i know a junior Omni FA and she was indeed furloughed yesterday.

 

Any way you look at it, it is still a net loss of airplanes in the fleet at Omni...short term or not. That means fewer bodies required to operate that smaller fleet...right?

Again, I'm not in any way endorsing the furlough...quite the opposite, actually, since I have been on the receiving end of one of those phone calls or letters, etc from the Chief Pilot. I'm sure, many of you have experienced the same thing.

I do sincerely hope that anyone affected by this is recalled at the earliest opportunity...pilots, fe's, fa's, mx, etc.

 

Anything I say at this point is going to be a guess, but the company chatter is that we're still very understaffed on the 767/777. Like dc10pilot mentioned, I hope the other fleets can absorb the reduced -10 positions. Attrition remains high, especially after a so-so contract was passed and now this news.

Even if nobody gets furloughed, I think a lot of us just saw our quick upgrades go out the window. Obviously a less important consideration than keeping people off the street, but still something a lot of us are looking at.

 

The new contract furloughs and displacements are by seniority only, as opposed to previous practices. There are human resource numbers being tossed around, but what the actual pilot furlough count (if any) is unknown at this point. They are parking the -10's. Not all, just three this month. I do not know how many flying -10's this will leave us with (guessing 2 or 3), but the trend is not a secret by any means. Engineers will be on the street via seniority if they do not possess the requirements to sit in the right seat of other company equipment. Those that have the requirements will maintain their hire date and pilot seniority accordingly. A standing bid will be held within the next week ultimately determining who goes where. As it should be, the most junior pilots will be furloughed strictly by seniority. Anything else will be unacceptable. Like with any other downsizing, pilots will change seats and pilots will be laid off. Like previously stated, how many pilots will hit the street is unknown right now. It could be zero as attrition is still high. Three months from now, we'll know the exact numbers.

The work group that are being hit the hardest at the moment are the flight attendants. With the recent voting in of AFA, Omni leadership/ownership attempted to flood the vote count with new hire FA's in an attempt to keep AFA off property, but Omni leadership and ownership failed in that feat with little resistance. I have heard that they will be knocking off the bottom 40 FA's in DFW immediatley. We currently have FA bases in ATL, DFW, LAS and BWI. BWI will be closing. Reductions, but not elimination, are coming to the LAS base. The FA's in BWI and LAS have been given an ultimatium to transfer to DFW by the middle of the month or if they refuse to do so, then their refusal will be accepted as a resignation only (cuts down on un-employment cost for firing people). Basically Omni is knocking off the top, since LAS and BWI are senior FA bases, to keep the Jr. FA's. When the dust settles we'll know for sure those FA's that are affected.

With the less than ideal Omni/Pilot CBA and the age 65 rule on the immediate horizon, I don't expect any furloughed pilot to be street side that long if at all. Attrition is still high here. Engineers in airplanes are just a casualty of technology. FO's and CA's will be one day too. Omni is a privately held operation that has the ability to keep their cards close to their chest and answer only to themselves. This ability and their ego may make or break them at this juncture. Time will tell.

 

Good luck to all the folks at Omni...I really do wish you the best.

I have recently met several great guys that have come to Atlas from Omni...I'm sure rest are just trying to do the same as we do at Atlas, and that is to try and do the best we can for our families.

Again, good luck.

 

There will also be several street captains displaced to the right seat by this. Many of those capt's are retired legacy pilots that took early outs and only came here to be a capt, and will not be sticking around real long if displaced as the climb back to the left seat may take a while.

 

How many pilots ended up furloughed? I heard a few junior FOs on the 777 fleet were also furloughed. Hope they can get on with Emirates or Qatar with their 777 ratings...

 

There have been no pilots furloughed. Yet.

 

I believe that over half the seniority list was displaced, which means the junior guys are going to the 767 off the 777.

 

Several? I read like 30+