The conventional wisdom is they were buffing the books for a better quarter/full year. However I can't see how 150 new hire pilots on staff making training pay would make a dent anyway. My back of the napkin math, with an additive for gusty conditions, says 3 months of 150 pilots making training pay is around 2 million bucks. Plug that into our numbers from last year and you can't even tell a difference. The stock would be exactly where it is now, the debt would be paid off exactly on schedule with exactly the same interest rate and we'd still be paying dividends and buying back shares at peak prices (:confused:)

Except now we have to leave revenue and marketshare on the table that we could otherwise do profitably, and as an added bonus, we provide even more opportunity for the endless growth mode airlines to swoop in and take it at an incredible profit for themselves.

We've done a lot of things right lately, but holding off on hiring just for a trinket of paper statistics at the expense of the operation was a bad call.

Only if you are in the strata to get that 6th week, which the vast majority of the pilots are not. We don't need more vacation for some, we need better vacation for all. Increasing the daily value of the vacation we have first is the only way to do that. We shouldn't have far worse vacation than the two largest LCC's.

Who are the 'endless growth mode' airlines you allude to?

They also essentially shut down the training department in Mar. They stopped most recurrent and other non essential training. They made cuts in many many areas to insure the numbers worked. Pilot hiring was just one cog in the wheel.

And it looks better with increased summer flying? :eek:

Did anyone else note the significance in Friday's MEC Vectors of the comment reference the AE:

This bid will close on March 30th at 1400EDT with conversions as early as April 1st.

Sailing, that wasn't necessarily directed at you. Everyone makes that mistake -- even management types. And, as always, thanks for the good gouge you present here.

True statement. According to the contract comparison we received in 2011, just about everyone has more total vacation (days x hours) than we do. Increasing the daily value gives all regular lineholders more days off, but not reserves (unless you change the proration table in PBS).

You could also decrease the number of years it takes to progress to each additional vacation week. That gives most, but not all pilots, more vacation days.

Or you could bring back the two extra days in front of each pilot's PVAC.

Lots of different ways to skin a cat, I suppose.

You'll have to pry my cold dead carcass (probably out of a right seat.) That's the plan anyway.:eek:

:mad::mad::mad:

true. I guess one thing to do on the bid is ensure a good else start next if rolling thunder is the plan.