There is a huge difference between having a clunky pay system prone to "occasional" errors that they "fix when pointed out" etc and having a manager in a boardroom saying they're intentionally keeping a difficult system in place to short pilots, telling pay specialists to deny legitimate claims in hopes a pilot takes it at face value, etc.

If there was anything solid enough, ALPA would've already filed a lawsuit. I'm sure their lawyers have looked at this situation and determined wage theft to be a weak case. Ask your reps.

What we can do is to skip the courts and demand the next contract put pay penalties in place if a pilot gets shorted, a crew assist comes back wrong, or something along those lines.

 

You may be right. But one thing is for certain. If we were as "inept" at doing our jobs.....we would be unemployed. But yet, ineptitude seems to be more than tolerated in certain corners of the organization. There is zero excuse for any company to pay its employees incorrectly......much less so for a Fortune 100 company. Maybe our constituents are too busy playing table games, going to the corporate garden for fresh veggies, or grabbing some food at the campus CFA between trips to the espresso machine. Idk

 

We're looking at the Ford Pinto of pay systems. The company knows it's broken, but fixing it costs more than paying the occasional claim. They are maliciously negligent by refusing to fix a system known to be broken in Delta's favor.

*wiki link for GenY and GenZ

 

TBD UAE just bailed out of OPEC and has coastline outside the strait. 3D checkers going on in the ME.

 

Unless, it is systemic failures intentionally ignored as the PWA and pay rules evolved over the years. Plausible deniability is all they need to allow the (oops) failures to continue.

 

Are we really going to get a TA presented that removes $20 million/ month in pilot value? No way.

The company has already shown they're willing to repeatedly run hot and pay that in lieu of proactive pilot/scheduling hiring, IT automation, airport standbys, premium reserve days, extra 7+ SCs, etc.

I keep hearing the sentiment that the company "really needs to fix their 23m7 problem" when looking at the cost, but I would argue only the coverage process, not the money, needs to be fixed.

For example, change it to pay the QS/IA pilot who is actually flying the trip all 300%/400%. That would fix everything that doesn't make sense about the 23m7 process, because then someone doesn't sit on their couch and get paid with the ability to overlap multiple 23m7 trips without leveling. Instead, the pilot group gets paid the same amount of money, but the person providing the productivity on their day off receives all the compensation, and then the 23m7 couch surfers might get motivated to chip in and fly a few trips (nothing against them at all, I've benefited from playing the game as well). But this would make more sense.

The pilot flying the trip still deserves 300%/400% IMO, because making yourself available for quick coverage all month is a bigger sacrifice than your typical green slip, especially when the company is calling 200 QS pilots at a time at 3 am. Yes, that is completely voluntary, but that doesn't change the fact it's worse QOL for the same amount of premium over your typical gentlemanly GS call. (side note, as a hustler, my sleep schedule has been completely wrecked this month. yes, it's my 100% choice to chase the cheese they put there and I'm not complaining, but there are better ways to run an airline.)

Also consider the second and third order effects of keeping the $20m/month 300%/400% payouts there. The company will be forced in the long run to turn down the optimizer and build more buffers into trips so we don't end up with avalanches of open time every day. If the summer TA removes that $20m/month cost, the company will essentially stop hiring for the year and charge forward with running lean. Why wouldn't they? Then 2400 hiring projection is based on our current contract and would go to 0 overnight if we removed that $20m/month cost.

Keep the cost, but fix the process.

 

If we get GS at 300% then I'm in. Otherwise, we solve the company problem for 0 net gain. Not doing that... ever.

 

We aren’t negotiating in a vacuum either. Management is also aware of all potential headwinds. They would be priced into any deal we receive at the moment.

Should those concerns fail to remain a factor over the long term, then we could easily sell ourselves short while squandering leverage.

 

Too late to edit but I think we're on the same page. Keep the cost, but fix the process. -> Instead of getting rid of $20m/ month, fix the process with a codified premium.

I doubt 300% GS will ever happen for many reasons, but 300% QS and 400% IA are already happening. We should just give it all to the pilot flying.

My point was emergency coverage should pay more than a typical GS because any immediate coverage system is going to be a sacrifice to QOL, when compared to GS that call one pilot at a time 8+ hours in advance. There's really no way around it. You need emergency coverage, and some pilots opt-in to take the QS/IA call at 3am in a batch size of 200. Pay us extra for it, instead of splitting the cost with a farmer sitting on their couch with 0 block hours.

The company showed they're willing to throw money at emergency coverage, so we should lock that in at a higher premium in a manner that makes sense, instead of solving their problem in a way that removes $20m/month as some alluded to. On top of whatever X% raise and improvements to vacation/PB days/everything else has been floating around.

 

I'm glad we have the people that we do negotiating for us. I'd hate to be trying to negotiating in such a complex environment.