I'll second Busboy's comments. When our own "union" reps start feeding us the regurgitated company lkoolaid, you know we're about ready to get kicked in the teeth again!

How about 50 and 84, or 51/83, maybe 51.5/82.5..Do you get where Im going? The contract sets a plausible benchmark in which we will operate such as the 48/60 rule. We could argue why not 49/59 or 48/61 till the cows come home. However, the broader goal of this stipulation is that we all take a hit before we let any man go. That is a good thing. Now, as I stated since we are in an economic slow period I would prefer that we dont bang the equality drum as hard and focus more on what is and more importantly what is not profitable. There does come a point (Im a junior non military, no side business guy) where you have to furlough, again this 48/60 rule is a good blunt instrument that addresses that concern. Now if the company can show that a particular fleet is not generating the revenue, all else being equal than yes I would say this aircraft group is going to have less BLG associated with it than another aircraft group. I look at the BLG difference not so much as an attack on a particular pilot group but addressing where we get our most bang for the buck from AC profitability. As I read the email, there would still be no furloughs no drop below the 48/60 just a difference in BLG between the AC groups.

Everybody is worried about euthansia, its the youth in America I worry about!

Is LK the new sick monitor?

Not me. I think we are still making money. I think we signed a contract that limited how much we can make in good times and limits how little we make it bad times. In January the DC-10 goes away (AKA generates zero revenue). Some DC-10 guys don't have class till July (darn seniority), with your logic they should be paid zero and not call it a furlough.

FDXLAG is correct. We, as a pilot group, are not responsible for pilot hiring, manning, or furloughing. Regardless of what we do to ourselves, when the time comes the company will furlough.

That being said, we should expect and demand that the company abide by the terms of the contract. 68/85. When they think they can run an airline at 48/60, then we talk about mitigation. Good times or bad, management should fly the contract just like us.

Right or wrong, the easiest place for management to find money is from its people. UAL, AMR, DAL, NWA has proved this over and over. Lets not let FDX do the same thing.

Productivity changes now will persist into fatter times as you put it. Optimizer gains will never go away. Let the company man the MD11 for a higher BLG and the Boeing lower and they will just be slow to upgrade for a long time.

The optimizer has been cranking away even with BLG buyup going on. Ever wonder why? Because with BLGs low disputed pairings get flown. This is the perfect time to crank it up without us pushing back.

The company now has to buy up lines as the optimzer extracts more productivity out of us.

Talk to us again about different BLGs when the optimizer is turned down.

Aint never going to happen :eek:

When the company stops making money (they still are not just as much as they would like) that is when you offer plans to mitigate the losses - until then they can live by the contract just like we are required to do!

You said it better than I did.

Hey, gas is up, food is up, and my margins at home just aren't what they used to be. I need some relief from the provisions we negotiated by contract. I thought they would only apply when I was saving a lot of money at home. Now that I'm not, the company either has to pay me more per hour, or not make me have to show up to work every day that I am supposed to so that I can go work that other job.

As they told me when they wouldn't cater a sequence that routinely didn't operate as published,......that's not in the contract.

I thought we gave each other our word, looked each other in the eye, and promised, come hell or high water, we'd abide by it. Least that's what John Wayne taught me.....maybe that's why they say in training, "We don't 'John Wayne' it around here."

:D