So long as you had not called in sick that month without flying back the time, right?

 

I think you're missing the big picture.

All of those reduce the number of pilots required.

 

You are correct. Which created yet another incentive for a guy to come to work sick....to go along with the other ones such as saving the sick bank for an early retirement..

 

Not jealous at all. In fact, how do you know I'm not doing that sort of thing myself? BTW, you don't get Greenslip pay until you are over the ALV either. And the concept of no GS#2 until everyone else has had a shot is flawed due to the fact that one has to be available and in position to take GS#1. Lot's of guys that are willing to answer the phone at 1AM or have dropped a lousy trip to create a hole in their schedule are getting GS#2+ while others who would like to get GS#1 are out flying their regular line.It's a total crapshoot. Premium pay over a certain credit threshold is not.

 

You and your reasonable "compromise"... Ugh. It's a pretty decent idea on paper, it looks like it would work in the real world.

I don't want to give an incentive for "SET CONDITION MAX CREDIT". The extra hours is the extra pay. If you want to work more that is your own business, but I do not submit that it should come out of the compensation package for other pilots who don't/can't fly extra.

A premium of 7.5 hours of 1.5 is 3:45. Theat 3:45 per month equates to 45 hours per year. I would propose putting that value towards the following:
APD (4-days) be dropped with pay ≈ 21:00
One extra week of Vacation = 22:45-24:00*

Where would others like to see more pay for the same amount of work?


*Prefer the VAC day value be increased again in C2015. Does not account for the large staffing impact of the extra week off for every pilot...Which is huge.

 

Heyas Timbo,

When people call out the NWA system, they typically forget that NWA had exactly what you stated.

One half of the premium pay system was 1.5 over 80. Some people got into premium pay right out of the box with the bid line.

The good deal here is that everything counted. Pick up any flying, any time during the month, and you got the premium. No waiting by the phone and no to trying to do a last minute commute

But there were also "premium trips", which were essentially the same as a GS except you could tell which trips were "premium" in open time. If you were awarded one, you got the 1.5 even if your time was below 80.

You really got into the money if you got a premium trip and were over 80. That paid %2.25.

But here's the thing: Like Shiz said, you absolutely do not want a system like this off the leash, which by just adopting the 1.5 x 80 is what you would have.

What people forget is that NWA had a fairly rigid cap system. Rather than an ALV, you had a "max scheduled" that was set like the ALV (it was roughly equivalent to ALV +7:30). You couldn't be scheduled over that amount. You could do a "high time" (HIT) request, which permitted max schedule +5:00, but then your requests were worked after everyone else who wasn't HIT.

There was also a max actual time, which was 2:30 over the max scheduled. If you projected to go over the max actual, you had to drop a trip to take you below it.

There was also negative bank flyback, up to 15:00, but you had to have a negative bank to do that.

You could take training events for pay, no credit.

So if you had a Max scheduled of 80, and 15:00 of NBFB, 5 hours of HIT, plus had 2:30 hours of overfly, the most you could do was 102:30. Throw in a schoosh more if you had CQ that month that you took for pay, no credit. And that was it, and that's only if you had 15 hours of negative bank. If you had a zero bank, then the actual max you could do was 87:30, plus any CQ.

If you implemented the 1.5x for 80 with the same kind of cap system, the people working the system would scream bloody murder.

To make the system worthwhile to change, in my personal opinion, it would have to be:

1.5 over ALV, and all time counts
Premium trips (AKA GS) remain at 2x
Multipliers still stack
Implement at more rigid cap system, perhaps with a max scheduled of +15:00 over ALV, PERIOD. I'm not sure if a forced drop due to over max actual is worthwhile, but I'd check into it.
Anything over ALV +7.:30 (or pick a number) goes into a separate bucket, permitting people below ALV +7:30 to bid for open time first.

Nu

 

GS pay starts at 75 hours or the ALV whichever is less. In addition you can take 5 hours out of the bank up to 60 negative. This in effect means the GS trigger varies from 67 to 72 hours a month depending on the ALV. It is not the ALV.

 

Thanks for posting how the 1.5 worked at NWA. I had a pilot tell me that the max you could get for the most part was 7.5 hours which is exactly what you are saying. Most Delta guys don't understand that.

 

While factually correct, you are missing the greater point. For starters, when GS only paid 1.5x under our BK contract, it was also a contractual provision that vacation and CQ did NOT count against the GS trigger. Therefore for a GS to even pay 1.5x (back then) all the rest of your flying had to exceed the ALV, NOT counting the GS.

Who flies most GS? Senior guys.

When are most GS passed out? In the summer.

When do most senior guys have vacation? In the summer.

Therefore...most senior guys had zero incentive to fly GS, because the fact that they had vacation weeks almost ensured that the GS would only pay straight pay.

Then, the only guys really putting in GS were the reserves (where a GS really acts more like a GS with conflict, with the payback days).

The company was having destabilized categories, and it was all their own doing. ALPA told the company, "pay the GS double, AND count vacation and CQ back into the GS trigger, and your problem is solved."

Which is exactly what happened.

But, the moral of this post (now that I have rambled some) is that there is a big difference between guaranteed 1.5x pay that you know about days or even weeks in advance as you build up your line value with WS, swaps etc, versus waiting until the day of or day prior to "maybe" get a GS, and maybe not.

And of course there is always the decision you have to make. "Do I put in a WS at straight pay, where the odds are good that I will get a call from scheduling, or do I hold out for double pay?" And of course if you get a WS, then someone junior to you gets a GS, then you slap yourself because "hey if only I had known...."

But the opposite happens as well. Perhaps you have put in for a GS, none have been passed out, and an easy WS gets awarded to someone junior to you. Once again the "if I had only known that no GS would be offered, then I would have put in for a WS."

We shouldn't have to approach things that way. Just put in for more flying if you like, don't wait to get the "magic" GS call the day of or day prior, and if you get assigned more flying, anything over 75 or 80 pays 1.5x. What's not to like?

 

You are correct. My bad for not detailing that. However, that does not diminish the point I was making which was to counter the argument that 1.5 over 80 was bad because you had to get over 80 to get any premium $. Both systems require some base level of straight pay work before any premium applies. I'm amazed at how many pilots I talk to who think that the guy who drops most of his month and then flies nothing but big greenslips (intl) is getting double pay for his whole month...