MaydayMark

Silly Busboy,

I think you are missing something ... We "traded" 757 narrowbody pay for our REALLY BIG A380 pay (for DW & BC). Why would the company give us widebody pay for all aircraft? Enquiring minds want to know.

RedeyeAV8r

Well that will be fine if we are in Section 6 negotiations.

Absent that why fight for a Payrate for an aircraft that hasn't even showed up yet, ALA the A-380.

Our guys did did a pretty good job last time getting the A-380 rate.

A lot of good that did us.

DLax85

Unless we negotiate the 767 rates & pay rules in advance under Section 6.

....isn't that what we did with the 757/737 rates ? --- both (disappointingly) paying narrowbody.

Hopefully we can learn from our mistakes.

(Side topic: Is this one reason we should strive for shorter 2-3 year contract lengths vs more typically 5 yr contracts?)

MaydayMark

I would vote for a 10 year CBA if it was a good contract. Wouldn't you?

DLax85

Are we assuming everything else in the world is static in those 10 years?

...the economy, our industry, our system form, national tax policies, healthcare, etc...??

I can see advantages/disadvantages and risks/rewards to both short term and long term contracts.

Give me perfect information and I will give you a perfect answer!

RedeyeAV8r

I believe I previously stated IMHO it is not a Good idea to negotiate a Pay rate for an A/C that is not yet on Property as we did with the A380 (in section 6 or not). But to be fair to our then Negotiating Committee, FedEx did have Firm orders for the A380 so at the time it did seem a prudent thing. With 20/20 hind sight, we all think it was a mistake. If we actually took delivery of the A380, I doubt people would be complaining now, except the ones who couldn't hold it seniority wise. BTW I think the 757 should pay more than the 727. I have always felt each aircraft should pay based on revenue capability (Gross weight) but I am just one in 4600.

To your question: Historically, for most of my time as an Airline Pilot, the Typical Airline contract was 2-4 years with 3 being the norm. There were several reasons for this. The first being that under the RLA, negotiations usually took 2-3 years after the amendable date,
so Pilots ended up living under the deal for 5-6 years. Using Time value of money, pilots lost a $$ due to inflation.
With a 5 year deal Pilots could expect to live under it for 7-8 (unless you are at American where they are in their 7th year of negotiations). Of course it took FDX pilots 7 years to get their first contract. (actually it took much longer than that but it took 7 years from when ALPA 1 was voted in).

In the early 90's SWAPA negotiated a 10 year deal I believe at the time this was a first, but do not quote me on that. Prior to this time and during most of the 90's SW pilots lagged industry standard in pay and benefits. It took them many years and a help from a few great contracts from UAL, Delta, NW and even USair for them to negotiate with their management to get what a Pilot is worth. They finally got there and now are at the top of the Narrow body Pay in the PAX industry, of course this partially due to many of the top tier contracts being destroyed due to Bankruptcy. Please do not interpret this as SW bashing. FedEx Pilots were at the bottom half of the Ladder for many years too. . ....Life as a Blue Collar worker in Corporate America.

Another reason for a 2-3 year deal was this allowed other Airline Groups to negotiate their deals and Surpass yours, so you now had a new target to open Section 6 with. This worked very well for many years, of course that when the economy had long periods of sustained growth. Not so much lately.
With todays uncertainty 5 year deals seem more prudent, especially when you are at the top of the food chain.

Our current deal is unique (good or bad), it is unique to how things were previously done in the industry. Our previous contract was Amendable last October (2010) ALPA got a TA before we reached the amendable date.
According to the videos on the Website, negotiations have been ongoing since we ratified this deal last year. It will be interesting to see how this "To Enter or Not enter" Section 6 vote turns out.

Gunter

Getting rid of the narrowbody rate would prevent numerous potential schemes to optimize us.

Adlerdriver

Then shouldn't the 777 pay more than the MD-11 which should pay more than the MD-10, followed by the A300? What you suggest is logical and many airlines do it that way. Fedex never has, so you're talking about a pretty big deviation from the norm (and you know how well we seem to do with that).

We'd probably have better luck introducing a revenue capability pay scale than we would just getting them to throw WB pay at everyone.

The guys in the left seat of the 777 who want 5 stripes and stiff our own guys on the jumpseat would never stand for it anyway.

MaydayMark

Many years ago when PanAm got the very first 747's, the Captains wanted Admiral stripes (2 inch wide?) ... no kidding

RedeyeAV8r

Yes in my Opinion the 777 should pay more than the MD-10.
I believe I previously stated that.

ALPA attempted a to get a higher 777 rate in Section 26 K arbitration. We LOST.

As for the guys who want 5 stripes? every airline has their 1 %.
The good news is that approx 60% of the current 777 Captains will retire in the next 2 years.

"That'll move the Chains"