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Could the extra secondary awards stem from the company's desire to allow as many lateral/down bids as possible to force a lock? We all know that this is not the last excess bid for the next 24 to 36 months. Anyone who gets locked in this vacancy would not be able to bid to relieve on any future excess. This would allow the company to control more seats on future excess bids placing pilots where they want/need them.

 

great points - not a rant, just stating the facts (ugly that they are)

thank you. that's what I thought.

most people (on APC) are using the term "just culture" in the wrong context, not understanding what they are talking about when they say "not a 'just culture' approach"

definitely, "rotten culture" would apply here at FedEx - I'll use that term

 

not sure that's correct - see CBA 24.E.1.c.i.

 

I understand the concept of the seniority drill for the vacancy bid but what I fail to see the point of is the creation of secondary vacancies (unless you need the manning) which are in no way contractual or even needed to honor seniority. If someone wants to hold the MD then they can snag it if excessed/bidding to relieve assuming their seniority allows. If they wanted the Md(or any airplane) before then they should have bid it during the last vacancy posting in which it had vacancies.

My point is simply that secondaries are normally created when a manning shortage exists due to moves on a bid. The company has every opportunity to solve a huge chunk of the excess on the MD (if there is one) by simply not filling secondaries. Contractually valid & much cheaper!

 

FLt Ops Managment (or lack thereof), has limited (if any) horizontal integration across organizational segments/cost centers. The express segment continues to meet their performance metrics from corporate despite this, so there is no impetus for them to change. Stuck in their insular paradigms, with a "not invented here" attitude to any external recommendations.

i.e. Scheduling has a metric for Reserve utilization, so they put guys in hotel stby, thus showing utilization, but total disregard for hotel, perdiem, GT costs -someone else's cost center. So a metric was manipulated to "look" better- manager met his benchmarks, but costs were incurred outside his sector but with no operational efficiencies gained. He "looks" good meeting his metric, but who cares if he increased someone else's costs- no horizontal integration.

I discussed this training issue with the 727 training lead (wenk-wink?) in 2010 after being excessed off the ANC11F seat. He insisted training was "free", a fixed cost. I asked him what cost center paid for my $4500 rental car, my $2800 hotel bill, and 10 weeks of per diem, which cost center was paying the pilot who was flying my trips while I was in training, which budget paid for the spare part and technician to fix the sim on a sunday, and the operating cost per hour (# hours) above the standard training load hours due to the huge influx of training due to the excess (above recurrent & new hires on 727). Well over $10k for just one pilot multiplied by hundreds of pilots due to the multiple trickle down bumping effect of the massive excesses.

As suspected he had nothing but the trout look, and repeated the talking point as if it was true, like a politician when called out for his intellectual dishonesty.

Never expected him to change it himself- just chapped me that they parrot that line of BS. I'd prefer them to say, "our masters have decided to do this, and it is my job to carry it out".

I think we all feel the mindset-"Don't p*ss on us & tell us it's raining!"

 

My guess is that this training letter will be so long that many that are given secondaries on planes that are going to be excessed in the near future won't make it to training on those planes anyway. Still doesn't make sense, but the training cost won't be incurred anyway. Who knows, maybe they are showing secondaries on the practice bids but on the final they aren't going to actually fill them.

 

They chose to fill the secondaries and I am sure they have thought out the fill secondaries and excess process. Seat locks, bid to relieve reduction, FEPP reduction are all in the mix.

 

If they volunteered to lateral or down bid a seat lock occurs and this section would not apply. So, the way I read it, all the secondaires on the vacancy would be voluntary moves and not excess or bids to relieve and therefore would incur a seat lock. However, if these people waited till the excess bid that should be coming, you would be correct.

 

The 767 SBA bid currently underway adds to the confusion of this bid. The SBA FCIF says 767 pilots not awarded the SBA (round dial 767) bid will go to LDS ground school training in May, followed by supervised flying in the one and only LDS 767 in June. The ground school dates will be bid on as part of the normal May line bid.
So what happens to a current 757 guy who is awarded a 767 slot in this bid? I've already got 767 on my certificate so I assume my training wouldn't be "ITU". Do I get to bid for ground school dates in May? Or do I get thrown into the training letter pool? Or do I get shuffled three months down the calendar, added to the WB pay scale, and bid for ground school some time after May?