FDX - Post Peak Vacancy Bid?
 

Any intel/rumors on a post peak vacancy bid?

...especially in the 757....??

Looking at the current training letters:

- 757 Capt training runs out in Apr
- 757 FO training runs out in May...and the fleet is still growing!

- MD11 training is a trickle in Jan, Feb & Mar

- A300 is mostly lateral training after Feb

- Looks like 777 is the only "fat letter" and doesn't run out until May 2011

Given the recent pickup in international and domestic volumes, and what appears/is rumored to be at least a small increase in retirements, will the company really have the right balance of pilots come springtime??

My hunch is there could easily be a 757 bid for 35-60 slots in Jan or Feb --- especially in the FO seat --- which would fill out the training letter until Oct or Nov 2010.

Could such a bid even allow some ANC MD-11 Nugget FOs, currently headed to the back of the Boeing, stay in ANC a little longer waiting for a 757 training slot in the summer or fall?

Such a scenario may actually be advantageous to the company with regards to current undermanning in ANC FOs and future overmanning in the 727 SO seat.

Any 757 Flex's/LCAs care to chime in?

Discuss.

Everything you've said makes perfect sense . . . . .

In other words it will never happen. ;)

I recently asked a school-house instructor about the MD-11 training. This was his response:

Out of students in March
F/O Instructors will be Flexing the Line "much more"
Captain Instructors will still be "teaching" [read checkride qualified]

No hint of a vacancy bid, FWIW.

>>- Looks like 777 is the only "fat letter" and doesn't run out until May 2011<<

Well, if that's "fat" then the 72SO letter is morbidly obese.

Not that it means anything, but I have heard that there will be "absolutely no vacancy bids for at least a year. "

That sounds like the only believable rumor out there. I wish it were otherwise.

I could see a 75 bid, but that's about it.

I agree --- and with the 757 fleet growing in 2010 does it make more sense to have that morbidity in the back of the Boeing or put some more meat on the 757 training letter?

I'd think the latter.

Hopefully common/financial sense prevails and they lead turn their need for more 757 pilots...I think they can avoid putting guys thru 2 training cycles within 1 year.

I agree with DLax that the vacancy bid makes sense. Especially since the MEM 757 is not being 4A2b'd in the same fashion as the rest of the fleet. Those folks are already flying A LOT and with a growing fleet and more airplanes to fly they are going to have to put more bodies there. I mean unless the company finds a way to put 40 days per month on a calendar.

I think the bid is coming... and sooner rather than later.

We have to figure out what would cause a vacancy.

How many retirements? How many 757s coming? Will freight fall off after peak or stay up?

If the 757 keeps taking Airbus cities then the lateral moves will continue. More than a few 727 CAs and widebody FOs have to upgrade to create secondaries for 727 FOs and SOs to fill.

I see a vacancy for ANC. They draft too much and the MEM bidpack is nearing normal line averages. They may eventually want to stop building ANC HSBYs for MEM based crews. But see question #3.

The new flight time/duty times rules, whenever they come out, will come into play on manning.

The switch to Flag, whenever that happens, will come into play on manning.

The 2012 olympics and the great economic expansion of 2013 will also help.

this is the critical question

if the freight falls off, and we go back to being "overmanned" like the company insists that we are.....and we keep getting more 757s to replace the Airbuses..

possibly a vacancy bid to fill 757 seats and at the same time an excess on the Bus due to the company getting rid of the Bus's that the 757s are replacing???

It depends on the arbitrator.

The real question here is what are the company's planned block hours for the next year? That's the heart of manning requirements. They keep those numbers close to the vest. I suspect that sometime in Jan-Feb, they will review this year's peak and other numbers, come up with a working 2010 plan, and go from there on bids. 777 and 757 bids with no secondaries don't hurt their 4.a.2.b case in their opinion so those should be no brainers-they basically said so in the last bid.

Looking at their press releases and other talk, they seem pretty convinced that the 777 will allow them to overfly ANC quite a bit. We'll see if that's true or not, but I don't see them adding to ANC until they've had a chance to test their theory.

That's going to be interesting. The 727 is in a state of excess and will be until it goes away. It has been for years, it's just more noticeable now with no upward and plenty of backward movement. I think the company operating fleet thing says they're only using about 45-50 of them right now. Will the company fill secondaries in the front seats when those people move out, or will they just let the line averages in the front seats increase in an attempt to minimize 727 training costs by making S/O's wait until they can hold something else? While nothing is perfect and I'm sure they will have to fill some secondaries over time, without a big uptick in the economy it seems likely forcing their hand, why wouldn't they do this?

In fact if things don't get better for a long time, I could see a situation where the company is actually hiring into the 757 right seat with S/O's still stuck in the back of the Deuce. Since we have no control over when they company trains an award, they could excess the whole 727 a long time before it goes away for good and then subsequently post a 757 vacancy bid. The S/O's would likely hold a 757 right seat bid with a training date beyond what a newhires would have on the plane, getting POP(yes, again!) Unless the economy forces their hand, they're going to shut that plane down as economically as possible, they've already shown that.

OR and PC have been mums the word on pretty much everything lately bc of peak. However I expect one or both of them will give us another 'loveline' after peak giving us their vision of the 'horrors' before us. It shouldn't be long before we have some new stuff to speculate on. :)

Can the company hire directly into the 757 FO seat without first having a vacancy bid in which all the slots go unfilled?

The Purple Nuggets in ANC were hired directly because there were approximately 68 vacant FO seats in ANC after the big Mar 2006 Vacancy Bid.

And you are right, if the Company did direct hire into the 757 FO seat without first offering it to all the 727 SOs on property, it would be Passover Pay for all (250+) once the first direct hire checked out in the seat.

Given that internal training costs appear to mean little to the company and their current aversion to inverted seniority/seat lists and passover pay, I can't believe that makes any sense.

No, that's why the scenario I proposed included a vacancy bid. For simplicity sake, let's just say the list looks like it will after all of the excess training in completed in 2010. If the company were to excess the entire 727 without announcing a furlough or vacancy bid, the pilots in all three seats who couldn't hold anything else would be awarded the highest paying seat in the US(can't be excessed to an FDA). For the SO's and many of the FO's, the highest paying seat would be 757FO. That would be awarded along with training dates(probably false). The company then would post an additional 757 FO vacancy bid that would obviously go unfilled creating a need for newhires. After the excess bid closes, all positions on the 727 cease to exist as far as vacancy bidding is concerned. The training dates for the 727's guys get pushed back so that the company can keep enough people around to closeout the plane, the newhires cover the additional 757 flying and provide training float as the 727 guys train over.

I heard from one of the cmv classes, we are going to park some 40 Airbuses after the first. Also, the move to flag is supposed to start January 1st. The flag movement should make the 11's lines a little better for international crew rest, and an increase in crew member requirements.

I would assume the 75 will have some sort of bid next year, since it is getting 1.5 airplanes a month, pretty much indefinately.

I heard another grumbling from a flex guy, stating the 4a2b has a lot to do with all of the 10 guys sitting around getting paid to do nothing...

All hearsay, I won't believe any of it, until a bid closes, and guys start training.:cool:

I'm sure it's more than 10 guys, ha ha

At a recent hubturn meeting, Capt "O" said we were parking all of the A310's except for the several A310-300's ...

The union recently settled the DC-10 vacation grievance. I found it rather interesting ... who would have guessed?

I'm not a conspiracy type, but this is from posting 09-06's FCIF:

"Future Bids
We anticipate a Spring/Summer 2010 posting to address pilot attrition through retirement along with additional positions required for B777F and B757 aircraft deliveries."

I don't know, but I would anticipate a bid in the spring or summer.

As an aside, I know that we brought a 727 out of storage two weeks ago for peak. Don't know how long we'll keep it, but that has got to be some kind of good news.

Stop being the "glass is half-full guy," I want to be depressed. After all it is the Holiday Season you know:D.