Every word out of your mouth shows that you have a basic underlying assumption that people using sick leave are not sick. Your going in position, subconscious to every word you type on this, tells me that you think anyone who wants their medical privacy and claims sick, is lying and not really sick. This attitude is absolutely un-empathetic to others who may not be so super-healthy as you. I get sick all the time, and after over 2 decades of going to flight docs every single time there is STILL not a good reason they can give me for why I get sinus infections. Maybe YOU, all high and mighty in your assumption that everyone is all feeling great and anyone using a good bit of sick leave MUST be lying and abusing it, maybe YOU only get sick once every couple years and when you go to the doc it clearly is X, here take these pills you'll be good in 3 days.

Well guess what, not everyone is so lucky to be so arrogantly healthy. Some of us get sick, and it lingers lightly for weeks, and after twenty trips to the doctor for the same symptoms over our life where each time the answer is "no treatment really, drink lots of water and rest up, oh hell here's some cough syrup too, good luck", well we've come to understand that not every actual REAL ILLNESS needs you to visit the doctor. Particularly when it takes 2 days to get an appointment and nothing happens except they look at you like, "***, you again? Weren't you just coughing like this 2 months ago? I couldn't solve it then, what am I gonna do now? Stop wasting my time man!"
Under situations like this, you might evaluate the requirements of the current language with a more skeptical eye.

There is a reason the sick hours are in the hundreds, and it's because many people get sick particularly as they get older or have young kids bringing home germs from school. I'd trade getting routine coughs and sinus problems with you in an instant, even if I had to take being naively arrogant about my youthful health ... though I'd hope not to be so foolish in assuming everyone else had my great good fortune or were scheming liars.

None of the above is any indication of my thoughts on the actual new contract, so pls don't misconstrue... I do think this new verbage is worse than what existed before, mostly for hypothetical antagonistic situations that I think contract language should be evaluated under--for this reason I agree with Purple Drank here. Yeah, I think it is probably workable and ok as is, but will NOT protect in those conceivable extremes (which is when contract language like this really comes into play, so it's pointless to evaluate it under normal "healthy" conditions). My point, SailorJerry, is that you seem to evaluate this intelligently and are eloquent on it... but I perceive a mistaken assumption in your writing that I don't think you even notice.

 

Roadkill,ever try the Neti-pot? I know it sounds silly,but I never leave home without mine.Forty years of suffering gone in a sniff.

 

I agree with this. I'd rather go back to a 70 hr res. gurantee than give up 7th short call, ALV+15, and July/Aug being 30 day months. How much "time value of money" is lost in the inability/delay to get to a higher paying aircraft (or bounced down to a lower) due to the reduction in staffing caused by those items.


My statement was in regards to any potential hiring in the future, combined with a current increase in weekend staffing.

Any weekend staffing increase that happens say, tomorrow, will be staffed by more senior folks who can currently hold weekends off. When (if) hiring commences, they go back to weekends off, while newhires fill their gap. The individuals who are presently working weekends under the current (non-increased) weekend staffing model may find themselves still on weekend duty under the above scenario. Depends on the amount of hiring.

Clear as mud?

Anyway, the fewer people that have to work weekends or holidays the better in my opinion. I don't think it is ever a good idea to increase staffing on those days over the minimum we can achieve.

 

I agree..so many people failed to realize how much this ALV+15 nonsense would affect us. Either that or they were just greedy.

 

It was asinine to agree to this. At the very least, if DALPA was going to push changes in reserve (on behalf of the company) why not adopt Alaska pilot rules?

Bid short call for the month. Guarantee 79 hours
Bid long call for the month. Guarantee 75 hours. On long call you can be converted to short call a maximum of 4 times. The first time you add 2 hours to your guarantee. The second through fourth you add 3 more hours to your guarantee for a total 79 hour guaranteed hours of pay. You might still only fly 30 hours for the month and guaranteed 79 hours pay.
Bid Zones (ie no calls before 10AM)

The good news is if we ever merge with Alaska, DALPA will insist on keeping the worst of both company policies to help the company out and leave loopholes because our high powered attorneys thought using the word "may" shouldn't be a problem.

 

They download your yearly time cards from icrew. Then they figure out each nights per diem from that.

 

How many aircraft types does Alaska have? How many bases does Alaska have? Huge differences between the two airlines and depending on the ratio of long to short call lines it appears they keep a lot more pilots on shortcall.

 

You guys really need to get on the phone with the company. They don't know what you know and are keeping the staffing assumptions the same. Most Captains categories were staffed about where the company wanted when the contract was signed. If what everyone on here posted is correct there would have been huge displacements on the last two bids. The next bid should be out in days and based on what your posting here the company should be able to cover every single new Captains seat with displacements. Damn, I had hoped for 100 plus new Captains on this bid. Sad that its not going to happen.

 

I was exactly like you for decades. Then I found an awesome ENT in Newnan. He actually told me to only do the surgery as a last resort.

He has me taking a claritin everyday. Also, at the very first sign of anything sinus/cold related, I take a mucinex-d in the am. Last, I lay on the bed with my head upside down and do a sinus rinse with alkolol using a baby squeeze syringe. I do the rinse again at bedtime. I repeat the mucinex/alkolol for the next couple of days, as long as even the smallest symptom remains. (Alkolol is non-prescription, but must ask pharmacist for the bottle.)

Doing the above, I have gone from 4-5 major sinus infections/yr to 1 or less.

Good luck.

 

Unde the old contract you were never full at 70. You were full at the ALV every single month. New contract you are now full at the reseve guarantee. The average pilot at Delta has 6 plus known absences a year. If the ALV is 77 your now full at 75 hours verses 77 on the old contract. If you have a week of vacation your now full at 54:15 vice 77 in the old contract. Alv15 and other changes will cost us jobs. Other changes gained jobs the net effect will be less then 150 jobs system wide.