Latest and greatest Bid rumor thread!
 

From a couple of sources today:

No bid until mid-October.

The company thinks something might happen on Age 60 around 1 Oct, and the bid won't come out until they know what the deal is.

Now for the one-source-rumor:

777s will be on the bid. The possibility of delivery slots moving up from Jul 09 to Jan 09 is a reality, and we will need 777 crews by then.

So the conservative rumor is: mid-October bid.

Radical rumor: mid-October bid with 777s available.

So the big question will be, how many folks are going to bid it without the payrate being resolved?!

O says the "small" bid should be out Oct. 1


7/32

Do you really think that the current wide body pay rate, plus getting a type rating in a 777 is not enough to entice a bunch of guys, who will actually be senior enough to hold this aircraft and seat, to bid it? One only needs to look at the historicals here at FedEx to realize that this A/C will fill up very quickly, with, I suspect, medium to senior guys. But time will tell.

I agree no big bid will occur before age 65 is resolved. Lots of training costs to be saved by moving over 60 guys back up front.

Preaching to the choir, I know, but when a widebody CA retires you create several training cycles. One for wide CA, wide FO and narrow FO. By taking a guy off the bottom, SO, and reinputting into wide CA you save.

You know the accountants are excited about this possibility.

The same type of folks who would have Bid the FDA's without an LOA.

It ain't the training costs they want to save. It's the decreased retirement payments. EVEN IF you live to the same age (doubtful), you just saved FDX 5 years of triple-digit retirement checks, per pilot.

We can't ***** - our union asked for this.....

The Union "Our Union " didn't ask for the AGE 60 rule to change.

They asked that any active pilot on the seniority list be allowed to excercise seniority rights should the law change. That is what a Union does.

Whether you agree with it it or not is entirely up to you.

Most of those guys (not all) have been paying dues to ALPA , FPA and ALPA again. There are many 30 year ALPA tie pins on our S/Os. Most deserve the support of ALPA i.e us! There are a few DB's and freeloaders in that group, but we have plently younger guys on our list who are just as bad or worse in that category.

As far as guys working past 60, even if the law didn't change we would still have many folks electing to work past 60 as engineers for a multitude of reasons.

Some need to keep working to attempt to maximize longevity.
Some make more flying actively as a an S/O than they would retired.
Some just can't fathom sitting at home doing nothing.......not my cup of tea but it is a personal choice.

Yeah, actually it did.

I don't think our union pushed for age 60 until Prater came in and added his tacit support for the change. Didn't like it--but that's what happened and now we deal with it.

The retro language in the Obestar stuff is compliments of ALPA, its exec board, and the blue ribbon panel. Our own Dave Webb was behind that being pushed into the wording according to some of the panel members.

We'll deal with it. However, there are a lot of mixed signals being sent on how our union felt about the problem. The whole "we were just reacting to outside forces..." is a bit dishonest in my opinion. Once the battle loomed, they wanted our mandate to "jump in and influence the outcome..." What they did was they jumped in and helped fast track it past the NPRM process and with the added retro language.

Again--changing the law the right or wrong thing to do? We can debate on that for years. What is apparent to me, however, is our union leadership told the body one story but pursued another agenda behind closed doors. Read the block rep responses and letters on the issue--there is a whole lot of "wink wink" they'll never get to BID back there language at times. The reality appears to be in fact the law will change, and the bid will happen at a time that allows the over 60 crowd to stay in place or back fill whatever vacancies are needed. Again--DW gets to take the "moral high ground" and tell the over 60 guys they'll get what they want, while other block reps quietly whisper "don't worry--won't happen--they can't bid back to those seats because the company will put out a monster bid and there won't be any openings...." Classic double speak trying to keep everyone happy. Fact is, someone is either misinformed or lying. That is why I think so many members, especially the junior guys, do not trust our current MEC leadership. Add a few other issues--VEBA, the Anchorage pass-over cop out, no change on 757 rates but a push for 777 as 380 rates, and a very substandard LOA, and at the least the appearance is that our MEC works off a different agenda at times than the majority of the crew force.