Oh yes it are. I am an admitted Boomer, curmudgeon and Luddite. You can see I tried to “fix”it on a subsequent post and ...PFFFT

Get over it

 

As you know, that is true WRT pay rate cuts and other concessionary things, usually coupled with furloughing to the bone anyway, and locked into the CBA until future cycles that has to be fought for tooth and nail even during a roaring economy later. An ALV reduction could be a rolling 60 days at a time by mutual agreement, have a fixed snapback point anyway, and would be 100% self correcting in a good economy. No BK judge would ever lock in 50 hour ALV's for an entire CBA cycle because the company would never ask for it and would fight against it.

So the four corners of this particular arguement only hold water in the very narrow band of specific circumstances whereby either we're headed to liquidation soon anyway so we screwed ourselves out of some ALV hours for a few months, or we're headed to Ch11 reorganization soon, which would result in a full and complete restoration of the ALV anyway (and likely even higher) because the company would want that. Was it C12 or C15 where we made the concession to raise ALV's by an hour? Now all the sudden high ALV's are sacrosanct.

Then full pay til the last day. While I don't want that to happen, I can accept it. Let's scatter to the winds and those of us left in the field can apply for bottom of the list positions at our competitors. I can accept that. Funny thing in that case though, as well as even a less severe Ch 11 situation, is that the shareholders will be completely wiped out (at least the vast majority of them will be). If an agreement was to be had that would have saved the shareholders but it was refused by the company only so the muckity mucks could preserve their future compensations, would the shareholders and/or the SEC want to look into that? That would make for a very interesting scenario.

I'm for all of the above as long as we get things in return. Early outs being included in that savings figure are one time short term savings, whereas SILs and lower ALV's save for as long as they are present. Early outs are also limited in their maximum potential savings with the more you do the less you save once you get beyond the point of maximum return. So the MEC was technically correct in saying that, however it was only correct for the short timeframe in question. And even then it would save more to have lower ALV's and IMO there would be an opportunity in that for a longer term win-win. If, however, like you posited, that the company would refuse adequate upsides for us, then full pay til the last day or the Ch11 process, whichever comes first.

 

Sorry, I thought we we discussing ALV vs SIL vs ER? That what I suggested running numbers on.[/QUOTE]

No you were right about the topic, however I’m not smart enough, or privy to the actual numbers, to figure out how much anything is worth. The company went from saying that the $10 million in savings wasn’t worth it to them only being an $8 million in savings in the span of a week. I would think anything that ends with the word savings right now would be good. I just fly airplanes though.

 

It has info, you are correct. It has one purpose only. Here are some questions. What would ALVs have been if they offered SILs? It said 7500 pilots overstaffed. Not too bad with a 80-90% reduction in flying. How overstaffed would we be with similar offers to AA?

Edit: quote feature on the webpage is jacked up. It screwed up mine also. It’s inserting a quote script in the middle of the original quote.

 

Ryan addressed that either in the video conference or an email, the union can't reveal any numbers because they are under an NDA for the Delta financials they used to calculate the numbers.

Would you prefer the Union and the pilots to roll over and say "Yes Sir!" without making a suggestion on how an alternative way to save money, that doesn't generate ill will like a 20% reduction in ALV (with NO change to the number of work days for reserve pilots, by the way) ? Mindswell not have a union.

What the company doesn't seem to get is that we have a contract. It cannot be changed just because the company wants it to (outside a BK court). The company has to negotiate with us and the contract covers us in good times and bad. I don't remember the pilots yelling that the other employees got a pay raise in Oct and we didn't get one - we're accept that we are under a contract and we'll work it out through section 6.

 

Semantics. What is your paycheck? Less. Whether you take an hourly pay cut or have a lower ALV makes little difference. We would be better off banking the extra money now. As you know, what we do will not prevent bankruptcy. Didn’t work last time for us. Never has for any airline. At this time management doesn't seem worried enough to take the 0% loan from the government. Why?. Too many strings. But they want 20% of your paycheck with no strings attached.

They have stated several times we are going to shrink. A lot. Save - your - money. Prepare. Use your higher ALV to bank whatever you can. Having a smaller paycheck now will not help one of us.

 

[QUOTE=DALMD88FO;3026

No you were right about the topic, however I’m not smart enough, or privy to the actual numbers, to figure out how much anything is worth. The company went from saying that the $10 million in savings wasn’t worth it to them only being an $8 million in savings in the span of a week. I would think anything that ends with the word savings right now would be good. I just fly airplanes though.[/QUOTE]



Well, not that numbers can’t be misleading, but it is hard to “value” any proposal. I see over at the much vaunted UAL, they offered a second round of “SRL’s” for May. In SFO on the 777 CA, the company wanted 103 takers and got 1 .... on the FO side they wanted 243 and got 0. So for May, they “savings” to the company are essentially zip (at least in that category) . Caveat, their SRL was only going to pay 40 hours with some of it deferred to dec, so it seems like a shoddy deal and thus no takers. Conclusion? ALV’s are easy to cost out compared to SIL’s combined with early retirement.

So, that being said, it’s not too hard to plug some fairly realistic numbers in to what both the company and ALPA’s proposals are. I don’t get miffed when the guidance on “savings” are adjusted down by the company. ALV reductions are very easy to cost out, consequently, the company data seems pretty realistic. The data that the union put forth, is much more nebulous, and very ,very hard to interpret whether it’s accurate or not. If they want to make me a believer , they need to publish some #’s to go with the bar graphs. Heck, even the graphs didn’t have #’s on the scales. One of my pet leaves is maps/charts that don’t have a scale on them. Without it, planning is pretty difficult.....especially when it says map not to scale. My point? That’s what the”data” put forth by ALPA reminds me of. They required blind fealty to just trust their numbers, which makes the hair stand upon the back of my neck. Same, same when the company does it. So, that’s why I tried to run some hypotheticals from both sides. The company #’s fall within reason, ALPA’s numbers are impossible to quantify. That makes me go “Hmmm, is somebody trying to dupe me here?” I think ALL pilots should trust but verify

 

Lowering the ALV would be a huge paycut for most, Almost all the narrowbody pilots go way over the 75-80 hour month by whiteslipping or greenslipping. With a lower AVL that means your monthly pay will be about what the new AVL is lowered to. No extra flying to bump pay up..Then you throw in no profit sharing, most pilots would be taking a 30-50% paycut. I like ED's 3% paycut a lot better....

 

For once here at AA we feel like we are leading something. We have too many volunteers to go out on voluntary paid short term leave. I’m trying to get 6,3, or 1 month. I did not get it the first round. If I get the 3 months it is 55 hrs/month, 16% into 401k, 3 weeks vacation paid out on top of the 55 hrs. Because I have three weeks overlapping the leave. That would come out to 80 plus hour months. Very good deal.

 

Outstanding! I would take that too. Can’t quite figure out how costing more helps from the companies perspective. I’m am sure there must be more to it for the average guy and you are just an aberration due to your vacay, but anecdotally, this seems stoopid(by the company)

You will have to forgive my humor...seems I am the only one who enjoys it. You mention AA leading something....that wouldn’t be a race into bankruptcy would it?