Most airlines get between 60 and 72 hours per year. We essentially get 100-120 hours every year with no questions asked. GFB is another story, but I have never been GFB’d in almost 2 decades at the company.

 

This comment may have already been brought up, but I’m too lazy to check back far enough.

Sure would be nice if ALPA would reopen the contract survey so we can add some comments on quick slips..

 

Send them emails and go to LEC meetings and submit a resolution. It's not like whatever was said in the surveys is the last you'll get to say about it

 

Couldn’t agree more. Some of the included holidays are absurd too. Want to IVD your trip that ends on the Friday before the Super Bowl? Too bad. How about that trip that finishes on Wednesday morning before Good Friday? Denied.

 

I think we have a strong case to align company paid holidays with APD holidays. And get rid of the bogus 2 before and 1 after. If you want the APD rule carve out, that trip needs to pay holiday pay for the day I’m blocked from dropping with APD/IVD.

I would be curious to see actual data on how holiday pay has changed behavior. As one data point, I have not had a coverage award over a paid holiday except Xmas since it was implemented. (Only worked a couple holidays I specifically bid to work, got the rest off) Im bottom third in category and have been for most of the time since it was added

 

Radom excuse, possible but not necessarily paid time off works too. Which is what we already have.

 

Our sick program is great, and there is absolutely zero reason to change the core of it. I've been out on LTD now twice, and having an extra month or two of full pay AFTER you hurt yourself is great. As someone with some (for now relatively minor, let's hope they stay that way) chronic health issues and small kids, I would never be able to build up any sort of buffer in an accrual system. If we only got 80 hrs/year, all it takes is the sniffles on day 1 of a 6 day trip to wipe out half a year's worth of hours. I much prefer our current system.

Having said that, like much of the contract, it could use some cleaning up. Many have already hit on:

• GFB: Needs to be eliminated in it's entirety.
• Verification: Should also be eliminated, but if we can't get that, it should at least allow for voluntary verification

But there are a couple other niche issues related to sick and LTD that most people don't know about, but absolutely need to be corrected because when it happens to you, it suuuuuuucks:

• 14.D.1.a and c: Pilot don't get sick hours until completion of OE.
  • If you are a new hire or pilot returning from medical leave and you get sick during training or OE, you don't get paid. Period.
  • This is an easy change, and extremely low cost to the company: Sick bank gets refilled the day you become an active pilot.
• Pilots returning from LTD are punished for two years following their return with regards to vacation:
  • If you were out for the prior vacation year, you get no vacation AT ALL for the remainder of the vacation year you come back in.
  • Even if you weren't out the entire year and you do have some accrued vacation, you missed the master bid and therefore get assigned whatever weeks the company wants to give you no matter your seniority. You can only change it via the move-up process, which is cumbersome at best.
  • Pilots don't start accruing next year's vacation until after OE. This means a minimum of two months of full time work with no accrual, and if you come back late in the vacation year, it could push you into the nest vacation year with no vacation.
  • Once you are back to work, for the following vacation year, you will not have a full year's worth of accrual. This means less total vacation pay and because you don't have a full bank, fewer weeks of vacation for the vacation year AFTER you come back.

All because you had the audacity to get sick.

Hurumph.

 

Agree 100% with all of this. The same thing happens on MLOA (or any LOA really) and it was absolutely crappy. I think I was on year 10 pay before I both, got to bid for my vacation AND had my full allotment of vacation. I was never a long term MLOA guy, just did the occasional TDY and went on our deployments when activated. One thing to add is the idea that if you're docked just 1 day of vacation, you lose the ability to bid that week as a separate week of vacation, which makes zero sense. Unfortunately, they just slap that vacation week on to the end of another vacation week, but BOTH weeks have to be available, which also makes zero sense. It's like a double jeopardy event.

The ridiculous part about all of this is that if you showed active 31Mar, you could just tell them to place your vacation wherever your seniority could hold. However, if you showed up 1Apr, they just place it wherever and you had to hope for a move up. This should be an easy fix for everyone on any LOA. Whenever you get back, you should just be able to place your vacation where your seniority allows.

 

^^^^^^^ALL OF BOTH OF THESE^^^^^^

I did put some of that on my survey, like bidding vacation in less than 7 days blocks (not having that is really just dumb), and accrual. So fingers crossed some of it gwts changed. It’s not like it really costs the company anything anyway!

 

While we are at it... Vacation weeks run Sunday to Saturday. I have a full week of vacation, but no weekend off due to coverage awards this month.

Why can't they be some weekday to weekday combination where we get the weekend off.

Normal 9 to 5 M-F jobs a week of vacation is actually 9 days in a row off for most jobs.