In other news: 2013 Army - Navy Game today at 3pm.

Go Army, beat Navy! Please! It's been 11 years......

 

And I fell back 9 places in the most junior category. Glad others are advancing. I know...some day....someday.

 

Sailing, it appears that you feel the need to be the polar opposite of the anti ALPA crowd on here, and that's fine, but you keep touting 300 plus new captain positions. How many of those are guys that were captains before but ended up being displaced as the company shrunk? I'm glad things are turning around, but the truth is this place has been unbelievably stagnant for more than a decade, and our contract clearly gives the company staffing flexibility that they didn't have before. It would be naive to think that they put in the ability to fly reserves more and changed the so called shoulder months just for the hell of it. Trying to figure out the reality around here can be difficult; we seem to have a pilot group that emulates congress with the polarization surrounding ALPA.

 

How much would you like to bid that at the end of the conversion window for this bid you have moved up in relative position not down? That is in spite of the fact that the first 150 pilots being brought on the line will be senior to you. After that there will be a bunch of new hires posted behind you. When your in the bottom category and the company is growing and hiring no one bids on below you normally. Those slots are filled by new hires.

 

Ensure you check who might have come out of the category to build another position senior to you. I thought the same as you until looking and seeing that ...

 

The contract gave the company staffing flexibility in some areas and took it away in others. In the end the net result was a loss of a small amount of jobs. Between 0 and 150 system wide depending on what numbers you want to use. This forum has posted that we gave up thousands of jobs in this contract. There is not one shred of evidence based on the bids and system block hours since the contract was signed that we lost any jobs. In fact last spring when I took a vacation from this forum it was posted on here that we would see furloughs in the fall because of all the jobs we gave up. Where are the furloughs? My category has the same number of block hours and same number of pilots pre and post contract. In fact we have actually added about 10 pilots. Again why would that be?
System block hours are very close to what they were when the contract was signed. They are just now starting to ramp up as we shift flying from DCI to the mainline with the new jets that starting arriving in Oct. Again if we lost jobs there would have been a large decrease in Captains positions and resulting displacements. That has not happened. In fact the opposite has happened. We are adding Captains jobs rapidly. Why if we had a massive job loss?

 

For some reason that reminds me of the evening I made dinner for the girlfriends parents. I was chopping Jalapeño peppers then forgot to wash my hands before I went to the bathroom. ....

It stings ... I can explain ... maybe best via PM.

 

Remember that there is a horde of unfilled vacancies behind you. Moving back is an illusion in this case.

 

From a quick look at the AE results, for many these are first time Capt awards.

 

Thanks, acl. That's what we need to start seeing movement for the bottom quarter of us who've been around for 13-16 years and haven't moved much.