gloopy

Exactly. VB's are a horrible idea. Pull them down now.

Scoop

I'm ambivalent about VBs. As long as we maintain a unilateral pull-down capability I am fine with trying them out. If they want to make them permanent fine - as long as a condition is that we retain a unilateral pull down capability - perhaps with 3 or 6 months notice etc.

As far as flying disappearing from current bases to go to the VB - yes but along with the flying the pilots who bid the VB will also disappear. The only gain for the company and loss for the Pilots will be credit/DH time. If 3000 hours of flying goes from ATL to MCO approximately 3000 hours of Pilots bidding will also leave ATL minus any DH credit gains for the company.

As far as them just opening a regular base in MCO I wouldn't be surprised if we started opening more "micro" bases for lack of a better term in the future. Why not a small base in BOS, MCO, SFO etc? The biggest obstacle seems to be reserve coverage issues. Well if a short notice trip needs to be covered either use a GS - plenty of guys would probably be available or just DH a guy in from JFK, ATL or LAX respectively for the above bases.

Just some food for thought.

Scoop

DALMD88FO

What makes you think all the pilots will be from ATL? Say all the time comes from ATL but the majority of pilots come from NYC. Not that I would cry for ATL but as I pointed out before even the local guys might not even be senior enough to hold the MCO VB. With the PS to/from work and a hotel on the company dime I would think that it would be preferable for anyone that currently commutes and has direct flights from their hometown to MCO.

Scoop

From Negotiators Notepad 16-18 Oct 09, 2016:

Once all VB awards have been completed and published, the Company will create a bid package for each VB category along with all other system-wide bid packages. As it does today, it will balance the amount of block and credit hours in each category, including each VB category, with the number of pilots in each category in order to provide balanced coverage. This will serve to ensure that the block and credit feeding a VB category comes from the category(ies) from which the pilots came.


Scoop

ERflyer

A virtual base is a “micro base”. At the cost of (at least) 47 pilot jobs.

Scoop

I agree 100%. So why are those 47 jobs more important than the hundreds of jobs lost by guys flying above the pick up limit for straight pay?

I would like to see some consistency in our approach to improving our PWA.

Scoop

DALMD88FO

Things would really come full circle then. We used to have exactly that in MSY, ORD, PDX, BOS, DFW (not so micro), MCO and I'm sure I'm missing some.

DALMD88FO

Thanks for that. It will be interesting to watch as they say that they balance the flying today. The way they do that is building longer trips with a layover in another base.

ERflyer

Because 47 jobs can be saved now by the MEC with the elimination of virtual bases. Your other topic takes Section 6 negotiations.

Scoop

If you think about it, it kind of makes sense. If the Pilots came from one base and the flying from another it would wreak havoc in the Pilot manning at those bases. For example if 30 guys bid a VB from ATL and the flying for those 30 came from NYC then ATL would be 30 Pilots short and NYC would be 30 Pilots overmanned.

It will definitely be very very interesting to see how this plays out.

As currently envisioned I think VBs are very low threat, with a lot of potential upside for the guys who bid them, but I see a huge threat in future section 6 negotiations. If we ever allow the unilateral pull down to sunset then we are morons. Any extension or permanency of VBs must include a unilateral pull down method.

Scoop