PassportPlump

The VB horse has been beat to death, so this is my last whack at this corpse. This was a risk we didn’t/don’t need to take. Much like going between two thunderstorm cells that are rapidly developing.

Yes, the language also stated that no rotation would begin or end with an ocean crossing. Great.

Then in C2020 they say “we want that caveat removed so that we may start trips out of a VB with an ocean crossing.”

We say: “well we want $0.05 more an hour in per diem for that ‘concession.’”

They say: “okay how about $0.01 in per diem.

We say “$$$$DEAL$$$$”

Company is always one step ahead of us in terms of contractual stuff.

Planetrain

This is terrible logic. In your case we should never try anything new in the contract because the company will always seek to destroy it. That’s like saying the mid-hotel LOA is a trap, because surely the company is just trying to eliminate all downtown hotels. Contract 2020 they say we’ll give you $0.01 per diem if you stay only at Motel8, we say $$$deal$$$?

VB has limited upside for in-base pilots. I think the majority of the criticism of the program justifiably comes from non-commuters. But from posters like 80kts saying there is limited upside, tell that to any commuter from MCO, DFW, or BOS. “Punishing” the company only hurt the commuters who thought they had (even a temporal) shot at living in base.

I’m not saying we should have made VB permanent, it’s unclear all the ramifications. We should have at least tested it though.

How many bases have we opened in the last 25 years? How many have we closed?

80ktsClamp

This is just cheap arguments like what we saw in what brought on the failed TA. Perhaps you can one up it on against bringing the 330 and 764 up to top rate because everyone gets equal raises?

The mid hotel has proven to be a failure in NYC for QOL. The VB was a cheap company solution to not opening a base where a real long term solution is opening a base, with the downside of manning while getting the camel's nose in the tent on further productivity increases of said program.

I think we are overall smarter than this as a pilot group.

LumberJack

ALL pilots suffer other than the ones living in the VB.

You know the ramifications, you just happen to live in a potential VB so you ignore those ramifications.

PassportPlump

They can open and close bases all they want. That’s the cost of doing business when you run an airline. Virtual bases aren’t something that benefit a pilot group as a whole. It’s a huge win for the company and a net loss for the entire pilot group with the exception of the handful of guys who get to drive to work for a given month.

Herkflyr

I don't commute and I say we should have run the test. Yes the company dawdled and took too long to even decide if they wanted to pursue them.

But we waited until the last minute to pull them down. We should have done so far earlier, or allowed a couple of months of test runs.

My prediction? All the angst is an imaginary tempest in a teapot, and six months later we would all be saying "Didn't there used to be objections to these VBs? What was all the fuss about?"

And for all those who claim VBs would have negatively affected all the other bid packages... maybe, maybe not. Since commuters tend to be more senior due to their commute status, the same guys flying the better trips in ATL would happily fly a crappy trip out of MCO , just to drive to work. In fact it is just as possible that VBs would result in the existing bases having BETTER trips and the categories becoming less senior at the same time.

Or not. It's all an increasingly distant issue now.

TED74

Are there some/any examples of a contractual efficiency increase that the company used to improve trip quality?

Herkflyr

Dunno. I'm not talking about tools the company can wield in trip construction. I'm just using human common sense. Commuters tend to trend senior just to make their commute better (though of course not all commuters are senior). Therefore if, for example, an MCO commuter who currently commutes in to fly nice trips would choose to fly less-nice trips as a trade-off for driving to work, those trips he used to fly out of ATL are now available for more junior guys. ATL would probably--emphasis on probably and not "assuredly" because it is all a guess--become a bit more junior.

By the way I was no huge fan of VBs. As a non-commuter they did little for me, and I'm not even in a category where they were first proposed. I just think we should have either pulled them down months earlier when the company dawdled, or let the test run for a couple of months. At least then we would have some documented metrics for determining whether they were good or not. As it is we are all speculating.

But...that's the last I'm going to talk about them. That was in the past and will likely remain there. Let's focus on the present and future.

Hillbilly

I agree and that was the key flaw in the decision. Pulling it down was the correct move, particularly in light of the company's violations of our contract, but the smartest time to do that would have been after we had data to quantify the effect of VBs. The MEC could have easily met just after the 4th of July and voted to pull it down, giving the requisite notice at that time. That would have provided us with 3 months of solid data on the effects of VBs at Delta rather than speculation and hypothesis. There would be zero argument about good faith with the testing period and we would never go into another negotiation where that topic comes up and have to guess when quantifying the effects. In the end, the day to day presently would be no different for Delta pilots but we would have been better prepared going forward if engaged on the subject.

The correct decision being made at the wrong time is a failure of forward thinking leadership in my opinion.

80ktsClamp

Given the company's behavior and continued cutting of corners and squeezing of efficiencies, is there really any doubt as to the effect on manning and QOL it would have? Seriously?

It really would be better if I had more data other than looking at that boiling pot of water. Sticking my hand in it would give me a much better data set on whether or not it's a good idea.