Everyone who I've talked to who has used the IPad seems to like how quick and responsive the iPad is. I could be off here, but I don't see Microsoft tablets being that good. Microsoft seems to be trying to hard to be like Apple these days, but their products just don't seem to perform the same.

If their buying, who cares though, I'll use it to the extent that it works.
If the tablets are slow and crash often, I can't see most of our pilots willing to deal with that.

Well, my memory is good, but it's short.

Must have been in 2001-02, when we DID have pilots on furlough...:rolleyes:

The POINT is, there are many guys who would fly a GS, regardless of how many guys are on furlough. And then they will get pizzed when they are not moving up!

They don't seem to see the relationship.

Duh...

If you were able to negotiate such a clause do you think it would have a long term positive or negative effect on the furloughed pilots verses the current system where GS's increase the manning formula? It certainly would force the company to make a choice. Accept large operations disruptions when IROPS occur or keep a lot of pilots on the payroll not working. If they choose option two it would prevent some furloughs. I think however they would go with option one and take the revenue hit rather then keep the extra bodies. Either option would be expensive for the company so negotiating such as clause would have a significant cost. In light of the current fleet plan and retirement outlook do you feel that would have been money well spent in the current contract or perhaps wasted?

Lee Moak came up with a all new concept to prevent furloughs. He championed the idea of laying in lots of very small penalties to the company in a furlough situation. Each individual item did not seem that significant but in total the penalty to the company becomes quite large if they choose to furlough. Lots of pilots posting on this forum would have been furloughed in 09 were in not for that concept. I think it worked well and is the way to go in the future.

On a side note I found the following to be true with most pilots. If they were in a category where they could not get GS's then the pilots who flew them were greedy bastards. If the situation in their category changed and they could now get GS's then the would fly them and then say, "Everyone else is flying them so why not me". In essence the the debate hinged on the availability of GS's to each pilot.

Those payrates are really disappointing. :(

Don't feel bad. My wife says my memory is the 2nd shortest thing I've got. :)

I do have to give LM credit here. The layers of furlough protection kept me off the street. I know Delta was very close to furloughing at the end of 2008.

Delta Technology
 

Yes...it is a perfect match to go with the 1970s icons on the screen when using current ICrew and Ecrew! :p;)

Very true Timbo. I know a guy doing the latest DALPA phone call survey. Speaking to a DTW 7ER A, he asked what would this CA like changed. His response..."I think we should be able to fly as much as we want. I'm tired of never being able to pick up open time!!!". To which the DALPA volunteer responded..."If that was the case we wouldn't need as many 7ER A's. Would you still hold that position?" He was back pedaling after that...."Gee....I never thought about that".

REALLY???

I had a new hire FE back in 99 who was complaining about almost everything. He hated ALPA because we had a cap and it restricted his ability to pick up time. I asked him how much he would fly with no cap and he thought he could credit around 110 hours a month. I said how much would that pay you. He did the math and gave me a number. I said your incorrect!. If we had no cap your pay rate would be zero because you would be on the street furloughed, are you sure you want ALPA to negotiate that?"
I am not sure he really got it. There are pilots right now on the DALPA forum asking for all pickup restrictions to be removed. They don't get it either. We need to work to reduce the pickup limits not increase them. The increase in allowable ALV was one of my bigger stumbling blocks on the new contract. We flew the same number of system wide pilot block hours in 2007 as we did in 2001. We did it however with 2500 fewer pilots. How? Work rule changes and cap increases. I would rather fly in a higher paying category working fewer days a month then a lower paying category with more hours per month.