gloopy

I'm still not sure what we're talking about WRT this.

The DCI academy in FL was one of many Mullin/Reid buy high sell low blunders, but it or something just like it could be started again with a couple days profit or the cost of one line of thunderstorms through ATL.

The issue is in the details. If you're talking ab-initio like the DCI academy was, you could push candidates through with current ATP mins in well under 2 years. Possibly DL is trying to get rolled in to the already existing college program hour reduction of 800 TT instead of 1500. I would think they could easily get that approved with any kind of decent program. There's really little real advantage to even attempt to go lower than that, and I don't think it would be realistically aprooved anyway.

If there really will be a significant "shortage" at the student pilot level as well as the ATP mins level into the bottom of the regionals, then any kind of system like this is going to need instructors and lots of them. Getting around 500 hours out of an instructor (still extremely high churn) would only take 6-9 months at a busy school.

If, OTOH, you are implying some kind of puppy mill conspiracy theory where DL starts taking 300 hour wet tickets under a special dispensation, there is no way that's happening, and there wouldn't be anyone to train the next ones in the first place.

CheapTrick

Actually, I'm the guy that has shut down the unsafe operation. Twice as an FO and multiple times as a Captain. The most recent time was this week. It is our basic duty to shut it down when the crew day gets stupid long.

I'm incredulous that a DAL pilot admitted here that he let himself be pressured into continuing and then blamed the system/union. How about a reality check?

BTW. I've never been questioned by the company on why I walked off a flight. They pay us to make that call.

gloopy

I don't think thats a fair assessment of what he's saying. We can't have a system where the CA can say "I'm not extending", head to the hotel and gets paid and fully protected while the FO has to call in fatigued, which may not even be the truth at all, and then have to go through an explanation process and possibly not paid and possibly diciplined.

How about we monetize our sick time into higher hourly rates for everyone, and then all sick calls are unpaid and require a carpet dance? What could possibly go wrong?

In any case you don't have to refuse anything with the company. Just tell the Captain you're not agreeing to an extension and the flight can not legally depart. Call CPSP, call ALPA, call ProStans and finally call the FAA. They can't bully FO's into a fatigue call that may not even be the case and operates under a different system anyway.

CheapTrick

Safety isn't based on whether you get paid or not. Integrity isn't based on whether you paid or not. Do what is right. Be the pilot/person/man you are supposed to be.

And, to repeat, NEVER have I been questioned when not extending a duty day. I always got paid too.

gloopy

So if all sick time was unpaid, you don't think it would be a safety issue? That professional integrity would always win out?

This is human nature. FO's should have the exact same way to non extend as CA's do. The FAR interpretation from the FAA agrees, yet we are doing it differently for some reason. Didn't we even get that in the last TA? Or is that one of the gains that don't take effect til fall?

CheapTrick

Sick leave. FAR interpretation. Both straw men. This FO let himself be bullied into continued flying and complains here that his weakness was ALPA's fault. I sez "Unsat on the FO and his blame game." The responsibility for continuing when he didn't want to or need to is his alone.

Professional integrity must always win out. Anything less than professional performance doesn't deserve to be paid professional wages/benefits.

Dash8widget

Huh - good to know. I must have missed the bulletin that the company put out about this.

shiznit

yes!
yes!

TOGA LK

Where exactly was DALPA when the company came out with the auto-extension policy to begin with? Never once did I get an email stating that ALPA had a different interpretation. Just another example of how ALPA is here to manage the "plantation" as another put it a few pages back.

TOGA LK

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