It's gotten better for sure, but I don't know how much of that is because he's gone, or that we now have a contract that is much better to work under than when he was here. Also, many of the same people are here that led to the pattern of disrespect and poor relations between the pilots and management, but even that is better without him. So do we miss him? In short, NO!

He's like a used car salesman in a nice suit. Believe me, if it's not knotted up tight with no wiggle room, he'll find a way to exploit it and abuse it. As an example, I have heard, and someone eluded to, in your TA, if you are on long call reserve your minimum daily guarantee won't apply. Our experience with him is, he'll have all of your crews on long call, except one on short call, and rotate which crew that is day to day, assuring no one racks up any credit for their time in hotels. I fear you'll spend the rest of your month chasing guarantee, lucky to get over it. That's just how he operates.

At Ryan, because of things that happened to us in our first contract, under Crippen, we refused to accept any contract that didn't assign value to every single day, in one way or another. Nothing for us is free, or allows them to keep us out without crediting us for it. Travel days, 24 in 7's, training days, and of course trips and reserve days (long or short), every day has a value. It's extremely rare to come in under guarantee, and not uncommon to be 20-30 hours over it. It's the daily guarantee that assures that, not necessarily a lot of flying. A 1 for 2 duty rig, 4.5 hour minimum daily credit for every day, premium pay for all flying outside your line, fewer max days on, and seniority protection, all things that were absolute necessitates for our current contract, regardless of how long it was going to take to get it.

So, whether you guys decide this TA is best for you, or you decide to send it back and try again, I wish you nothing but the best going forward, and hope this info is helpful in making your decision.

 

Your Boss that came from Ryan, he was an accountant in a previous life. He knows money.

Try to connect with some Ryan pilots who worked at Ryan under their first contract from 2000-2004, or even before then. Ask them about your boss and the promises made during company road shows about how “we won’t really enforce that” or “don’t worry”.

Without specific language with the words like will or must, he has all the wiggle room he needs.

120 mile gateways. How is that defined? By point to point mileage using an internet mapping site, or drawing a circle around your house. Draw a 120 statute mile circle around Queens, New York. Now you can fly out of LaGuardia, and then fly back into Philly, Newark, Newburgh, Hartford, JFK, Islip and find your way back to LaGuardia?

How many airports within 120 miles of Long Beach? What is the defined minimum level of service from a Gateway airport. One turboprop flight a day?

Taking a bid block of say 28 days. Do you have minimum and maximum number of blocks of days on and off?

So you have this:

10 on / 10 off / 8 on
9 on / 10 off / 9 on
6 on / 3off / 6 on / 3 off / 6 on / 4off

The first two lines go senior, and go over guarantee. The third line sits in Bangor doing inside domestic turns and never breaks guarantee. If you don’t have min max block protection, you will see it.

How is your flying assigned? Is it built into the lines, or are your lines all reserve? If there is no base, how is flying assigned, to company favorites, or Hi time Low time? Hard to get that pay raise to work if you don’t go over guarantee while other guys are killing it.

What is your furlough protection? By straight seniority? By seat? By equipment type? Does the 5 year DC10 FO get the axe before the newhire 777 Captain?

 

When is the vote on the TA?

 

Vote scheduled from Aug 31 - Sept 21.

 

Thanks

 

Are there any former AE or corporate guys over there that would be willing to take the time to PM me so I can ask a couple questions privately?

Thanks,

ETP

 

Hey Eric. Your post have made it to our union website. Thank you for saying what you did. I agree, we need to build off of each other. Omni being a bottom barrel operation with the greatest profits of all competitors combined, needs to lead the way. The practice of bending over a dollar to pick up a penny, that we all see, needs to end!!! Our personal time is important and every aspect of our personal time needs to be compensated....PERIOD!!! Hopefully by the end of the month the Omni pilot group will see what is possible and vote accordingly. Again, Thank you for your insight.

 

Agreed.

I hope everyone makes an effort to look over our peers' contracts (many of which are posted on the 1224 website); our TA is still lagging in many ways. First contract or not, we should not be this far behind.

10 more days...wish this thing would just wrap up already!

 

It's going to be a long 10 days.

 

"bottom barrel operation with the greatest profits of all competitors combined"? Seriously? Wow, you should be in a great position for a good contract......if you could substantiate that claim. Good luck