Yea let's compare AA to the regionals. That'll get us somewhere in 2020.

 

Everyone keeps saying their regional contract was better but when asked what regional contract they refuse to say.

It's like the guy who said he had CD at his regional. True, all 3:00 per day if I recall correctly.

 

Glad I'm reading the "Let's b!tch about AA" thread... I almost confused it with the "American interviews and class dates" one!

 

We really should be comparing ourselves to Delta and United but here's one regional example.

SkyWest:
-4:12 min calendar day
-hotel night before CQT
-reserve system is seniority based. Senior pilots can break guarantee or sit home all month and not fly.
-reserves can not be flown into off days. Off means off.
-golden days. Not like what we have, guaranteed off day in future. Unpaid but pre assignment.
-can only be rescheduled inside footprint of original trip. Premium outside footprint.
-if a reserve were somehow unable to get back on the last day they would get extra pay or a future Res day off. None of this noon on day off BS.
-no recovery obligation
-ability to rejoin trip if you call in sick for part of it.
-able to bank vacation. Don't like Jan vacation- hang onto it and use it when you have better seniority.
-no IMAX
-reserves better able to pick up flying on days off
-reserves able to work extra reserve days for extra pay/premium if used


Obviously pay and 401k are worse. Also:
-airport reserve
-defined reserve call out time
-no sick if needed
-no "f time"


The point here is we need to see what others have and improve our contract, not keep our heads in the sand.

 

If we got paid what SkyWest pays we would have union-approved company paid for hookers waiting for us in the hot tub when we got to the hotel.

Everything is a trade off. Want more pay? Fine but you pay for it somewhere else. DAL is quite a bit more efficient staffing wise than we are with our IMAX. The APA has always been about more pilots at less pay vs less pilots at more pay (actually pretty union like of them, I like that aspect).

 

I doubt DAL is that much more efficient than us, if at all. Doesn't IMAX only limit you to 90 hours in a rolling 12 months? That's a lot.

 

IMAX limits you but premium doesn't count towards IMAX. Delta seems to have more premium trips than we do. Their profit sharing of 22% last year was huge.

 

Exactly. The amount of premium they have and the flexibility they have with it is why their upgrades are so junior. They don't have to upgrade to make a ton of money.

But many AA guys are under the impression their upgrades go so junior because it's NYC, they have to cover 3 airports, and the trips suck. Tell me again how that's any different from our 73/airbus operation in NYC?

 

You're saying a 4:12 minimum CD day is better then a 5:10 average day? We'd lose more pay switching to that.

Training doesn't start until the afternoon of day one to allow deadhead to training in the am.

Recovery obligation mirrors DL and UA, but worse in smaller details for sequence protection. Did Skywest have sequence protection?

Floated vacation days can be used in lieu of vacations you don't like. They can be used to drop trips (low probability unless they're decent trips and another pilot grabs it), go low and use floated days to make up the $$$, or cashed out at the end of the year. Are you saying Skywest would let you defer a January vacation until the summer? Technically we can do that at AA with floated vacations but in reality it's not going to happen.

Reserves can work for extra pay/premium pay.

You'd trade to get airport standby back? Only UA has that and my buddy says they hate it.

No F time???

This is the better contract we should aspire to???

 

That's what DL guys say when asked about the quick upgrades - "but it doesn't bother me because I live here." And they particularly knock the MD-88 flying.