Intercepted email from Scheduling Committee RE LOA.
08-04-2007, 09:45 PM
#1
Proponent of Hysteria
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Joined APC: Jun 2007
Position: "Part of the problem." : JL
Posts: 1,053
Intercepted email from Scheduling Committee RE LOA.
Vic et al:
I was not involved or consulted on any aspect of the LOA—I was asked a question by Dave Webb sometime after I understood the deal was done concerning the HKG- Guangzhou commute and its effect on crew pay.
I don’t know how the costing of the value of the deal to FedEx was done—that would be an important due diligence to negotiate it so I assume it was done—you could ask Bob or your fellow MEC members that attended the briefing (my last attendance focused on a request from Anzur to address A300, fatigue issues and domestic solve and devolved into PBS discussion and I was not asked about the LOA). Perhaps they used EF&A National, if so, I’m interested in how they calculated the numbers and what they came up with for various reasons.
Since no one asked my group— we figured we do some “due diligence” and ask for sample pairings--- interestingly, we have been denied them and told to wait until the LOA is ratified. That should scare people a little. People should pay close attention to what the Company is saying up front about their intention to make these NON-COMMUTABLE bases. They’ve not been happy with ANC as a commuting base--- have said so repeatedly—and someone with a touch of skepticism might easily make the connection between that and what has happened to the base pairing-wise over the last few years.
I suspect that a lot of SIBA guys and Subic guys that used to commute to these locations are going to be very disappointed. Tipper information is indicating that Europe will be run on a domestic schedule – and look nothing like it does today in terms of week-on week off pairings. I doubt some of the guys that are living there now in Italy and Germany for example are going to be able to make a go of that with out a lot of commute time eating into their lives. With flight times decreased in Asia due to proximity changes with the new hub--- anybodies guess as to what the optimizer will do with that. Probably longer nights with more legs.
As far as value---broad brush-- it’s going to save the Company millions and millions to do this in SIBA alone. More if they open the MD in Guangzhou. Carve off 4 days at least from every SIBA pairing X 2 Crew cost and First Class DHs and hotels and you are talking about serious money. The Company “charges” more than 2 million dollars a year per standby pairing when I beg them to put standby’s in theater to alleviate the rampant revision problem. With a non-commutable base of pilots they will save those costs and get the advantage of not paying perdiem, hotels, and trip rig (R day value will replace that). Gas savings and Block CHs in decreased leg lengths inbound to the hub in Asia will likely be a big savings. All the focus on a captive audience reaps them straight pay and Make-up savings and opportunities to flex better with revisions and substitution (without cost of DH tickets and CHs associated with the days of travel ) this will drive down draft and volunteer needs in those theaters as well. In the SIBA environment—they’ll also be able to get the job done with a lot less pilots. Bottom line: it’s A LOT of MONEY. They wouldn’t think of doing it otherwise.
Here’s an interesting “back of the napkin” calculation for a 15 year (DOS+2) SIBA Captain: 4 days at 6CH a day x (238.49) = 5747.76 ---- now add two FC DHs (3737.x2) = 7474--- add 4 hotel days – about another 1000.00 – probably another couple of hundred in GT expenses and the total comes to about: $14,500. PER MONTH for this single pilot right off the top recouped. This doesn’t begin to address the savings they’ll get in the rest of the pairing if they run it domestically and all the other considerable savings from operational efficiencies, Reserve manning, domestic optimization and commuting headaches the Company deals with. Considerable cash value to leverage.
BTW: anyone that thinks FedEx would like to work under European scheduling rules needs to look at the CAP 371 rules I briefed you on – hubturning duty lengths and critical rig flying gets serious attention concerning fatigue under those rules. Hong Kong? Our International Grid BTW is also a heavily watered down version of the Hong Kong flight rules that CAP 371 evolved from. The original is much more limiting in terms of time zone limits and duty lengths. The other nice thing about FedEx pilots besides reliability is they’ll work longer and harder.
As for the agreement to ground transportation in Asia--- we looked at this some years ago on pairings that the Company wanted to connect that way when Guangzhou first opened. At first it was a single day of GT and it seemed like the crews felt it was less hassle to use the GT than fly, so we gave our SIG approval to the GT over 2 hours. Of late they have increasingly been adding the GT at the end of some very long duty days and the “blush is off the rose” with the PSIT on this issue and we are seriously considering pulling our permission to use the GT and forcing it back to air travel. It’ll be interesting to see what they have to say when we do that—and whether they’ll try to piggy back the LOA agreement into a general agreement between the two cities. I definitely expect future LOA Asia pairings to end that way—a long day followed by a GT to HKG to cut crew cost. I suspect most pairings will start that way as well—GT into operating International trips.
I think they are being pretty up front about telegraphing their intentions—this will work for someone for a couple of years if they plan to live cheaply nearby, probably without kids, (but what they aren’t saying yet is how hard you’ll be working—my guess is a good deal harder compared to the way those operations fly today).
Maybe I can get a job as the Hong Kong PSIT guy and live on a junk in the harbour—sweet!
I was not involved or consulted on any aspect of the LOA—I was asked a question by Dave Webb sometime after I understood the deal was done concerning the HKG- Guangzhou commute and its effect on crew pay.
I don’t know how the costing of the value of the deal to FedEx was done—that would be an important due diligence to negotiate it so I assume it was done—you could ask Bob or your fellow MEC members that attended the briefing (my last attendance focused on a request from Anzur to address A300, fatigue issues and domestic solve and devolved into PBS discussion and I was not asked about the LOA). Perhaps they used EF&A National, if so, I’m interested in how they calculated the numbers and what they came up with for various reasons.
Since no one asked my group— we figured we do some “due diligence” and ask for sample pairings--- interestingly, we have been denied them and told to wait until the LOA is ratified. That should scare people a little. People should pay close attention to what the Company is saying up front about their intention to make these NON-COMMUTABLE bases. They’ve not been happy with ANC as a commuting base--- have said so repeatedly—and someone with a touch of skepticism might easily make the connection between that and what has happened to the base pairing-wise over the last few years.
I suspect that a lot of SIBA guys and Subic guys that used to commute to these locations are going to be very disappointed. Tipper information is indicating that Europe will be run on a domestic schedule – and look nothing like it does today in terms of week-on week off pairings. I doubt some of the guys that are living there now in Italy and Germany for example are going to be able to make a go of that with out a lot of commute time eating into their lives. With flight times decreased in Asia due to proximity changes with the new hub--- anybodies guess as to what the optimizer will do with that. Probably longer nights with more legs.
As far as value---broad brush-- it’s going to save the Company millions and millions to do this in SIBA alone. More if they open the MD in Guangzhou. Carve off 4 days at least from every SIBA pairing X 2 Crew cost and First Class DHs and hotels and you are talking about serious money. The Company “charges” more than 2 million dollars a year per standby pairing when I beg them to put standby’s in theater to alleviate the rampant revision problem. With a non-commutable base of pilots they will save those costs and get the advantage of not paying perdiem, hotels, and trip rig (R day value will replace that). Gas savings and Block CHs in decreased leg lengths inbound to the hub in Asia will likely be a big savings. All the focus on a captive audience reaps them straight pay and Make-up savings and opportunities to flex better with revisions and substitution (without cost of DH tickets and CHs associated with the days of travel ) this will drive down draft and volunteer needs in those theaters as well. In the SIBA environment—they’ll also be able to get the job done with a lot less pilots. Bottom line: it’s A LOT of MONEY. They wouldn’t think of doing it otherwise.
Here’s an interesting “back of the napkin” calculation for a 15 year (DOS+2) SIBA Captain: 4 days at 6CH a day x (238.49) = 5747.76 ---- now add two FC DHs (3737.x2) = 7474--- add 4 hotel days – about another 1000.00 – probably another couple of hundred in GT expenses and the total comes to about: $14,500. PER MONTH for this single pilot right off the top recouped. This doesn’t begin to address the savings they’ll get in the rest of the pairing if they run it domestically and all the other considerable savings from operational efficiencies, Reserve manning, domestic optimization and commuting headaches the Company deals with. Considerable cash value to leverage.
BTW: anyone that thinks FedEx would like to work under European scheduling rules needs to look at the CAP 371 rules I briefed you on – hubturning duty lengths and critical rig flying gets serious attention concerning fatigue under those rules. Hong Kong? Our International Grid BTW is also a heavily watered down version of the Hong Kong flight rules that CAP 371 evolved from. The original is much more limiting in terms of time zone limits and duty lengths. The other nice thing about FedEx pilots besides reliability is they’ll work longer and harder.
As for the agreement to ground transportation in Asia--- we looked at this some years ago on pairings that the Company wanted to connect that way when Guangzhou first opened. At first it was a single day of GT and it seemed like the crews felt it was less hassle to use the GT than fly, so we gave our SIG approval to the GT over 2 hours. Of late they have increasingly been adding the GT at the end of some very long duty days and the “blush is off the rose” with the PSIT on this issue and we are seriously considering pulling our permission to use the GT and forcing it back to air travel. It’ll be interesting to see what they have to say when we do that—and whether they’ll try to piggy back the LOA agreement into a general agreement between the two cities. I definitely expect future LOA Asia pairings to end that way—a long day followed by a GT to HKG to cut crew cost. I suspect most pairings will start that way as well—GT into operating International trips.
I think they are being pretty up front about telegraphing their intentions—this will work for someone for a couple of years if they plan to live cheaply nearby, probably without kids, (but what they aren’t saying yet is how hard you’ll be working—my guess is a good deal harder compared to the way those operations fly today).
Maybe I can get a job as the Hong Kong PSIT guy and live on a junk in the harbour—sweet!
08-04-2007, 10:41 PM
#5
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2006
Posts: 426
Pbs??
ok, this is interesting if true.....
let's skip the LOA stuff and review something that can be very detrimental:
"and devolved into PBS discussion"
I have not met one pilot that agrees/likes PBS. Sounds good on paper, but talk to pilots at any airline utilzing PBS and listen to their concerns of the implementation aspect.
Please tell me that this isn't the next thing on the horizon?!?!
let's skip the LOA stuff and review something that can be very detrimental:
"and devolved into PBS discussion"
I have not met one pilot that agrees/likes PBS. Sounds good on paper, but talk to pilots at any airline utilzing PBS and listen to their concerns of the implementation aspect.
Please tell me that this isn't the next thing on the horizon?!?!
08-04-2007, 11:09 PM
#6
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2007
Position: 757/767
Posts: 890
Originally Posted by Lindy
ok, this is interesting if true.....
let's skip the LOA stuff and review something that can be very detrimental:
"and devolved into PBS discussion"
I have not met one pilot that agrees/likes PBS. Sounds good on paper, but talk to pilots at any airline utilizing PBS and listen to their concerns of the implementation aspect.
Please tell me that this isn't the next thing on the horizon?!?!
let's skip the LOA stuff and review something that can be very detrimental:
"and devolved into PBS discussion"
I have not met one pilot that agrees/likes PBS. Sounds good on paper, but talk to pilots at any airline utilizing PBS and listen to their concerns of the implementation aspect.
Please tell me that this isn't the next thing on the horizon?!?!
08-04-2007, 11:43 PM
#7
Proponent of Hysteria
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Jun 2007
Position: "Part of the problem." : JL
Posts: 1,053
FYI:
This thread was not intended to become a pro/con PBS thread. Its point is to discuss the scheduling (among other) shortcomings in the proposed LOA. PBS is a separate issue. Some issues here:
Why won't the company show any sample pairings/lines until after the LOA vote?
Why does the company not want commuters in every base except MEM?
Why are they trying to get pilots to subsidize their international expansion plans?
This thread was not intended to become a pro/con PBS thread. Its point is to discuss the scheduling (among other) shortcomings in the proposed LOA. PBS is a separate issue. Some issues here:
Why won't the company show any sample pairings/lines until after the LOA vote?
Why does the company not want commuters in every base except MEM?
Why are they trying to get pilots to subsidize their international expansion plans?
08-05-2007, 12:33 AM
#9
On Reserve
Joined APC: Aug 2007
Posts: 21
Originally Posted by MAWK90
Sky, very nice work indeed. Makes me realize the company's intentions, thus validating my no vote.
Your effort is appreciated.
Your effort is appreciated.
08-05-2007, 02:13 AM
#10
Proponent of Hysteria
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Jun 2007
Position: "Part of the problem." : JL
Posts: 1,053
Originally Posted by Laker
. Do you think that the company will not open the FDA's without an LOA? If so, I hope you are right, but I am afraid you are not.
* No ground trans waiver. (essential to HKG opening. The SIG can not approve on every pairing an over 2 hour van ride...)
* No "Tax equalization status" (WHO would live in CDG paying 40% + income taxes w/o a class action lawsuit against FedEX).
* No STV (how will they staff both bases as they are phasing them in)
All are essential to FedUP opening the two FDAs. Wake up and smell what you've been shoveling. No LOA = No FDA
Last edited by skypine27; 08-05-2007 at 02:41 AM.
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