Rolling Thunder was a result of the "Perfect Storm" to use a cliché, regarding Pilot scheduling.

First off, as was previously said Line holder greenslips became a lot less valuable: 1.5 vice 2.0 times pay, and only over 75 hours, sick time did not count, don't think vacation time counted either but you get the idea - a lot of lineholders said "not worth it."

Secondly, we were very short in a lot of categories resulting in a lot more reserves getting Greenslips, PB days, more Greesnslip etc.

Also sometime before this Greenslip awards were changed from straight seniority with no regard to previous Greenslips, to seniority along with regard to number of previous Greenslips in the month. In other words once you got a GS you went to the back of the line spreading the wealth around which also helped to push more GS's down to the reserve ranks.

Finally, while RT is always a possibility we will probably see a lot less of it, unfortunately, with a bunch of guys all trying to fly 90+ hours a month. The old "Tragedy of the Commons" rears its ugly head once again amongst the Pilot ranks.


Scoop

Ed gives you the warm and fuzzies, doesn't he?

I just hope he can sleep...

That sums it up.

I guess I don't understand all the hand wringing by some here. All this cost neutral stuff makes no sense. I'm an hourly employee, I'm making more per hour and it appears more work is coming to the mainline vs. the DCI pilots. How is that a bad thing?

Have you ever seen the financial analysis on a reassignment availability negotiation? I assure you we got every penny of a 12 month seat lock back.

Well, now the first bid is upon us with the more work to mainline (i.e. +717), and I'm reading a lot about displacements and keep seeing "overstaffed" repeated in the menus.

I really look forward to some movement in the correct direction!

They're just continuing to wring their hands because the cost savings in the contract weren't rolled back into the contract value and their contract survey desires. Then again the last thing they negotiated was their kid's lottery so...a company that moves $100 million a day has gotta be apples to apples. No matter what anyone tells you, the majority of this pilot group will benefit from the new PWA. But not everyone - that's a given. But until they're satisfied, their talking point is that everyone got hosed.

Overstaffed? Does that come with a side of capacity restraint? And a New Narrowbody and tonic?

Just curious - saw a DL 330 in U Tapao...is that a mil charter? Is that a regular thing for us? Thanks.

Hope the layover hotel was the Marriott in Pattaya..... great times!

This is untrue. Reserve GS pay has not changed once in the last 27 years. Nothing has changed with regard to rolling thunder and I know guys who did it last summer. For rolling thunder you have to be in a very short staffed category. We will have those again and it will return. The entire DALPA gave it away for nothing was BS.