LOA to change TOE’s
 

Company and ALPA are currently in negotiations to change the way we do TOE’s. Expect to have an LOA in a couple of weeks. See Skyhub Live:Training. 30:37. Want to sunset TOE. Have IOE plus theater quals.
Haven’t heard anything from ALPA about this asking for our input.
Time to contact your reps. David

I think the basic problem they are trying to solve is no/not enough international flying to get TOE done on the ER fleet. I understand the company's problem, but what if the company just never qualifies an Capt because "not enough TOE going on" and that pilot misses out on good international flying? Both in pay and experience. Or say he's a pilot who's 64 - what if they don't want to qualify him because he's retires soon? Many issues to think about.

I wish that ALPA would say "hey, this item is being discussed with the company, can we have input to your reps about it?"

DALPA likely will negotiate pay protection for this situation.

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Sure sounds like we have some good leverage there... hope we use it to good effect.

How would they pay protect someone who gets the ATL-FLL shuttle instead of ATL-FRA because the company never gave them their “theater qual”?

I foresee the same bottom 10 dudes flying all the double-red eyes to South America, while everyone else conveniently dodges the theater qual.

I certainly hope ALPA uses this to some advantage, and I’m all ears how they can do this. Indeed strange ALPA hasn’t asked for any input.

You're free to voice your opinion. ALPA reps have phone numbers as well as email addresses.

The company has not yet submitted a proposal to ALPA on this issue


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Like shadow bidding before OE PBS doesn't know you're not qualified. A non qualed pilot would be awarded intl trips they can hold and should be dropped with pay protection if they can't get qualed. Then they can WS or GS FLL shuttle, or stay home.

Wonder if the company is thinking of having LVPs do TOE or what's the proposed new name.. "International Theatre Qual"?

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Ah okay, that makes sense. I was thinking of the current setup where you can’t WS or GS if you’re unqualified.

I know that - :rolleyes: My point is, why can't ALPA let us know the things that are being discussed. The pilots can't very well give their opinions about LOAs in discussion that we don't even know about.

It's like the red-eye issue from years ago. Someone leaked ALPA was discussing flying after a red-eye or something like that. Pilots inundated their reps with opinions and it was changed and that red-eye stuff was taken out at the last minute. Had someone not said it was going to happen, we would of been presented with a signed LOA. Now we do have voting approval for LOAs, which helps. But it would be nice to be able to give our opinions before an issue becomes an LOA.

Because alpa isn’t discussing anything with the company at this point on this issue


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I believe you, tunes, but then our union needs to put out Comm pieces very quick after the company makes a false assertion and debunk the narrative being made.

The same back-and-forth misinformation came last year from Laughter regarding discussions about VEOP, 20-03 and 20-04.. why can no one just clear the air and call a spade a spade?

Yes, I have made this known to my reps.

You aren’t wrong....


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No need, it’s already in the contract how Theater quals are handled.

yeah, but how often do they answer either, and how often do they actually give a crap what we think.

Well the company says they are (in the Skyhub meeting from the other day) - they said they have been working with ALPA safety/training committee and have a proposal for LOA about how we can ‘sunset’ traditional TOE.

But I did talk with my rep and he didn't know anything about it.

What's to pay protect? If this theater qual scenario plays out, there will be no problem getting that qual. DAL will basically double their LCP availability as LVPs will more than likely be able to do them. Atlantic crossings have been dumbed down so much I am surprised it has taken this long.

I think first time captains should go with a LCP, but I ain't making that decision. I won't be a bit surprised if LVPs are greenlighted for this.

Agreed. I flew with a Captain that mentioned when he was in the ER as a Captain on reserve he hadn't flown Intl for so long when he got a trip assigned a Paris trip the FOs basically got them there.

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Yep.. it's just like the Pacific/Hawaii quals for the 737. One trip with LVP or LCA and you're done. If you bid a Hawaii trip and you're not qualified yet, they'll either buy off the FO and get you qualified on that trip, or they'll drop it for you with pay. Easy.

I understand what he said on sky hub. What I’m telling you is that there has been no proposal submitted to alpa on this so there is currently nothing to negotiate


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The NATs are a big yawn. Everything is scripted and spelled out for you. Total no brainer.

The training dept does an excellent job in the 4x sims getting you exposed and prepared.

I don't know why we make it such a BFD. Especially for FOs

I have no confidence in this new Alpa MeC.

NONEEEEEEEE.

This is exactly the reaction the company wants by releasing information like this on the hub.

Yet we have had some serious issues on the tracks.

Some of the most eff'd up things have happened with LCP and very experienced pilots in command.

Shiznit happens.

So, how much training is enough?

Because for a long time it was a BFD. And there are still aspects that get messed up that can lead to getting violated. Some of that has to do with the oceanic CTAs and their job protections which is understandable.

And... since Capts more often than not take the middle break going east, there are 2 FOs in the seat in the middle of the ocean. That's probably why it IS a BFD still for FOs. I find it interesting that you made that part of your post.

Wind your clock. Nothing has happened yet.

exactly. It’s not a big deal if you’ve been doing it for years. It definitely is if you’ve been flying domestic only.

Union better get something for this change as it’s going to cost senior FO’s (and sometimes a lucky junior FO) a ton of money and probably cause a bunch of them to finally bid Capt, which will cost the junior Capt’s, etc etc.

My first trip off TOE and OE (direct to the ER from New Hire), was taking another new guy on his TOE.

"So, how many crossings have you done since TOE"
'This is the first'

Kind of like my first 757-300 landing.

New Captain.. Just off OE. I'd been flying the ER, but had been a Intl Yellow Slip Ninja for my first year or so, so had been on it for about 14 months before I ever flew a 300..

Captain: "How does the 300 land"
Me: Dunno. Never done it. I've been told use flaps 30.
Captain: You need an Autoland or Sim CAT III?
Me: Won't hurt. Let's see how HAL lands this thing.

why? If I’m not mistaken you can still bid TATL trips, if you are awarded one they will either give you an LCA to fly with or buy you off the trip. Am I wrong or is there something else I’m missing?

You are correct.

It changes who gets bought off the trips. Senior FOs would bid with LCA and get bought off of trips for TOE on the 7ER. The LOA concern is that the junior FO without theater qual gets bought off. In some cases they may find an LCA and buy the Capt trip. A third possibility is using LVP for FO theater qual. I have no insight into the LOA, just speculation on how it could be written.

Check me but I thought a TOE on the ER no longer buys off senior FO. It used to be the senior FO was bought off since the other FO or Captain was already domestically IOE’d and qualified in the aircraft so an FO could be up in cockpit with the new guy without the LCA while he was in rest. The new FAA guy didn’t buy it and now Atlantic ER crews go with 4... the 2 FO’s are typed and are paired while the LCA and new guy are paired... so no longer the senior FO gets bought off.

Then let's put 3 capts on the int'l flight as we can't trust the FO's???

I was an FO forever on Int'l. Made a bazillion NAT crossings. Comparatively speaking to other flying it was/is a cake walk. I don't why we make such a big deal about it now. No longer are we L1011-ing across the atlantic. That ended in the 90's. Redundent systems, CPDLC. Easy-peesy.

NATs are about as easy as flying gets. Scripted to the max. We had/have great products on the EFB and lots and lots of checklists.

I'm out of the fight anyway. Was curious why we had such a lengthy checkout to begin with. In the AF you'd routinely have very junior crews running the tanks and transports across the atlantic no problemo.

Take care James.

Going to go with the iPad based video training for off track contingency planning is probably better than a 3 hour briefing on a crossing in the middle of the night. It's a great resource (if it's still there; I'm domestic now), and readily available for review before a trip.

SATCOM has made everything much easier, and as long as someone up there remembers how to make a position report and tune an HF radio, there's not much else to it.

That medical event during a crossing that was recently highlighted on DLNET was pretty wild though. Proprietary, yadda, yadda...but if you haven't looked it over, I'd encourage you to go read it.

Maybe we should consider splitting the 7ER category into something like...... the 757 and the 7ER category? One category does domestic the other category is primarily international with an occasional domestic trip. I wonder if that could work?

I have a feeling that will happen as we have offloaded a few of our 7ERs already and they have said too that international will be the last to return. We have plenty of 330’s and the 765 to take over international markets as they come back. Personally I feel this will self correct itself through network and won’t be that big of a deal. The 7ER fleet is going to most likely look extremely similar to how it is now going forward.

Mongo

Not necessarily the intended topic and I have no concern about how DL conducts training but here is some data from the NAT SPG (North Atlantic Systems Planning Group).


https://ops.group/dashboard/wp-conte...ety-Report.pdf

Haha, that is awesome. Great stories out there.

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