Yeah, some of those 10 guys will have to be around and current at least until Jan of 09 to get the 10s through peak. By then, the 777 bid should be out. By just stretching out the training cycle on anyone coming out of the 10 or 72, the manning could work out just fine for everyone. After all, in the next year we pick up 2 MD11s, 5 MD10s and 3 or 4 Busses, although the bid said we will also lose a couple busses back to the lessors.

 

Want to make a bet on that?

 

Do you have some inside information on this or are you just speculating?

If this is true, I don't see what legal leg the company has to stand on to enforce this.

 

The Company can't pick and choose which pilots would be allowed to excess into an FDA. If they take a Junior CDG CA and allowed him to excess into HKG and not someone senior to him from say the DC10 it would be a CBA violation.

Now what they can do and have offered per the CBA is to allow the CDG pilots to exercise their seniority as they would have been able to on 07-03 or 08-01. This means that IF they could have held a HKG slot on one of those bids but were awarded CDG instead, they can effectively choose to stay in their current seat or move based on one of the previous bids.

Also a canceled CDG award is not an excess award unless they are in the DC10 or 727 currently.

Make sense ? probably not. Bottom line is they are not allowing "out of seniority" excessing into HKG.

 

Don't know if this has been brought up before, but I heard an interesting theory recently on this bid regarding HKG.

I'm just the messenger here...so here goes...

The company allows excessed pilots to be awarded captain slots in HKG. Right now there are 62 total captains, 46 previous and 16 excessed captains from 08-02. Since the CBA states you can't be awarded a FDA bid that causes an excess at that FDA, the company has a problem. Either increase the size of the FDA, or pay the excessed pilots passover to go man another seat.

Or there is a third possibility...

Award the excessed pilots the FDA slot, then cancel the HKG awards from the previous posting for pilots outside 30 days from activation/training by the number of pilots needed to make the manning work out.

In theory, the most junior pilots are the ones farthest from training/activation, so they would be the ones excessed. The exception to this is the senior captains in Subic who did not bid to relieve excess from Subic, which throws a little wrench into the whole works...

It'll probably come down to some guy in a cubicle with one of those little green visors and an adding machine...

I hope this doesn't happen, but who knows anything at this point...this is just about the weirdest time I've seen at this company since '98...

 

Very insightful and possible. The main purpose (assumption !) for not allowing an excess in an FDA to occur related to the cost of moving the excessed FDA pilots CONUS and the costs involved, however now we are talking about awards that have not trained yet, which is cheaper ? canceling an award or paying passover ? We know the answer. Of course it opens up Pandora's box on the use of canceling awards to meet their needs but not much has stopped them to date !

Once again, HKG bidder beware.

 

4 new MD-11 Capts in ANC, 2 in LAX and a bazzillion in MEM? Is this because if the excessed dude (10 or 27 Capt) doesn't have anything in his standing bid, he gets MD-11 Capt in Memphis? That's the default?

 

Can they increase the size of the FDA without offering a bid based on the increase? Can they increase the size of the FDA after previous bids for that FDA were were awarded?

 

Oh, I think they can...even it it's just a "temporary" increase...

Think about it. If you are excessed, don't you increase the size of the base you go to? Even though there are no vacancies there? The only restriction on a FDA is that an excess can't be created.

Unique situation right now because so few of the HKG pilots are actually activated or in training.

 

The default if no other bid options are entered for an excess is essentially the Company's choice that will pay the same rate or as high as possible based on seniority.

There are about 4 DC10 CA's "excessed" into the 727CA , these guys must have bid DC10 CA #1 and 727CA # 2, they show as excessed into the 727, which is most likely the case. If they only bid DC10 CA then they are assigned a WB CA slot in the MD or A300 the best I can ascertain.

b. If an excessed pilot cannot be awarded a crew position due
to insufficient preferences on his standing bid, the Company
shall assign him to a permanent crew position with a base
in the United States with the highest pay rate to which he is
entitled by his seniority.