Aaron,

My gripe is not with seniority, but with the bump and flush effect of an Excess Posting followed by a Vacancy Posting. It's what happened when Jack Lewis allowed his Second Officer buddies to proceed direct to any seat in the airline, and it's what will happen with this A300 excess. The gripe is not about seniority, per se, but about how we normally exercise it in Vacancy bidding.

When you bid on a vacancy in a particular seat, your seniority goes up against all the people who bid on that same seat, NOT the people who are already in it. The most junior people who are already in that seat are not at risk of being bumped out the bottom.

For example, let's say you're an MD-11 FO in Memphis with a 2800-ish seniority number. Now let's say The Company decides one day to post 20 vacancies in the right seat of the Airbus in Memphis, and you decide it's time to go to school to learn something new. The Seniority List Summary currently shows the seniority of the most junior MEM A300 FO is 4207 -- you're way senior to him.

In the Bid, how does your seniority play out? Let's say that 40 pilots bid MEM A300 FO, and 30 of them are senior to you. In a Vacancy Posting, only the top 20, the most senior of the pool of pilots bidding for the vacant seat, would be awarded MEM A300 FO. Even though there are roughly 230 pilots junior to you currently in the seat, you would not be awarded the seat.

In a bump and flush, you would be awarded the seat, and the most 20 junior pilots currently would be "flushed" from the bottom of the list and forced to go somewhere else.

Let's say The Company decided to Excess all the MEM A300 FO seats, so nobody held the award, and then had a Vacancy Posting back to the same seat. Now those 230 former A300 FOs would be competing with you to get their seat back, and they would lose. You'd get the seat, and they'd be forced to go somewhere else.

That's what happened when the Over-60 guys were given their very own Excess Posting. They got to pick the seat they were going to, and if that meant there would be too many people in their new seats, the -1 on the posting made sure the most junior people in those seats got flushed from the bottom and they were forced to go somewhere else.

That process, in my opinion, was what made the Regulated Age change experience for us at FedEx so horribly distasteful. Had the Over-60 pilots been allowed to exercise their seniority in Vacancy Bids, it would have slowed other peoples' progression, but we wouldn't have had the mass of people actually pushed backwards like we did.

The Hong Kong A300 Excess followed by Hong B767 Vacancy is very similar, in that it evicts every one from their homes in Hong Kong, and forces them to compete to get back to their homes. It's not exactly the same, as it's a different airplane, but the effect on their families, the disruption to their lives, is just as real. They can't even bid HKG B767 on this excess posting because that seat does not yet exist.

If the Vacancy Posting and the Excess Posting were combined, or even if they were done in the opposite order with overlap, I believe it would have been less disruptive, and not just to the Hong Kong guys. If a senior Hong Kong Captain bids Anchorage Captain (in the Excess Posting), that will add to the number of Anchorage Captains who are already being excessed. (4 did so on the first practice bid.) If that same Captain intends to bid HKG B767 on the ensuing Vacancy Posting, that will leave an extra hole in the Anchorage Captain seat, a hole created by a junior guy being forced off the bottom of the list, and a hole that same junior guy will likely not be able to hold when someone senior to him who hasn't been there bids against him. That Senior MD-11 FO in LAX who decides it's time to work on his "High 5" could not have displaced the junior ANC Captain in a Vacancy Bid, but because he was the victim of an Excess bid, he gets the seat and the junior Former ANC Captain gets left out in the cold.


Apart from some sort of preference in bidding for guys already in an FDA bidding to the new seat in the same FDA, I don't know any way to prevent the junior guys being treated to an unwanted family adventure half-way around the world. Even though such a provision might also prolong FEPP or even trigger new FEPP, I doubt the idea would receive enough pilot support to make it worth pursuing, and I doubt The Company would be interested. So, it's just what it is -- the junior guys in Hong Kong and even in Anchorage are about to get a kick in the sac.






.

Mini FEPP will still be available for a few who bid Cologne Capt. on this excess

Yes. They want PBS. But they admit the computer can't handle an excess bid and a vacancy bid in one round. So we have this mess to deal with.

Anyone else need more proof?

Agree with your points. All I can add is the law of unintended consequences is a *****. Watching guys get whacked out of their seat, especially those senior to you, might elicit more sympathy or a quest for solutions…IF the company ever negotiated in good faith and IF so many guys hadn't taken a face shot on those horrible previous displacement bids. In this environment I don't see a guy who (as you pointed out) got locked out of a high 5 or missed up an upgrade passing on the 767 in HKG to let a guy 10 years junior keep his Discovery Bay lifestyle.

The big change I've seen here in 2008 is in days past once you got a seat it seemed to be yours…even if you were stuck at the bottom for a long, long time. Now…bottom 30 pilots on any seat are subject to getting bumped and flushed now and then. As a guy a little more than 100 numbers for MD11 captain, it does give me pause. I'd love to upgrade on the same jet I've flown for 6 years, and really enjoy flying. However, an upgrade on the 757 (or 767) at some point means I probably at least don't have to go to training (except for differences) in the future. Nobody wants to go to training, only to go BACK to training not long after for a new seat/jet. Whether its the reality of a changing airline or a more aggressive use of displacement bids, it does put a larger premium on seniority than perhaps we had in the past. And trying to fix that now--in this environment--would likely punish many of the same pilots who were hurt in the 08/09 displacement bids. I think we mark this up to "its just the system" and let it work. But if you are the bottom of any list you need to know the rules and the risks...

Exactly what he said times a million!

Agree! Not only that, they (he) lied to the crew force. They've done vacancy and excess bids in the past. Don't bs us and tell us it's a computer issue. For God's sake, I can create an Excel spreadsheet and execute this excess/vacancy. Every airline can handle a bid like this. Worse, what does it say about a leader or company when they knowingly lie to their team members? I'd have a lot more respect for them had they said, "This is about ending FEPP and it's a business decision." But no, they took the coward route. This company was built on a dream, a crazy idea at the time, and good ole American ingenuity; not lies and bs.

This! They fail to see the error of their ways. I recently had a 777 LCA tell me that they were not happy with senior bubbas hanging out in the FO seat when they should be upgrading. This is exactly one of the reasons why. And they fail to understand that sending mass numbers of people back through training is a huge cost and not efficient. When will they learn?

A major airline once sent their pilot force a memo stating that the company was fat by more than 1000 pilots! In an ironic twist of fate, the company said they were committed to keeping every pilot employed during the downturn and as a result they would not furlough. They didn't want to create animosity among the pilot force. Nobody believed it, but they never did furlough. Instead, keeping the extra pilots around allowed them to quickly throw bodies and heavy metal on emerging routes once the economy turned around. As a result, the company was quicker to respond to market changes and they killed the competition who had to hire folks back, complex bids, and lots of retraining.

There's a better way to run an airline, and FedEx isn't it. Trust me.

We have a way to put an enormous amount of pressure on The Company to get things fixed, but there are too many people who feel like they've been hurt and deserve a chance to make it up, and too many people who believe Discovery Bay is Disney Land for it to work. Nobody has to bid Hong Kong. Only a fool would bid a narrow body right seat, that's obvious. But if we have a B767 bid for Hong Kong and nobody shows up, The Company will finally have to listen to the Negotiating Committee and get these issues fixed.

I wish I were more confident in our resolve.



Yepp, that pretty much sums up what I was trying to say.



Tell me about it. Beginning with the excess from the DC-10 and then the Anchorage excess, and yes, you were correct, a short stint in the right seat of the bus before my actual training date to Hong Kong preceded my virtual training date (meaning no FEPP), I've seen more ITU events than a normal person would want to endure. It's not something that builds morale and cements loyalty.


We thought we knew the rules, and then they changed the way the rules were applied. Fool us once, ...






.

It just occurred to me that the "flush" process of an Excess Bid cannot occur in seats that are not declared in excess (they do not have a (-) in front of them). Everyone who is getting excessed from Hong Kong, Anchorage, and all the -1s from the other seats should just bid Cologne.

The Company will have a lot of guys who will then be awarded seats in Cologne or given Virtual Training dates and a FEPP starting point. The Company will expect many to bid Hong Kong on the ensuing FDA Vacancy Posting. So, don't. Lot's of CGN FEPP, zero volunteers to Hong Kong ... let's talk.

Pinch me, I'm dreaming.






.

New update guys, straight from PFC. The way I read this is, HKG will be 100% wide body pay. There will be no "757 HKG" crew position, only 767.

Admin Q & A

For pay purposes, will the HKG base be a B757 base or a B767 base?
There is no such thing as a B757 base or a B767 base, there is only a B757/B767 base. That's true whether we operate all B767s, all B757s or a mix of both equipment types. We are only posting B767 positions; there are currently no plans to post B757 positions in HKG.

To keep FEPP one has to keep all the corresponding seats at the same pay rate at 100% on their standing bid. So, you could bid Eur 757 captain and perhaps get FEPP, UNLESS you can already hold the 757 left seat. In that case, you must bid (and likely would be awarded) 757 domestically. Unless you are senior to the most junior CGN captain and junior to most junior MEM 757 captain, I'm not sure this would work. Contract gurus…correct me if I am wrong here. However, for a small number of guys it might work.

What I will add is that when I bid HKG I was ready to go. The idea of getting to be a WB captain during the biggest downturn in the economy since the great depression plus the (comparatively) interesting flying made it an option I could live with if I had been awarded the seat. I've already lived in Germany, and enjoyed it, but don't have an urge to go back permanently anytime soon. Most of the bid pack looks….well….unpleasant…to me. So I will not bid it. If you haven't lived in Europe before, its a wonderful experience, and the worst thing that happens if you play the FEPP game is you end up in Germany for a few years making your kids a bit more worldly while you hub turn the nights away. There are worse things…

"There is no such thing as a B757 base or a B767 base, there is only a B757/B767 base"

Hmmmm...

So what's Memphis?

Can a "B757/B767 base" have two separate seniority lists....two separate bid packs...and two separate pay rates?

Also that "currently no plans" line is always precarious ;)