I would strongly argue the opposite. As has been said, there is something for everyone.

Depends on the duty time and hrs worked. I'd rather do 4x ATL-BNA 9am-5pm duty time than TPA-JFK 3hr sit then 7pm departure to PHX.

Of course beating all of this is one of my favorites, daylight morning report STI-JFK 1.5 hr sit JFK-SDQ/TPA/Somewhere south. Nice easy relaxing day for the most part

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You should have gone to work at Allegiant.

You must of missed the of course beating all this part.......

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I’m not emotional and not accusing you of a thing my friend. I just call balls and strikes. Our rotations are a far cry from what they were before the optimizer. If we don’t do something about it with this current contract, we will have more of the same. What I cannot abide is our own justifying why it is necessary.

Many are using the optimizer as a scapegoat. IMO it's overblown. The main reason for the degradation in trips are a lethal combination of poor staffing, RJ flying upgauging to Mainline, and reduction of fleet mix/fleet simplification caused by retirement of 88, parking of many 717s. Many 737/320/7ER pilots are simply not used to operating the amount of legs we do now. Heck even the 717 back in the day with a LAX base had very nice trips with no more than 3 legs a day. When the plane was moved back east the schedules turned the jet into CRJ200 2.0.

It's a shock factor. Folks need to get used to it because it's not going to get better anytime soon as the Regionals collapse. Take your time, wind the clock, you're too tired to fly, call in fatigued.

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agree with everything except the “get used to it” comment. We shouldn’t ever get used to it. Flying these types of skeds is great for a 23 yr old kid building time to get on with a major, but not so much for a 50+ yr old with 20+ years at a major. Call in fatigued every time you need to, and things will change by necessity. Yes it will cost more, but that’s the cost of doing business safely and legally.

Not only are they not great for either, but regionals have a fair amount of lifers who meet the 50+ y/o number.

Exactly. The problem is not the "regional flying" routes, its the Optimizer schedule trying to fix a million BES's diluting all that flying. Regionals with fewer fleets (1 or 2 usually) and fewer bases can often build better "regional" trips than the 2018 software can.

Redundant fleets (supposedly to reduce CapEX through savvy negotiations) spread thin across too many bases (to supposedly save hotel costs) adds significant inefficiencies that the Optimizer then has to compensate for by wrecking rotations and QOL.

The good news is the defenders of the Optimizer claim it only added a couple percent efficiencies so it should be very easy to completely roll back and eliminate.

point taken. Was just trying to say that it’s easier on young guys than old, and generally speaking, there are more young guys at the regional level.

Bingo! The optimizer amounts to a 1 or 2% change in system wide credit. We once did much of the RJ flying in-house with the DC9, 737-200 and even the 727. 4 legs was often the norm. The biggest difference from then to now is we get paid a lot more hours for similar trips. I have posted this before but when we had lots of trips like this there were complaints about the trip quality. The company said your welcome to try and do better. We tried for a few weeks and finally said never mind!
Another thing not mentioned that has also had a impact. Every time we get a contractual improvement it will effect rotation construction. As we attempt to drive the rotation construction to higher time trips and fewer days worked rotation quality will decrease. We once had decent 3 and 4 day trips but very short layovers. Often 9 hours from block in to block out. We demanded and got 8 hours behind the door and eventually the current rules. The company could no longer reliably schedule crews into out stations at night and back out in the morning. The result was 30 hour layovers. We hated the poor pay on trips with 30 hour layovers so we demanded and got a daily minimum. This forces the company to really have to pack the flying in around the long layovers or pay a severe credit penalty.

You came to the right conclusion for the wrong reasons. While some of the ‘reasons’ you cite contribute at the margins, the optimizer was already turning the screws back in 2019.

But the true root cause for why it will not get better is because Flight Ops leadership cannot allow more credit into the optimizer mix, or they will be fired.

Pilot staffing is THE limiting factor for the airline growing back and capturing revenue. The summer 2023 plan was recently planned by network to notably exceed 2019’s schedule. With the VEOP and 500 retirements a year, we would have to hire probably 1500 more pilots than we can possibly onboard, even at a record 200/month (and even then, they can’t train what they are hiring). Flight Ops said “no f-ing way” we can do that, so network is pushing them to pull out all the stops…

As a result, every pilot hired simply goes to increase the schedule, not for staffing relief. There won’t be relief until after summer of 2023, when hiring can finally start to allow a “pad” again. Network is pushing flight Ops to max-fly every single month, and if JL and gang ease off the gas, they will lose their jobs.

I don’t say any of this to make excuses for management. On the contrary, their I’ll-advised decisions got us here, and they refuse to even acknowledge it much less address it . But understanding where we are is key to understanding when it will (or won’t) get better. I’ll walk the picket line with fervor, but tactically it won’t change a dang thing. Strategically, however, we can be shaping the battlefield on multiple fronts.

As others have said, that is not what the duty pilot is for. You have to make a determination on fatigue. There's no "regional-esque" to it. Your expectation is one that doesn't make any sense other than it sounding like you were trying to make him make the decision so you could say he told you to in your report.

The disparity is because not extending was a fatigued call for the data before and now it is not.

So all of these complaints about the optimizer and the very tough schedules since it’s inception; unfortunately I haven’t followed what it is or the specifics of what it did. But based on its name, it’s obvious. Will there be any changes? Or is this a management tool that will make them happy and pilots miserable but with no recourse?

I’m sure it’s always worth it to leave the regionals for a legacy. How about a ULCC like Frontier/Spirit? I think it’s a no-brainer and am of the “first legacy to call” mindset. Am I wrong?

I think if you have 30 years left or have a strong desire for international flying, legacy flying is still the way to go. If you have less than 20 years to go and are already at an LCC, I don't really know if it's in your best interest to leave.

Less than 20, but also only been there for 6 months. Legacy wasn’t an option a year ago. Either way, it wouldn’t be a commute and would actually save me 40 minutes. I think reserves will get crushed at every airline this summer. Who knows if upgrades will stay at 4-5 years, especially if the merger is less than smooth. Currently stagnant because of attrition. And last but not least, flight benefits. I know they are virtually useless these days because of how flights are consistently oversold. But with 4 kids in college over the next 10 years, that could be big savings. Point to point benefits are so much less useful than hub and spoke.

Promising update from today MEC News:

"Section 11 (Training) and Section XX (LCP/SLI): After an extensive negotiation that commenced prior to the pandemic, these sections are now closed. The agreement contains industry-best training pay provisions with significant increases to qualification training pay, CQ pay, and distance learning pay, as well as improved pay protection for pilots awaiting training"

So not just SLIs/LCPs getting big increases but also big, industry best, training pay increases for line pilots.

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Saw that too. Sounds very encouraging.

“Industry-best” compared to a bunch of 5 to 6 year old contracts…big whoop. Enough with the wordy updates…get it done already so I can vote “no” on it.

Amen to that. Will we see shiny new pay rates with retro that distract us from concessionary poison pills unknowingly slipped into our adult beverages? …a la triple 23k recovery obligs; 75 hour sick leave verification threshold; even more optimizer friendly coverage ladder; worse DH rules; let’s not even mention scope…

I’m not plugged into the social

Inflation + retro. Even more encouraging.

Delta purchased the optimizer software from Volvo in 2004.

Then it was modified by a Gothenburg Death Metal Band who earned their wrenching skills at IKEA. CS dropped a Detroit lump into it, called it a V8olvo screwed the accelerator to the firewall and yelled "Børk at the Moon."

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp...2-1024x617.jpg

Don't fall for tricks. ... the HR Department has tried to change the Volvo's image. They wired the left turn signal to blink continuously. But look carefully at the badge. It is still the V8olvo!

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp...History-09.jpg

I would have thought the optimizer originated somewhere closer to Stellantis.

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp...Iacocca-01.jpg

According to negotiator’s notepad 20-01, the sick leave section is closed and improved.

Holy crap people, can we at least see it before we start talking about how we vote? We sound like we belong in Congress with that kind of talk.

Doesn't mean there isn't some concessions in there already...



Lol right! Save the eeyore, "we'll get'em next time," platitudes for when the TA is actually released.

I was kidding about my automatic “no” vote.

I’m all for saving the animals but what does this TA have to do with a bunch of duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed, egg-laying aquatic creatures native to Australia?

Its non-lethal venom is the first remedy to discourage further scope violations. Second remedy is a mongoose.

Honey Badger beats them all. He just doesn't give a $hi%. He's so nasty.

Well, it's tough to explain, but it has to do with prefamulated amulite and the hydrocoptic marzelveins for the retroincabulator.

I was told it's always best to reject the first offer.

Certainly worked last time around.

The same notepad says: "Eleven sections have been closed securing gains for the Delta pilots *with no concessions.*"

Which is why they voted down the original TA that included spurving bearings and approved the subsequent version with a lunar waneshaft.

Could be true, but I'll believe that when I see it. I hope they're right.

That's negotiating in bad faith. If you always reject the first offer, you should fire the negotiating committee. They are the ones negotiating on your behalf. And if you always say no, the company will not negotiate in good faith and agree to less on the first go around because they know they'll have to wheel and deal later. And it artificially drags out negotiations.

I went and reread Negotiators' Notepad 20-01 for myself, and was pleasantly reminded of a few other improvements.
- Pay above guarantee for SC
- "Improvements" for reserve pilots whose GS/IA is cancelled (currently get nada).
- Automating Sick/well calls (though de facto we have that now with Crew Assist)
- Getting rid of the 'Major Bone' nonsense
- Jumpseat improvements, whatever that means (maybe booking timeline?) May be made moot if we get Pos Space permanently?
- Paid commuter parking
- Class 1 Rest facility for WB mandatory for 'new' aircraft. Unfortunately, the 'existing' 767-400 will probably still only have a Class II, and the 321-NEO's will also only get a Class II if it ever does augmented flying. It's better than nothing.

Still a lot to go, and details to be disclosed, but still...

Collectively, yes. But as individuals, which he was responding as, not at all.