Bought trips were nice. But guess what? APA gave that away too. Now trips are withheld from the PBS run, captain and f/o, for IOE.

Sad thing is I bet 95% of guys here have no clue that's happening, let alone a job killer.

 

Mainlineaf- would you mind sharing some demographic info like when you were hired and your background? It doesn't matter, but I mind interested in how that might drive your POV.

I agree with you on quite a bit, but your delivery can be intense and laying of blame a little myopic.

Merry Christmas

 

You're right, I'm fortunate, and shouldn't complain on here. Just want guys to know that the 190 is a great deal, and with the movement now...very little chance of being stuck on it after year 1.

Viper,

I'm going to help you out in Feb by bidding short call to get weekends off...

 

Yea sure. 30 y/o, hired mid 2013, civilian. I thought I hit the lottery when I got hired here. Stopped logging time, didn't update any other apps. I'll retire top 5, so why bother?

Well now I'm ****ed I didn't pursue DL, FDX and UPS earlier. The JCBA and the AA cutover on Oct 1 have really opened my eyes. It's scary how short-sighted, fragmented, and oblivious this pilot group is. We are going to vote in a subpar TA in 2020(at the earliest) because of it.

People really do not get how far behind we are. It's not whining or complaining, it's trying to educate people. Then people like slice and uninformed new hires chime in saying it's not that bad and spread false info. Newsflash: it is that bad. The only two things we have going for us are decent hourly rates and retirements.

If all 3 pilot groups don't come together and realize we're on the same team then we're done. We will continuously lag all the other majors. APA needs to start a serious educational campaign on our shortcomings to get the membership engaged. If those 2 things don't happen you better get comfortable being in last place.

 

As to the former, I was thouroughly unimpressed with the the President during the CLT/PHL townhall last week. It struck me that he really doesn't understand the nuances of LUS guy's complaints, it goes over his head. The reserve vacation question was explained 3 times! He and one other LAA guy just didn't understand. He made an excuse for the A3 DH as well. I was pretty disappointed.

As to the latter, I do have some hope. You've got 5,000 ****ed off LUS guys, 1400 new hires with probably 2,500 more by 2020, plus lots of ****ed off mid to jr LAA guys as well. We will lose about 1500 senior pilots by then as well. I think we can come together.

We really need to resist early openers in 2019, and wait for UAL and DAL to get new contracts, (or at least be negotiating). Worst thing would be for us to sign first.

 

We don't need to resist signing first we need to future proof it.

1.improve work rules
2. Full retro
3. Include a united style pay bump when another airline gets a deal (if we keep crappy profit sharing it should be united/delta + 7% always)
4. 3 year contract max

 

You NAILED it! Come together ask for EVERYTHING, vote down the first contract and wait for DL or UAL to vote in their contract first. Also get a 'Me Too' clause like United!

 

The scam on APA pilots continues.

Got ALPA contract language??

 

Thanks for the reply. Again, I agree with most of what you posted. One thing stood out to me in your post-"...Oct have really opened my eyes." The rocks are flying at the Yes voters, but how much can you know before you use something? Most of us thought that the green book would have to be on par with the industry. Error. I was frustrated that the APA didn't look at the good things in the east/west contracts, but how many guys on the outside looking in at our civil war would have had much faith in us? Lots of different events conspired to get us here.

I made the faulty assumption that some things just couldn't be that bad at AA, but unless I'm still missing something, the scheduling system is so far behind what we had at LUS. It's so subpar, IMHO, that after the Dec award I emailed Mr. Isom and Captain Stone. No answer from Mr. Isom, but Captain Stone gave me a call. I shared my frustrations with him. He explained some history and I could agree that PBS is still on the learning curve, but I thought told him that I thought the biggest single issues were coverage days and the red/redder crap. For 3 months I've watched trips that would have drastically improved my line go to others because mine was redder. I asked him to look at the historical data for US east and west and relax those parameters. 9 out of 10 pilots are time *****s, someone will pick them up. We'll see.

3 months into PBS and I still get different answers to my questions from PBS experts. How could I have known how bad this would be 3 years ago?

All that said, we have to stop vilifying the other pilots in our group. Beating someone over the head about how their union/airline/pilots/votes sucked will do nothing to move us forward.

I know that you lived LOA 93 for a while, but few of the newer guys don't realize how we ended up with it. The original LOA 93 was much, much better. But infighting and a group of guys that thought we would do better in bankruptcy court lost that. They killed the original, then the other side panicked and the company pushed through LOA 93. Through out the USAPA years we placed blame. How did that work out for us?

We HAVE to learn from our history and stop laying blame.

At your age moving on might be a good idea, but it's a crap shoot. I know guys that bailed here and it turned out well and I know some that it was a disaster. Each individual has to make that decision on their own.

Take care and good luck to us all.

 

1/10 and 1/24 class??