FDX - training trade
 

Got a bit of a philosophical scrap going on

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1114...17536/?fref=nf

Must have been deleted.

This may or may not shed some light on one reasonable reason to block a training swap.

A few years ago I approved a training swap. For the uninformed reader, the result is someone junior to me moved to a training slot earlier than mine and someone senior to me moved to a slot after mine. I was happy with my training date and was very happy to help others swap slots.

Here is where things get interesting. Shortly after the swap the training letter disappeared for a few days and a new training letter came out with new dates. The junior pilot was still ahead of me and now all of a sudden so was the senior pilot. My training date was now delayed for one month. As I waived passover pay when I approved the swap the company had no reason to move the junior pilot behind me. The senior pilot is always going to be senior to me and so moving him ahead of me is totally copacetic (even though it wasn't what he wanted). So now that senior pilot has my old training date and I'm delayed one month. No big deal except that I now have the second to last training date before training stops for 3 months because of peak. Now I don't mind a one month delay but a four month delay... that doesn't work for a number of reasons beyond the scope of this explanation.

So pretty soon after the new training letter comes out I get an email asking for another training swap approval. Not surprisingly the senior pilot still wants a later date. He didn't want to get moved earlier but that is what the company chose to do because other names where added to the letter that probably would have generated passover pay for him.

This time I apologized but said no. He was very polite but also persistent so the discussion continued for a few days during which the company changed the training letter again moving me to the last slot before the long break. I apologized again but refused.

My only motivation was wanting to go to training +/- six weeks of my slot.

So, where do you think you'd have been on the new training letter, had you not approved their trade? One slot higher?:confused:

If I had brought an umbrella then it wouldn't have rained.

It is not a problem for me, I only go to trading when I am in the top 10 for upgrades, but the way the company games the lists I can't blame him. You only get burned once if you are smart. Want someone to blame, FDX ALPA has put up with this system for at least 20 years.

I'm more of the mind of blaming the CO. Blame ALPA if you must, but still can't see denying a fellow crew member a trade....

It's like denying a JS because it's inconvenient :(

I would like to hear any valid opinions on the possible downside of approving a trade. I for the life of me can not come up with any on my own, and feel that approving a trade is a simple no brainer solid that you ought to do for a fellow pilot.

We have no control over when we are "selected" to attend training. If you are pretty senior on the practice bid you should assume that you are going pretty quickly, but that isn't even cast in stone. The company has shown again and again that they will train in ANY order and then simply make up for it with passover pay as appropriate. My Airbus training slot change numerous times years ago, and with bids this big there is no way you are guaranteed to keep your original date, even without swaps. CargoCan could and probably would have had several date changes without the swap.

Our contract sucks in regard to ITU training. Allowing swaps is the only way to allow our fellow pilots to have the slightest control over their life once they take the initiative to bid a new seat, and I can't imagine taking that little bit of control away from them. It costs you nothing, and if the money is so important to you then go get your own swap.

Imagine if you had to get everybody's approval to do a trip trade? Same concept on a smaller scale. In my opinion swaps should be automatic (if the company approves, which they don't even always do).

Unless and until we negotiate to bid for ITU training we are just hurting ourselves by not allowing our fellow pilots to swap.

Did you read my post? I reread it to make sure it was reasonably clear.

The company can and will reshuffle the training letter at any time. They can always move someone senior back in front and in some cases will do so to prevent passover pay. Once you waive passover it is waived even if a new letter is published. Thinking that approving a swap is a zero sum transaction may or may not be true. I wasn't willing to risk losing a November slot for a February slot. Could it have happened anyway? Maybe, but I wasn't willing to be the one who made it a more likely scenario.

It had nothing to do with me going to training any sooner. It was about going to training within a reasonable time frame of when I expected to go. It was about not sabotaging myself.

If you approve a trade, you are waving passover associated with that trade. You are not waving passover from any other passover situation where the company decides to train a junior pilot in front of you. The only person giving that up is the senior pilot that is wanting to move backwards.

Aren't you just waiving passover pay for that one junior pilot going in front of you? It really shouldn't matter if they put anyone senior to you in front, should it? You weren't going to get passover pay for them anyways.

I guess I must be old school. It is in the contract. If you want to say no...........Just say No

95% to 5%... When I last requested a trade i had 36 people to ask for permission. Ironically, a non-member and a Union officer were the only 2 that blocked. They both did change their mind and eventually approve. However, they both "offered" a 3-way trade so they could take the spot I had arranged to trade for. Swell guys.

Ugh.

If a brother or sister asks for a training trade (or a jumpseat), you let them. End of story.

And we wonder why we cannot get the company to play ball.

On a different but related subject ...

When I was a brand new MD-11 f/o I would call folks asking if they'd mind if I bumped their trip (I needed the hours, they got paid to stay home ... REALLY GOOD DEAL FOR THEM!).

I was surprised how many guys refused to let me BUMP them unless they got the associated per diem!*? At first I assumed they were joking ... I'd explain again that you get paid to stay home and I get the per diem and any extra pay associated with the trip. I'd explain that they are released from ALL duty assignments during that trip period unless they request to pick up another trip (and maybe end up getting paid 200% or 250%). In the end, probably half the guys said NO? YGTBFKM!

Hello? If anybody wants to BUMP me off ANY trip at ANY TIME, it would be nice if you asked before I left home to commute to MEM, you're welcome to keep the per diem!



:eek:

Here's my story FWIW. The last time I went to training (keyword being last), I was brand new at the company and held Mem/11FO on one of those super bids. Training letter came out and I was waiting a good year before I went. I sent multiple requests to senior pilots to swap trading dates but all were denied. After about 20 training letter revisions, I was within 2 weeks of going to training. Couldn't wait to get off the back of Boeing and make some real money. WRONG.

That's when all the purple nuggets rolled into town and the company trained ALL of them before the last few that had been waiting over a year. Different domicile meant no Passover pay. Why is this significant? Because during this second delay, we got our contract. Most of the purple nuggets were up and running by then and when the TA was finalized, guess who got the wide body FO bonus? Not me. 10k gone from bonus and a good ~50+ k gone from the extra 10 months of waiting.

To throw more salt in the wounds, the company was short of mem/11F pilots, so what did they do? They transferred a junior pilot from ANC into Memphis, of which they couldn't even hold the MEM FO seat! After the grievance was settled, SOME of the affected bunch received a whopping $150 settlement from the company.

The reason I'm re-telling this story is that there is the potential for the loss/gain of serious money. It's a definite gamble. For me and my only training experience, I lost thousands of dollars. For those that didn't swap training with me, well, let's just say they most definitely made out better than I. So buyer beware because we could be in a very similar predicament regarding a possible contract and the length of these training letters.

^^I don't think that issue is relevant as far as swaps go. You should stay the same number on the training list, shouldn't you, if people swap? Yours was more a case of you would have been better off going earlier, as opposed to going later.

I'm not sure I agree with the "automatically approve any training swap date request" (although I just approved one myself).

To me it's a matter of motive. Are you asking for an earlier date to get to the line earlier just to increase your income, or do you have a need beyond a financial benefit. It would be appropriate for the requestor to explain the reason for the trade, then you can decide whether to approve it or not.

The two times I have swapped it was because the senior pilot wanted my later slot to better fit their schedule.

Some of the posts in this thread are mind blowing.

Speaking of training swaps, has anyone had one approved, yet? I put in a seemingly easy one, Captain-Captain, but no word yes or no yet from the company.

I'm going to make sure that anyone that wants me to approve their training swap, offers a 500 word explanation. And if I don't think it's justifiable, I will still go ahead an approve it, with the following caveats:

1) They both give me all international override money, and first overnight the lobster medallions from the Paris salmon meal, that they receive while I'm waiting for my training date.

2) If my training gets pushed back with a revised training letter...That each of them is responsible for finding a willing training trade partner to get me back to my original training date.:eek::rolleyes:

Busboy,

You forgot to mention that you also want their first born..... unless of course it's a girl.:rolleyes:

Nah, he's gonna enact jus primae noctis.

I like the way you think.;)