Well, I was wrong about the announcement. No new announced codeshare ALK flights to our hubs, or elsewhere. Sounds like the joint announcement was promotional on ALK's part, and operational on ours. All in all, very good news for DL, and for SEA. Pretty cheeky announcing the HND route before the DOT awards it!

 

The most notable thing about trip parking is the spotlight it shines on the changing philosophy of our union.

ALPA used to be all about job creation and protection. To the point that many of the work rules in our contract were nothing but old fashioned featherbedding. (not that there's anything wrong with that)
We had strict monthly caps and touching trips vacation pay and partial month power move-ups and bow wave and on and on etc etc. All that's long gone.
Now our union gives up more jobs and signs us up for higher monthly line values with each contract and has to be dragged kicking and screaming to enforce what little job protections we have left in the contract. They would have allowed the blatant violation of white slip pick up limits to continue if the forum regulars hadn't raised he|| about "trip parking". It seems nowadays the union is all about helping management find ways to increase productivity and run the airline with fewer pilots.

The transformation of ALPA under Moak is really quite astonishing.
Maybe it was inevitable given the reality of modern economics and maybe it will even turn out to be a good thing. I don't know. But this new age "constructive engagement" style labor relations must have the old trade unionists of yesteryear spinning in their graves.

 

You misunderstand, he wants to interview for CEO because he obviously knows how to run an Air Line.

 

You missed the point to my post. It was in jest. He talked from a position that all communications from a LEC are approved by the Admin and National Lawyers and support staff. No necessarily true unless those reps desire it.

 

How was that a crew scheds mistake? Your are required to check your schedule and acknowledge any trip after 3pm. Not a scheds error but pilot error.

 

You are corrct Sir. Thank you.

 

If you want to get down to the minutia, complain to your senators, and congressman on the state level. They can fix a lot of it by getting rid of laws that charge property tax on spare parts. Its not cheap to hold a ton of parts in stores. Every airline pays property taxes on those parts. Have these laws nixed so it is less cost prohibitive to hold many of these parts.

Also, who is to say that the one spare start valve or whatever was inop was not used on another jet in the last day. Parts break, its what happens when you have a million moving parts flying in close formation.

 

Could always take a boat.



But they do have a tendency to fail too.

 

There is something wrong with it--it is called, as you correctly called it, "featherbedding" and here is the rub--it doesn't create jobs, just the illusion of them.

Let me ask you something. Should we, in the interest of "jobs" get rid of ATMs? Just think of all those poor bank tellers no longer smacking gum at the bank counter who no longer are issuing us $50 as we stand in line for 15 minutes and then write a check to "cash." Should we mandate that Boeing and Airbus make all planes with a flight engineer, navigator, and radio operator position? That would be great for pilot staffing. Should we get rid of cell phones, and even push button or rotary dial landline phones, so as to "create" lots of jobs of phone bank secretaries pulling and plugging hundreds of electrical wires so as to connect you to the party line? At some point opposing productivity increases--especially when they are voluntary, such as how SWA has been doing for eons--is as futile as Caligula throwing spears to oppose the tide.


I was and am opposed to "trip parking" because it did violate the intent of the white slip pickup limit in the contract. Whether I "philosophically" agree or disagree with the contract doesn't matter. The contract states such and such, and trip parking violated that intent. But...the processed worked. Enough guys got upset about it, made inputs to their LEC reps, who then directed the negotiators to do something about it. And they did.

It was inevitable. Whether it turns out to be good or not also remains to be seen.

Perhaps. But hasn't that been SWAPA's model for nearly 40 years? The same SWAPA that has long embraced a model of hard-working pilots who through their willingness and ability to fly a lot--and specifically reject the "featherbedding" model--have helped create a very stable prosperous company that has enabled the W2s that the rest of the industry has been envious of?

Most importantly, SWA pilots have embraced the "work hard, play hard" ethic while still having a great contract with ironclad pay guarantees and protections in place. Working hard and being part of an efficiently run operation does not mean that you fly to FARs while making a pitiful wage--it means that if you voluntarily want to be more productive, which just coincidentally happens to help the company be more efficient and profitable as well, you should be able to, while never being mandated to be. The problem with pilot groups in the past is you couldn't even do that.

 

I get cold called all the time by guys wanting to park a trip on my line.

The Capt's almost all do it. If a guy has a hole on his schedule, it's just a matter of calling him and seeing if you can be his "friend."