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.

See that's the issue. You assume that everyone that calls in sick is like you. I assume that most people that call in sick are sick, but some that call in sick, are not sick. I don't see how that's anything but arrogance on your part. The new sick rules give you every opportunity to use every hour of your sick leave with a developed, private rapport with your CPO. If you get sick a lot, don't stick your head in a hole and think its no one's business.

The issue at hand is the mechanism to protect the company from the abuser. Not you, not me.

You make some incredibly arrogant and blind claims on my "youthful" health, and how "great" it is, and while HIPAA laws prohibit you from ever knowing the truth, I honestly LAUGHED OUT LOUD at your sniffles. Get a neti pot and a doctors note on file with the CPO that says you have chronic sinusitis and burn every sick hour you want. Your propensity towards secrecy is the reason, however, that the company feels the need to protect itself. The new system allows you to be left alone, while the guy who's Facebook Friends with the CP who posts a picture of himself on a far away beach on a sick day gets fired.

I make no mistake on this issue. I know it and understand it well, and its abuse is present in the vast MINORITY. My argument being that's why the language exists. Hopefully NO ONE abuses more than 100 hours of sick leave per year - even though, now they can - as long as they aren't rocking out with their band on YouTube on day three of their 5 day. I see nothing concessionary or inadequate about that, nor anything concessionary or inadequate about our own individual situations.

Ed Note: An arrogant thing to say about this would be "Do all of you FPL haters post on sick leave? What's the difference?" Or "No one ever gets sick. That's absurd. Be sick on your days off" I don't recall ever casting a blanket on this mostly honorable and honest pilot group. But I did directly state that absurd, however rare, happens.

So what you're saying (that no one apparently wants to hear) is that we were really carrying a couple hundred too many heads, that the company didn't furlough, and the early out program offset the calculated net effect on jobs and we still have need to burn off the surplus?

When it comes to reserves and weekend staffing, you guys really need to think through this a little more. Pilots complain like crazy about not being able to swap, drop etc because of reserve coverage, so the formula is changed to a more realistic number which means that the first day the schedules are released that there is a much great chance of being able to do something with a weekend trip or on call day. So, during the first pcs run pilots start working to get weekends off that have excess reserve coverage and you end up with some fat days during the week and what should be even numbers on the weekend (up until misc trps are dropped, created etc) which prevents further pcs changes for the most part.

Are people actually proposing that we keep reserve coverage higher on the weekends so that pilots can't pd, swap etc so a pilot that is on reserve may not be as likely to fly on his on call days? Really?

Classic example of never being able to please some people. Several years back there were big complaints about the company having to many reserves on the weekends. We fix that contractually and now others complain.

Pilots. Nuff said. Pilots.

We're saying staff the airline with something other than GSs, like pilots.

GS's are one thing in IROPS or we are hiring, using it every weekend is another. In my category, every Saturday and Sunday this month is below required staffing and it's only the 3rd. A year or so ago you could get those guys from the weekdays to cover it but now they cut reserves by 20% overall (since January and despite a jump in the ALV) so they're really are not any guys to borrow.

Meanwhile, they say the category is overstaffed and they want pilots to leave. I don't doubt they're telling the truth. My question is just how few pilots do they want to run a category like ATL M88 with? Is this a sign of how they will be able to run things going forward?

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/i...CknVSKgwEKOoKT

I stand somewhat corrected. They have been operating combis with the PAX behind the cargo. Not sure how you would do that with a 747-400. Do you lose the upper deck. Just asking?