Thank you for that valuable contribution.

Others’ concerns are not “petty.” But the premise — that we should be able to fly to FAR’s — is at the very least disconcerting. The fact that union members would advocate for this is why I can’t believe we are having this conversation.

 

I came from the military, where I couldn't even spell union. I was ignorant (as in uniformed, but still capable of rational thought) about all sorts of labor issues...and still am. I learn a ton from these boards. I'm happy to see some of these productivity and job-loss issues getting hashed out; regional pilots have been exposed to many more discussions about them than your average military pilot.

I don't "need" to do anything...I do what I can to advocate for what I believe are pro-pilot and pro-union positions. My opinions are nothing more than that. If they or my delivery trigger you, so be it. But thanks for the marital advice... very helpful!

 

Goggles,
So is it then in your eyes problimatic to white slip? What about a green slip? Are you not “taking” a potential job away by doing that? I’m being sarcastic or maybe to you I’m not but if by me wanting to pick up some flying is “stealing” jobs then we’re not looking at this through the same lense. By that logic Let’s just staff up to 20k Pilots for staffing sake. ALPA will love it since they just added 6k more unions dues.but that has unintended consequences as well. That in turn harms us because if you look at it in it’s ultimate conclusion Deltas over bloated balance sheets (labor is the highest cost) would cause distrucive $ loss resulting most likely in a furlough come an economic downturn
So imo yes we should have the ability to have efficient staffing where we can drop/pickup as we like ( which we do at the moment) fleet depending which is an amazing QOL choice. I never said let’s just make FAR’s as they are as the limitation I’ll even agree that maybe a 90 max flight time be a limit. (Again not for bidding but for picking up trips)
I think in the end it’s almost zero sum. Some months I’ll drop trips because I want the time off. That is possible because at the same time someone else is willing to pick up my trip. I wanted to pick up a “qualified” two day trip later in the month (some one out there needs that off) I’m willing to pick it. Win win. Nope. Now it’ll go to a reserve guy who probably would have had that reserve day at home with his family, or the pilot trying to drop it will have to work it. So tell me how is that a fair deal in the end.

 

Call the pilot with the qualified trip in open time and have him put it on the swap board. Problem solved.
I can assure you that when the limits are raised a high percentage of pilots will fly to those limits. The job loss will be staggering if we fly to FAR’s.

 

Sailing,
That’s a great idea. I’ll remeber that going forward. However I don’t want to swap my 4 day for a 2 day since that doesn’t really help in this case.
Trust me I totally see your point. And I’ll even concede in that I agree it can cause harm. I just wish there was some middle ground here. That’s mostly my point.

 

We are already in the middle ground. We granted massive productivity concessions to the company from 99 through 2005. We have clawed back a percentage of that but nothing near where we once were. To put it into perspective the work rules back then produced a average block hour total per pilot around 600 hours per year. I believe that number is currently around 800 hours per year. We have increased productivity on the order of 25%. The 800 hour number is from around 2016 so may be slightly lower with this contract. Still the job loss has been massive.
Our current productivity puts us inline with AMR and UAL but well below SWA. We really don’t want to become SWA. If you’re in the bottom 2000 on the seniority list you might wind up on the street.

 

What we have now strikes a reasonable balance. Allowing pilots to fly to FAR's would decimate jobs -- and upgrades.

 

Ok, all good points.This discussion probably blew up more than I expected. I’m not that die hard for this as much as it appears. It would be nice for me to pick up more flying when I wish but if where we are today is far better than where we used to be then it’s a great first world problem. I certainly hope though that this remains. I’m not the kind of person that believes in limiting our abilities to fly more so we can just grow the list. That is also a disservice to the current workforce. If that is something you guys can at least acknowledge then I think we are on the same page. Good discussion.

 

I think we are in the middle ground. Specifically, you can pull from swap board up to FAR limits if so desired.

 

Not to be a math geek, but 600 to 800 is a 33% increase. Makes your point even more.