the reason escapes me now.

They don't want us to further trip trade with sick.

Have a crappy 4 day trip and TTS won't let you trade into sweet 2 day trip? Call in sick, take those two days off, pick up that 2 day to make up some of the sick burned.

Yet a long call reserve can do exactly that.

Reserve's can't pick up a 2 day to make up sick.

But obviously everything else is true in that they get assigned a 4 day, but only burn sick time for the days they are sick. So they can only be charged 1 day of sick to get out of that 4 day.

Obviously reserve had its own loophole/game that the company wanted closed( and was closed) which was call in sick to get out of a trip, but then call in well before 10 am and no sick was charged. That went bye bye.

Does that have something to do with IMAX as well? So you'd burn 10.5 hours sick and fly 10.5 hours for 21 hours credit but only use 10:30 of your FAR time, allowing you to pick up another 10.5 of credit.

You can get a crappy 4 day, call out, call in well the next day and you only burned a single day.

Probably. Everything that seems utterly incomprehensible always seems to be related to IMAX. Maybe I'll figure that out before I retire.

Sounds like the solution to every problem is not making crappy trips. Just sayin'

APA should create an IMAX service where you opt in and they handle it on their end. You just show up to work the trips they've got on there for you. I'd do it.

I’ve been here 3 and still have 0 in the sick bank.

Simply build better trips. I just saw a 3-4-2-3 trip on open time worth 21:55 smh

Yeah sounds about right. Probably matching pay/credit and multiple duty periods extended past 12h with 11-12h rest. Those type of sequences go to the junior reserves—which is why they’re all complaining about being burned out while their Reserve Days Worked for the month are floating around 11-13. That sequence should be an easy fatigue call out by day 3.

1:1 pay for duty periods extended past 10h—problem solved. They could also push for a minimum daily guarantee SWA style without the AM/PM trip construction, but that would require APA to lead the way for once (specifically regarding lineholders rules), which will never happen. Those industry leading LTD benefits though…

Fatigue is wonderful on reserve. Just fly the first leg out of base first.

You hit the nail on the head. That's why reserve feels so awful. Juniors get called often, not every single day, but when they do it's to fly the trash nobody else will touch with a 10' pole.

Who's right? The union says the 10 hour rig would push us towards longer trips. My solution, if onerous trips are a necessity, is to make them 2 days. 3 leg days pretty much suck but if it's a 2 day at least it ends quickly and you get more nights in your bed.

I get how scope got sold now.

I remember being at the regionals and everyone was like "just make it mainline with mainline pay". Now that mainline has absorbed a lot of regional flying, "we don't want that flying anyway".

Bingo.

Scope was a great late 90's early 2000's rallying cry, but in reality, few missed that flying and then everyone proceeded to craft their work rules assuming that flying would never return. For us, that flying, combined with ACD means the whole system needs a reboot.

[sarcasm]But thank God we got rid of slash trips![/sarcasm]

Keep gaslighting, you’re just naive sitting on the pretty side of the seniority list. I’ll fly 1.5-2 hour legs any day of the week to a regional airport and back with 5 hour total daily block and layovers generally around 16-18h because the duty stayed below 10h. Unfortunately 3 legs at AA looks something like 2.5h leg, 2.5h sit, 3.5h leg, 50 min sit, 2.25h leg, resulting in 8.5h block and over 12h duty because we have zero limitations on trip construction in our contract.

This isn’t even slightly exaggerated either.

The vast majority of trips in my base start and/or end with a day exactly like that. I bid as many 1-1s and turns as I can, but there are so many more trips exactly like what you’ve described that you’ll inevitably end up with a couple on your award.

Must be fixed.