Wildmanny

Well, now we have 1 more volunteer...only 15 more practice bids to go, assuming this number holds.

SIBA? Anyone?

WM

Winston Smith

For junior FedEx guys in the Far East and in Paris...is it worth it?

This is an anonymous forum. Give it to us straight!

2cylinderdriver

Could be perceived Furlough Protection since the new vol is the caboose ! (or close enough)

HazCan

I thought we had a pact to bid this??! Where is your name?

skypine27

It was in Subic, yes (as both a CA and FO).

In HKG, NO, it is not worth it as an FO (financially or otherwise). However, as junior captain (we have HKG captains with barely over 3 years senority, but hey "it will go senior"), then I do belive it is worth it.

My opinion anyway.

FR8Hauler

How is it furlough protection? If there is a furlough it will not matter if you are in HKG or MEM. If you bid this to avoid furlough you are in for a rude awakening unless they furlough people out of senority which I would seriously doubt. You will just get a better move package back to your home of record. Stop talking about furloughs anyway. Fred and everyone else has come out and said that it is like last on the steps that will ever be taken. Of course I may be wrong...We will all suffer if that ever happens including me. The sky is not falling we will get through this, do your best for the company and demand that you get your fair share for your contributions.

Overnitefr8

Have any of you thought that just maybe, these two never heard about the previous 4 or 5 bids?

2cylinderdriver

I should have put one of these at the end of my sentence. If the Company was to start hitting HKG FO's immediately in the event of a Furlough, they may not do it at all.

Like others have said, I would guess we will see a cost savings attack after the New Year to delay or prevent the Furlough that will mysteriously last until the DC10 guys have gone to training. Someone royally messed up the process in closing SFS and parking the 10's. Do you think they are happy about the number of guys not even due to attend training until Fall 09 ? The prospect of paying guys to sit home for months is just one of many driving factors behind the threats of BLG cuts.

The main question will be, is it OK for the Company to stand behind all the mistakes they made and let the pilots pay for it again ? We are still on pace to make over a Billion net profit for the year. Can they afford to pay the BLG "buy up" quoted by BoyCaptain of 1 million a month ? No one is making them build lines below 68/85 BTW, do not build lines with buy up and take what you get with reserve utilization. When they get to 10 million a month, maybe we can talk ! Let the bean counters go after the Executive Management for the money, leave us alone and pay us our guarantee.

Gunter

Too many guys on reserve is a safety issue. The company wants pilots to fly.

Gunter

I think much of what has been happening to the DC10 fleet was on purpose and for a reason--

When freight volumes kept going up decisions were made to wait on DC10 conversion. The company had good utilization on them and didn't want to temporarily increase costs by contracting out during the conversion. O.K., I bought that back when it was said.

But now volumes have fallen and DC10 conversion was pushed up because the volume can be absorbed by the MD11 and Airbus. It's not a mystery that while this is happening, some folks will sit on their butt a while. This is not really a new and bonafide reason to ask for BLG cuts.

I consider it, and think management does too, a sunk cost that was calculated some time ago.



What I'm trying to say is they are doing this to us on purpose. They could have done this during an expanding fleet/growith/pilot hiring environment that would have easily absorbed the extra crewmembers during a 3 to 2 man conversion. But it was declared cheaper, better, easier or whatever to wait until overmanning would be created by the process.

BTW, my sources tell me the DC10 fleet may stick around a while longer...