I haven't seen anyone mention the rigs yet. I would assume a modest boost to the duty rig would help keeps a cap on stringing multiple long days together if we also bumped up ADG?

 

It would be nice to drop and or swap a trip once in a while. I think we should focus on staffing and actually having some QOL.

 

personally if we are going to change rigs, I’d like to see the trip rig lowered to closer to 3:1 more than an ADG or MDG change. It has a similar effect of making trips more efficient but disproportionately affects longer trips; driving trip length shorter.

With that said I’m pretty happy with our rigs and I think changing them is not the right way to get more money. Rigs are to keep us efficient/ QOL. We shouldn’t be pushing for more without fully understanding the consequences.

 

717b alv is 84 for May. Highest I've ever seen it

 

To be fair, I did qualify my statement with "As a general rule" and "almost always". My point is that there better be a very compelling reason to harvest scheduling ideas from the regional world, particularly ones which would fundamentally alter the way trips are constructed across the board.

I'm certainly not opposed to raising MDG to 3:00, but it's not particularly high on my list of wants in the larger sense, mostly because it's really only felt in a handful of trips. I'm hugely opposed to trading MDG for ADG. If for no other reason than it would be such a major change to the bid packages, and would introduce a huge unknown to all trips just to improve a couple of edge cases. One of the problems with things like this is that many folks assume the trips would remain constructed as before, that Carmen wouldn't find a 'better' (less costly) way to assemble all the pieces. It just doesn't work that way. The burden is on the presenter/suggester to make a compelling case for why something will be better, without just citing one or two edge cases. The vast majority of us don't see those kinds of edge cases.

Again, it's good and healthy to ask questions or wonder if there is a better way. I just think major changes should be thoroughly considered/'wargamed' before sliding a term sheet across the table.

 

This is a good example of taking the time to make sure of your details. NW had a minimum duty period of 4:15, not a minimum daily guarantee of 4:15. BIG difference. In some ways it functioned like a MDG, but in others, yea, not so much.

 

Really? Then Mea culpa.

and I agree that is a big difference.

 

I agree rigs are not something I want to mess with, and I’d want to see what any trips looked like if we change anything. And i certainly don’t want to incentivize them to try and cram more flying into our trips or make our trips longer (more 4+ day trips, which it’s my understanding higher ADGs incentivize)

and yeah, you did qualify your statement. And for the most part, you are right, things are a lot better here schedule wise. I will say I think EDP pay is one of the biggest drivers of our better trips here, that was great on ALPAs part getting that.

it seems like many people wanting to change the rigs are just trying to use it as a pay raise by proxy, which is a bad idea.

 

Except we're not talking high block in that regard. Have a look at the ATL320 bid pack. You're flying hard block. Nothing goes above ADG, and no 3-day pays 18hrs, no soft credit. Even on redeyes, there's just enough flying the prior days to eat the extra credit we're used to enjoing for the pain of a redeye

 

call it the tray table tax