Amazon is getting 15 more 737s
 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-to-lease-15-more-boeing-737-800s-through-gecas-to-support-one-day-shipping-2019-06-18?mod=mw_quote_news

Where oh where will they go......

And hey anyone know the deal with those DHL tripples? Heard Southern was getting a few but with all the Atlas/Southern family drama I’d think Amazon and DHL would want to diversify more.

Southern got the first 2 777s and the first 5 73-8s, No word on the rest.

The two tripples are DHL, not Amazon. The article was about 73's not triples...

Tracking...DHL had ordered 14 (I think) awhile back, just wondering the latest rumors where they are going.

Triples.

Juan Trippels?

Plane Coffee

Read the question he asked...Jesus

Spelling is difficult at this stage in life. Give him a few years.

I'm guessing that three are going to Mesa... JO is coming to whipsaw the ACMI world!

I would look for Swift to make an appearance in this rancid gene puddle soon.

Amazon unfortunately is operating like DHL. A hodgepodge of ACMI carriers who low bid each other for the business and a race to the bottom. The only way for the pilots to come out on top in this scumbag environment , is a radical new approach and tactic to unify the acmi labor groups and demand across the board competitive wages. It would be a monumental undertaking but one worth the effort imo. The collective union groups would have to bury the past and focus on the future.
Am I dreaming or can a concept like this work? otherwise its a lost battle and each pilot group is ticked at the other. With FedEx dropping Amazon, the lift is going to the other acmi carriers, but the wages are not. Its a win for Amazon. (Cheaper lift than FedEx)
Please chime in with your thoughts.
Thanks

1224 tried that, and they ruined it when they tried to hold K4 pilot group back.

The K4 pilot group voted for the worst retirement that I know of in aviation. They VOTED for it. It wasn't rammed down their throats by an Arbitrator like Atlas/Southern is about to go through. I listened to them threaten 1224 leadership on crew call ins because leadership wouldn't allow them to overwhelmingly vote FOR THE worst retirement in aviation. How in the world was 1224 holding K4 back? If Connie had offered a $40 an hour raise with a 2.5% match he'd have probably gotten over 50%.

Look... There's no magic wand. If management wants to treat you the way Atlas/Southern is treated then it's up to the pilot group. Since Atlas can't vote 100% of their pilots younger than about 58 should have apps out. Leave.

We have a pretty unified pilot group, fixing retirement is high up on the list.

It's a hill worth dying on for both Atlas/Southern and Kalitta.

I am "legacy" Atlas (in other words, pre-Atlas/Polar merger).

I would give something like this my tentative support. My full support would depend on exactly which personalities begin to emerge as "leaders". Character is critical, as I don't need to explain.

Problem is, there are so many "characters" in this industry.

Someone should try to organize it. Someone with some vision.

It has already failed. Kalitta left 1224, and with that the dream of a unified ramp died. Kalitta had decent reasons, although maybe a bit short sighted, for leaving the Teamsters. The blame doesnt just lie with Kalitta, DW ****ed off both Omni and kalitta by stalling their contracts *way* longer than necessary. Guys will always push for their own short to medium term best interest and that's going to make it impossible to do what you suggest. It would require sacrifice, and pilots as a whole aren't going to sacrifice anything when a shiny jet gets dangled in front of them- particularly not for their competitor!

What it requires is a change to how airline unions operate. A page could be taken from the steel workers union. It doesn’t matter which construction company gets the bid award to build a new bridge or building. They must hire union steel workers. The companies don’t dictate wages, the union does.

What we need is a single seniority list that is based upon your total years flying union 121, not years at company ABC. Your seniority and pay are totally portable. If company A is treating their pilots poorly, you go to Company B with your seniority and standard union benefits intact.
The companies can go bid for contracts to their hearts content, but like the steel industry, they pay union wages. There is no whipsaw since it’s one big pilot group.

The only way to implement it, since nobody currently working is going to let an Atlas guy come into K4 or OMNI and bid ahead of them is to build it with a fence. Anybody hired after a certain date goes onto the single list. Once the percentage is high enough of one listers working, the union gives every company the new base contract, benefits package and retirement package.

With the rapid turnover and hiring, this is actually a good time to work on this. 1224 should pick a date, about 4-5 years from now, and ensure no new CBA’s are signed with a duration beyond that date. It will put every 1224 into section six simultaneously.

Quietly be building the single list starting today for all new hires. Draft the 1224 CBA and just wait.

NFL and other sporting teams are unionized with an industry wide common CBA for everything except pay which fir them is performance related above a basic pay.

This takes the whipsaw off the table.

Just a random thought....

Oh if only it could be so.

I don't think the RLA will allow that. Steelworkers unions fall under the NLRB which is a bit different, and it's more than coincidence it's that way.

Blame DW all you want but if Pilot Groups are threatening Union Leadership with violence to vote for the Retirement that they voted for then you can't blame 1224 Leadership. If the Pilot Groups that work for these ACMI Carriers all want to vote for a 5% 401k match on a 10% Personal contribution that's limited to $10,000, no daily trip rig, less than industry standard pay rates, 64 hour guarantees, and 26 hour work days then it sets the bar low for all the other carriers. If Atlas/Southern end up in front of an Arbitrator in the next 12 months there's nothing leadership can do.

The system was supposed to be that there'd be agreements that there was a floor that nobody would accept less than. You can do that without all being in the same Union if Pilot Groups would hold out for Industry Standard Contracts and Atlas/Southern wasn't getting Amalgamated.

Absolutely this ^

There is nothing in the RLA restricting a CBA to only cover the members at only one company. In fact, there are several cases of one pilot list, and one CBA covering two companies.

In fact, one is very similar to the 1224 and ATI, ABX, Omni case all owned by ATSG.

AMR (prior to AAG) owned; American, American Eagle & Executive Airlines. American Eagle and Executive shared a single pilot list and single CBA but where in fact two separate companies.... just like ATSG owns three subsidiaries.

Principle is sound.

How much would the pilots at Kalitta be making today if we didn't get the new contract that DW was trying to keep us from voting on?(AND DELAYED 6 MONTHS) ? Compared to what we make today, the math does't support holding out for a better retirement in the short term. We will be negotiating shortly on our next contract with an excellent pilot group/management relationship.
1224 screwed the pooch, they cost many pilots over 100,000k delaying that contract, they ****ed off management that wanted to grow the airline and knew they couldn't without large pay raises. From some one standing over at K4 looking outward at 1224, it seemed very much so like our competitor was trying to hold us back with their pull in 1224 for their own gains. It's no wonder we went to ALPA as quickly and effectively as we did.

As usual you have no f'ing clue what you are talking about
Maybe you should review some old posts where it was explained to you
Especially about 1224 delaying our contract and the e board nearly voting it down

Like nl3 said dw's bs cost me 100k
How's that for retirement

Yeah, he probably cost you 100k in the short term but could've made you 100's of thousands more in the long term but some people are just too short sighted.

hows that Dwight?


We got 100% pay raise, Bis class travel, way better hours of service amongst other big things

Our retirement was increased by 2x


do you think a neg committee can get every single item they want in 1 contract cycle?

btw - our horrible retirement was the idea of our great 1224 legal team - you know the ones

I guess we'll see about that.

11-12% of what you make... Every year... For the rest of your career... Compounded with interest (How's the market performed since that was signed again?). It was probably a bigger deal than what you thought it was... I think everyone leaving for greener pastures was a better strategy but I'm glad yall are happy.

From the bottom of my heart I hope that's true. I don't think Connie is any better of a guy than JD or BF at Atlas. They don't care about who stays to work there in any way. I think you're going to be in for a big fight too.

I hope you guys don't wait long for a decent contract either. It helps both our causes.

You are either trying to start an argument or you have no idea of why K4 left 1224. Retirement was never even on the table for K4. Wasn’t even mentioned. Way higher priority items for our pilot group. Great results by our negotiation committee that 1224 tried to take away from us, good riddance

You're coming into this argument late... The quote that started all of this was something like "DW held us back..."

FACT - You wanted to vote yes on your contract that has the worst retirement that I know of. While we're at it we can talk about monthly guarantee, duty day, Trip Rig, days of service and unpaid 24-7s. I'm fully aware retirement wasn't a priority of K4 pilots, but there were a slew of things DW took issue with that your group had zero problem with. Retirement was used by me as the glaring example. My understanding is that you wanted a Rate that was branded as "FedEx's Old Contract". That's all you really cared about at that time.

FACT - DW held back that contract in an attempt to get you more with regard to work rules... Meaning shorter duty days... etc...

Since DW wanted more for your contract than your pilot group did how did he hold you back? If memory serves correct about 90% of yall were yes votes. Connie could've had you for far less if it weren't for DW. Yall wanted the Rate and you wanted it then after a long hard fight.

Best of luck in the next negotiation. ACMI is far behind the rest of the Industry and I sincerely hope yall are ready to push to fix these problems. Atlas may be counting on you to get gains because I agree with yall that there is a statistical chance you get a contract first. I tell people to go to K4... It's a better deal.

Worst retirement that you know of? You're not looking at the regionals then! Charter? Corporate? Your own? So we cap out at 10k a year on 5%. You can't hit that until you're over 200k. How many captains do you have over 200k? I'd say most, if not every single one of ours are there; if not they're close.

I know nothing of Corporate or Charter. If that's what you want to compare yourself to then have at it. I bet there are jobs like that with better retirement than what ACMI offers. Regionals... I don't know much about either. If you're proud of having a slightly better retirement than Mesa then I'm glad you're happy. I'm pretty educated on ACMI retirements, Spirit, Jet Blue, Southwest, The Legacies, and the two big cargo airlines. Your contract is behind all of those by Millions of dollars in your career.... Except for the ACMI ones where you're only slightly behind.

The point was that DW wasn't holding you back from better contract language. Actually... You're proving my point. You're thrilled with your contract. I'm pretty sure DW thinks it's not a great contract. You'd have gladly accepted less because your retirement is better than Air Wisconsin's... You're thrilled with the work rules too despite most of them being behind Atlas's antiquated contract... Your pilot group voted yes overwhelmingly to something DW would've voted no on.

I left Atlas. I don't see them getting a Retirement that makes it worth working there because none of the other ACMI carriers have anything that make it worth sticking around. If everyone voted with their feet then it'd change... But yall are happy and that's is a beautiful thing.

To expand on this, DW wasn't technically holding you all back, you all were holding DW back.

Nothing emotionally attached with this statement. It is just the reality of the situation. But as Globemaster pointed out, if you all are good with that, we are all happy for you.

You couldn’t be any more wrong. TA was complete. At last minute DW scuttled TA using agreement letter from Southern 737 debacle. He introduced 18 hour max double crew duty day as a brand new item to be negotiated. He then stopped K4 pilot group from voting on TA. K4 group was forced to waste time and money appealing all the way to the top of the Teamsters for relief which was not granted. Feds finally got involved for a settlement and a 1 year moratorium on the work rules which was then arbitrated.

Here is the thing on the work rules. We had 30 hrs. We negotiated to 24, which was what we wanted, so we didn’t get stuck in hostile zones because of duty day AND the company would be able to bid the military trips and make a profit. SO, we were forced to work under the 30 hour and other old work rules for a year. Guess what happened when we went to what was an expensive arbitration, paid for by our pilot group, not 1224 BTW? We were awarded the originally agreed upon work rules.

Why was this done to us? To advance the cause of Atlas negotiations. I took a 30,000.00+ pay loss because of this bull crap.

Interesting thing here. I read AAWW pilots on here rightfully complaining that they did not get to vote on their last contract and that they may not get to vote on this one. I agree this is bad. Wonder why it was OK for Atlas thru DW to do that to us?

One of the advantages of ALPA is that a local is not forced to borrow money from the Teamsters and then pay it back for negotiations. Is ALPA perfect? Not at all, but way better that the financially and morally corrupt 747 and now the morally corrupt 1224*.

*my opinion only

I truly do not expect you to understand the difference between working at AAWW and K4. Different culture and different desires in a contract by their respective pilot groups. I can only guarantee 2 things regarding K4’s next contract. It will not be the same as UPS, and you will not think it is good enough.😀 That’s ok, I can live with both. Our group is free of 1224 and free to negotiate our own path driven by the desires of OUR pilot group.

It’s a 4 year contract. You don’t think they’d get the direct contribution at the next amendment round? In the meantime they’ve doubled their pay those four years and improved their working conditions.

So they didn’t get 10-12% for those four years. They did get $80-$150k more than they had before each of those four years.
They were smart to lock in the large great gains....

Someone who gets it
With no ax to grind
Thanks