Going to 4 hours pay and credit will force them to hire more pilots. There is no doubt about that. I heard an idea the other day that maybe we could use that leverage to negotiate for a 5:15 ADTG.

Ok I'll be the ignorant a hole to ask what the specific difference is between a trip rig or min day pay and this magic ADTG? Does it allow the company to build sloppier pairings worth low credit?

We used to receive a minimum daily pay worth 4:00 regardless of whether you were on a 30+ hour overnight or not on your day off duty out of domicile, but the credit for 4 hour min day on the day off out of domicile was not applied when we bid in PBS, thus the union and company came up with ADTG. ADTG allows the company to assign 4:45 per day as an Average Daily Trip Guarantee so in essence:

1-day: 4:45
2-day: 9:30
3-day: 14:15
4-day: 19:00
5-day: 23:45

The problem with this for example is an actual trip from our January bid package, as you will see, the company maximizes you on your first and last day of the trip but doesn't have to pay you but the bare minimum to operate it:

Day 1
MSP-MOT 1:37
MOT-MSP 1:31
MSP-BZN 2:45
Credit 5:53

Day 2
Off in BZN
(Day off applied to ADTG)
(with min day you would receive 4:00)

Day 3
BZN-MSP 2:29
MSP-EWR 2:49
EWR-MSP 3:04
Credit 8:22

With ADTG this trip is worth: 14:15 (you are basically not getting paid on your day away from home, while on company time)
With Min day off 4 hours this trip is worth: 18:15

Say you have this trip on your schedule twice in one month, that's a loss of 8 hours of pay and if PBS were to include min day credit you would receive an extra day off...

Copy. That sucks.

Here is the deal my friend, several people in this thread likely know who I am and could attest to the fact that this issue has a very minimal effect on me due to my seniority and the fact that barring some unforeseen calamity my time at CPZ is rapidly winding to a close.

That being said, my advice to you is this, there are some of us who have been at CPZ for nearly the entire duration of the airlines existence. We have been through three different ownership groups and two distinctively different management teams with very different corporate goals. We actually know a thing or two about this management team's goals and modus operandi. Maybe listening to us a little bit wouldn't be a bad idea, instead of attempting to insult those who have been here a while. That isn't to say your opinion isn't valuable and important to the debate but you can do it without attempting to insult those of us who have been here a while. The current management team (I am talking upper management not Flight Ops Management) came up with ADTG, it was their idea, their proposal. Do you believe that it serves the best interest of the pilot group? There is a reason they don't like pay and credit. It creates a need for additional staffing and puts more of their money into the pockets of their pilots.

If you want to see what pairing construction looked like before ADTG just look at old bid packages. They are out there. It won't be exact with PAY/CREDIT but the company cannot afford to have every single trip at 16 hours, it would cause an great deal of additional staffing. There are only so many pilots to cover the allocated block hours from the airlines that CPZ contracts with. It is what it is. The people in pairing construction did not foresee the company's ability to manipulate the bid package so dramatically and so quickly. I have been told privately by members of Neg Comm, PBS Comm, Sched. Comm, and MEC that they did not foresee the negative effects of this. It is obvious now that it is a concession.

If you haven't figured out who I am I can tell you this, I do not intend to involve myself in this next round of debates because I don't think it would be fair. My experience at CPZ tells me that 4 hours pay/credit is a much better deal BUT that is only my opinion and I don't intend to engage in the debate any further. The pilots who will fly under these next rules should be the ones to decide what system they want to operate under. That being said, yes I was very upset by this when it happened and yes it was a concession handed to us by an MEC who supported it and signed it knowing that they would spend virtually no time suffering the ramifications from it. It was handed down without communicating it to us whatsoever until it was signed.

I want the best for all of my colleagues. Here is hoping that whatever outcome is chosen is what's best for all of you.

UA

CDO's or as they are now called SDP's are exempt from ADTG, as are training days. A single day trip pays 4:45 and this includes a partially picked up trip.

UA

Well said! I certainly do appreciate our union but UA is right, the people that have been in the top positions in our union are at DL now, and aren't feeling the ramifications of the ADTG, and I strongly doubt they are losing sleep over it. This is a different pilot group, but we are mostly all still refugees from other airlines, so most of us have been around the block or two, we can't let our management think for one second we are a "young and dumb" pilot group, I encourage you all to make your voices heard, whatever they may be...

Increasing ADTG by :30 minutes is not sufficient, sorry it would have to be considerably more, with stop gaps in place to prevent the company from further manipulating the pairings...

Exactly. ADTG definitely benefits the minority and encourages trips with 30 hr overnights that we essentially don't get paid for. Hopefully everyone votes based on where they will be 6 months to a year down the road with seniority and not at their present position.

They will manipulate the pairings anyway to find a balance of efficiency and cost they can live with. Anyone who thinks that either ADTG or 4 hour pay/credit will prevent that needs to wake up.

This sums it up perfectly.

Next time you see a SKW guy, ask them about their schedules (they have the 4:00 pay and credit min day). Everyone of them I've talked to speaks of bid packs chocked full of 16 hour 4 day trips. Pairing optimizers optimize for the company, not for the pilots, and can be tweaked however the company pleases.