While I rarely fly GS I hope you acknowledge that premium pay duty periods actually do go into the contractual staffing formula?

Also I honestly don't know what the ideal staffing approach is. I can tell you that in overmanned categories I've heard pilots complain "ain't nuttin' in open time!" Company cannot win with some guys. Staffing such that zero GS are passed out even in the busy summer months is never going to happen, nor should it.

On the other hand last summer was a bit extreme.

 

I can't imagine how someone reads this letter and takes it to mean that the MEC is waging a "war on greenslips."

The only way to deduce that from the letter is to have preconceived notions about the MEC, which most here would agree are not at all accurate.

The chart wasn't complaining about greenslips. Those who feel motivated enough to flying for double pay may do so. There was plenty of it this year and there will be even more next year because the staffing is in the toilet and the numbers show that the staffing on many fleets is in an unrecoverable situation between now and the summer schedule. Re-routes will continue to be out of control.

The point that the letter was emphasizing, which is abundantly obvious, is that such inadequate staffing is detrimental to QOL.

People 50% and below are now often unable to drop/trade trips. A portion of what little vacation people with only a few years longevity have ends up being used for IVDs to get time off for important things in their life. Sure, being junior is what it is, but plenty of categories this year weren't even staffed well enough for anyone to drop anything even on the 20th of the prior month. That is not acceptable.

The improvement in our C2020 MEC's mentality and negotiation stance over C2015 is night and day better.

 

Exactly. It is just about impossible to have a situation where there is very much open time and adequate reserve coverage to swap and drop sans the first couple PCS runs. This wasn’t true prior to the ability of pilots to exceed the PU limit via the swap board. I haven’t heard much talk about limiting the SB though.. (Could be wrong of course)

Just to address a few things that have been stated. You can’t have high ALV’s all year even with short staffing as the TLV forces a lower ALV to bring down the TLV. You could have a very stable ALV all year, but that isn’t realistically going to happen with the way our capacity increases in the summer.

GS do help out on manning short term. GS do force an increase in the staffing formula so you will see an increase in pilots required down the road after a year like this.

I honestly don’t get too would up about this as long as they are not IA’s. Being hired in the 90’s, I have seen this play out more times than not during that time. Exceptions of course would be when capacity was cut due to 9/11 and the Great Recession etc.

FWIW, I do not do a ton of GS. But when I do, they typically increase my QOL. I normally fly about 80, but when they are handing them out, it allows me to fly closer to 75 and pick up an easy 2 day. Many times that also allows me to fly low the next month.

Since GS are voluntary, any sort of fatigue issue is self induced. We have many guys who fly high hours off the Swap Board that exceed days worked by pilots who GS. Is that something we should look at as well? Is flying a 100 straight time not fatiguing?

I think we all know what is partially behind this memo.

 

I don't see this as a war, it's more both parties are starting realize a change needs to occur or next summer will be much worse. I personally believe even if they can get 1000 pilots trained by March they will still have a "hot" summer operation.

They have 1000's of guys who have been flying Delta lift at the regionals with more than enough experience. This is who could fill the void and train quickly and be less of a strain on the training department than OAL hires. There is a reason for American and United flows.

Delta will have to come up with their own flow synonym. Let's call it Regional Percolation. News is management is coming back to the table with Endeavor Air about this very topic next week.

 

No matter where the pilots come from the training footprint is essentially the same. I mean maybe a straight mil guy or corporate needs a few more hours of OE to adjust to airline ops but that's about it. We could sign a flow agreement tomorrow and that wouldn't do a thing to solve our manning issues.

 

Flows at American and United get the same training as off the street hires. I have no knowledge about UAL but American is not happy with their flow program.
We don’t need pilots trained by 1 Mar. We need them online by 1 Jun and even pilots trained well into July help.

 

Not to speak badly about you, but you haven't got a clue about training. It doesnt matter who they have been flying for the initial training is always the same footprint. Any person with any airline experience will do better in IOE than the pure military/ Corporate guys. But that's just because they already know the swing of 121 ops. Knowing the "delta" system as you pit it does next to nothing as the delta system is no different than United, American, or any other 121 airline.

AA is the only one with a true flow as UAL just has preferential hiring with their regionals. They each have them so they can lock pilots into the regional airline and control the regional staffing. Think of it as a carrot on a stick.

 

Summer schedule starts halfway through May and then full-on in the first week on June.

Any new hire that will help for the entire summer needs to be in indoc 8 weeks from now.

They're not gonna fit 900 new hires in between today, December 13, and 8 weeks from now.

By June/July the rolling thunder crowd will have decimated reserve coverage in many categories, right down to zero by the second week of each month just as happened this summer.

 

UNABLE TO CVR DUE STAFFING.

Unfortunately flights were canceled this summer. Others were delayed 20+ hours to the next day and made the news.

This is the best any airline has ever done.

There's just no need to skimp on having reserves ready to cover stuff in the busy season.

$6,000,000,000 profit = add some reserve pilots and put UAL, AMR and the rest to shame.

 

Would be nice if they just said they are concerned about safety instead of hyper focusing on greenslips throughout en excessively long email.

It’s as if they forgot that greenslips are optional.