Jaxman187

I recognize this is an MD-11/Airbus(siba) thing but under the old system if you bid a line with only two trips you could force the drop of a 3-4 day trip for 2 days of training. Simply put, I am working more net days under the new system.

Purple F/O

OK, I'll buy that it works for some people. But my big concern is that nothing fits into your new schedule and you can't pick up those hours. Can you add R-Days back to your line? Seems like a way for the company to drop R-days that they don't think they'll use you(because the string was broken up by training), and not pay you for them.

Flaps50

Bottom line is this a loss for the pilot group. Since we at FedEx have no such thing as a 75 hour guarantee like most airlines you are really out the pay if training drops you below the BLG and the open time has nothing that will fit into your schedule like in my case (you are forced to pick up time for the same pay). It's to bad that do to the company's training requirements (not my choice) I can't make BLG without staying in base additional days beyond my original trip length just to make the same money. Plus unless you are very senior you can not guarantee the training dates that you will get.

USNFDX: Overall bad deal for the pilots; good deal for the company. I understand that the contract is give and take so I'm OK with it, but don't try and sell it as a good deal for us because it isn't. Sure the hours go into your make up bank, but now you're working 3 out of the 4 weeks in the month.

Now can anyone tell me why the contract still has provisions for substitution in the case of recurrent training? When is it applicable? Do we have a case for still having it the old way if we want according to section 4.I.4 and 25?

Thanks for the posts all!

Lindy

I am just trying to follow your point:

you bid 15 RA days and *think* the company is going to drop ALL of them for training?

or just drop the 3 or so days that conflict the training?

If you are thinking the former, the company does NOT drop any days and stick the training on days that you had reserve. You will still see the green line in addition to the red line for training. This is applicable if you bid "protect min days off"

Same for the latter.

As for "losing money" I just want to be sure:

Training conflicts a trip. Trip dropped for training. Lose 12 credits in the process. Does the 12 go into a make-up bank or is it lost, never to be seen again and the check on the last day of the month is now the "big check"??

FDXLAG

Make Up bank.

Get Senior, bid training on a day off if you want to preserve your check.

Overall it is better than it was because senority matters. Now if we can just do something similar for bidding seats and training.

MD11Fr8Dog

They will drop a whole block of R days (up to 19 in a 5 wk month) if you "split" that block, ie don't cover the last or first days of the block with the training footprint.

Flaps50

If you do that you had better make sure you are around during the view/add window to get some good trips to add to your line because if you miss it you could end up with some nasty open time pairings to put on your line, and a not so friendly commuter line. Since 70% of the company commutes I can't see how this is a win for the pilots. But that is just my $.02 speaking as someone who has been bit by this recently.

USNFDX

The way I see it, this change benefits commuters, more than those who live in Memphis.

If you DON'T protect min days off, and you don't coflict a trip with your training. You keep your BLG plus 9CHs for TOD. Basicaly the same as it was before, except you actualy now have some control on when your training is.

You may still also conflict it with a trip, and possibly get rid of that one little crappy BQN, FNT etc...


If you DO protect min days off You may conflict your training with a trip, or futures will drop somthing and its up to you add somthing back during the 48 hour "View Add" window.

So whats different than before?

The Negatives

Under the old system, occassionaly, if senior or lucky enough, you could get them to drop a 3 day trip, for which they could not substitute a trip. Thus you could get paid 18CHs for you training. Or they may drop somthing longer, and only give you a short substitution trip, effectively allowing you to be paid significantly more than 4.30CHs per training day. I Get it!

The positives

Based on your seniority, YOU decided when you are going to do your recurrent training. There is only a 12 hr buffer around training so you can schedule it up against a trip, thus potentially lessening the number of commutes.

You decided, what trip(s) you would like "substituted" for the trip(s) that were dropped. You do this during the "View Add" window by seeing ALL the trips that are available, and you get to cherry pick before any VTOs are built. This should allow you to make your line more commutable, by maybe picking up somthing on either side of your training.

Under the old system. Futures deicided when you were doing your training. They decided which trip(s) to drop to protect min days off. And they decided which "nice" trips you got on substitution.

Control VS a little potential income?

Albief15

I vote control. I like it. FWIW. I got my first choice of training in March, which allowed me to plan my life around the rest of the month.

Honestly--if you live in a city NW flies, you can fly in on the morning launch, do an afternoon standby, and if you aren't launched catch the pm flight home and still have time to love on the wife. Getting an extra 4:30 aint' that painful. I'll take that pain over having a scheduling NAZI trash the one sweet trip I had during the month and putting me on sub (with no crashpad!) for a week in MEM.

USN...nice Avatar...you've shown you can be creative. Now bring back the duck.

USNFDX

Duck...Reporting as ordered...SIR!