With the high cost of everything in HKG, I would venture to guess that FDX will be charging a price to it's customers in China, consistant with the higher price of everything over there. They obviously would like to just stick that extra profit in the bank, instead of paying it's pilots a fair COLA to operate and live in an expensive economy.

 

The other problem with foreign airlines flying your stuff rears its ugly head when they start flying your materials into the US.

ALPA told us when we signed our last contract that we had the "best SCOPE clause in the whole industry". Since then, there was the purchase of ABX (the biggest violation of this clause - Note: our gripe is with DHL NOT ABX), Polar (soon to be), and contracting with Lufthansa, NWA, Kalitta, etc., etc. Our lawyers say that we may still prevail in our scope lawsuit with DHL, but it'll come at a huge cost in dollars and years - and if and when we win, we may not be too far from exactly where we are right now.

FedEx has a larger pilot group and more resources but if you let that camel into your tent, you may be able to fend off the migration of foreign carriers for a longer time than we did, but it will happen and when it does, it'll really p*ss you all off. It did us.

Think long and hard about opening that Pandora’s box. Once you do, it'll never shut.

8DRIVER

 

If it wasn't for that, this LOA would only impact the small minority that would bid overseas.

But with STV, it has the potential to impact all of us. And all of us vote.

 

If the money was right, the STV would not be as much of a factor, because it would go senior. Bump the rent to $4000, and make the STV pay a 20% override, and no one would ever have to go unless they were senior enough to hold it.

 

I'm not saying I like the STV....I hate it, but I don't think it would impact us as much as people think. The way I read it...and I could be wrong, the company can only use the STV method of filling the bases for the first two years of the opening of the new domicile. Also, if you get screwed, you are out of the loop for the next 6 STV bids if it gets that far....It still sucks, but it doesn't suck as bad.

 

If the FDA is 50 crews, that's 300(50X6) crews who could be STV'd. 100 of whom would(could) be sent twice?

Sitting 50 percent captain on the Bus? This still has the reach to get to you.

 

Right. The STV is essentially an acknowledgement by management that the LOA is grossly lacking. But it's not just the money. The people at those FDAs need more money, yes, but they should't have to forego any of the previously agreed upon provisions of our CBA in order to receive that money.

 

FedEx cost neutraled us on the first contract , so cost neutral the FDA's. I'm sure the union can figure the costs associated with the SIBA, just give us the money they would have spent and call it even. If you believe they will I have some Florida property to sell you.

 

I just don't see FedEx starting from scratch buying other airlines or starting new ones overseas where the climate is unknown. We are a known quantity to the company, and that is bottom line number 1 (reliable). FedEx makes a ton of money, and they are not going to jeaprodize that by getting us all worked up over a few millions dollars in overall costs. If they were to start a war with us I can see pilots becoming very conservative during ocean crossings if something isn't right with a system, etc... Air turn backs would likely get pretty bad, I don't think they are willing to deal with that considering all the $$ they are making. This is a pretty conservative company, they are just trying to get the HKG/CDG domiciles as cheaply as they can for now. Turn it down, and another offer will likely come up.

Be weary of any deal that has a supposed time-line that must be met. If they needed a deal so soon it would be done already. How long would it take to start a whole new entity from scratch or integrate an existing company...way longer than getting us to fly the planes we already have.

Just my $.02

 

Back at the STV thing, if we let it go by, it provides a loop hole for the company to open an FDA and inverse guys into it and continue to inverse the junior folks into a new FDA as long as they see fit.

For example, if Hong Kong proves to be too costly or inconvient with the three hour car ride, they decide to move us somewhere else. Now you take another city, and maybe the folks in Hong Kong, don't feel like going and you start at the bottom all over again....again, and again. STV is too much control of a civilians life, this is not the military and we choose to work here, we didn't choose to get sent away for 90 days to sit in a hotel. If I wanted that, I would go on deployment with some of the P-3 Bubbas....

HJ