TED74

... to clarify, I'm happy to discuss ways previous contracts were BETTER than what we have now. It just doesn't help to detail all the ways they were worse.

Denny Crane

You are not telling the whole story here. As you point out, one can technically be flown to a max of guarantee +17...........but, once one's credit reaches or exceeds the reserve guarantee by that max of +17 (at the conclusion of a trip), s/he is no longer available. It doesn't matter if it's by 0 minutes or 17 hours.

It's a big window that should be smaller.........but it is a window. I would say a 10 hour window should be flexible enough for the company.

Denny

Denny Crane

It seems to me that you only want to compare any "improvments" to our current contract. I disagree...and I'll use your example of payrates. We had pretty good payrates after the 2001 Contract. We got, how shall I say it, "hosed" (think of another 4 letter word that ends in ed) just before and in bankruptcy to the tune of a total 46% loss. With your way of thinking, anything better than bankruptcy wages in the next contract was an improvement........and it was until you compared it to the 2001 Contract. We did not exceed those rates again until not too long ago.........wasn't it 2012?

I understand your point but I think you are taking it a bit too far and reading too much into guys who bring up how things "used" to be.

Denny

Scoop

You say - "If something needs to be improved, lets just improve it."

Well if 75% of the Pilots think reserve is currently good, because we remember when it really sucked, then it won't get much traction among the Pilot group - nor should it. And you know what else- everything in our contract can be improved so determining what "needs" to be improved would obviously be key.

Just off the top of my head I personally would rather improve:

Scope - Especially top end JV Scope.
Vacation - Ours is pretty much the industry laggard.
Medical - Ours is basically catastrophic care.
DH Policy - Ours Blows.

And there are plenty others. These are things that have not only not gotten better but for the most part have gotten worse. That is why we look at what we used to have vs what we have now vs what we want.

I also would like to see reserve improved but it is not at the top of my list, sorry if that is "Lowering standards" in your book.




Scoop

TED74

I think you misunderstand my way of thinking, although maybe I just have poor reading comprehension. I am happy to point to ANY historic contract and identify ways reserve used to be better than it is now, then set that as a goal to be met or exceeded in C2019. Also happy to look to competitors reserve ADVANTAGES for inspiration. Since I don't work for management, I myself won't cite the ways in which our competitors have it worse.

Guys can clearly bring up ways things used to be. When those things were worse than what we have now, though, they lower expectations (in my humble opinion). All of this is psych 101, mirroring why our opener needs to greatly exceed our desired end state. Folks claiming that our reserve only needs minor changes increase the likelihood that such minor changes are all we'll get (if we get any at all). In my personal experience, those types of bar-lowering history lessons come from pilots who don't sit reserve much and/or don't expect to going forward. Naturally, it's their right to seek to minimize contractual improvements from which they won't benefit in hopes of maximizing those from which they will.

TED74

I can't disagree with anything you say here. And I appreciate the acknowledgement that historic reserve discussions undercut efforts to improve it. I happen to think your four items are more important, but I don't think they necessitate freezing out reserve improvements.

It won't be long before 50% of voters have only known C2012 and beyond, FWIW. There will be good and bad from that demographic shift.

Herkflyr

Sure they are. You might have meant "the coverage buckets are not part of the process for assigning short call," which would be a correct statement.

What do you mean "I still have been unable to obtain a written copy?" Isn't the pdf version of the contract "a written copy?"

There is ZERO company discretion--there is the contract and it is explicit--that's what it is there for.

And there you yourself quoted it, and I added the emphasis. RUO definition is from section one, and that is where the reserve "buckets" are specifically mentioned, and section 23 specifically states that the RUO is taken into consideration when assigning trips to reserves.

It is also a great system that ensures that reserves "mostly" fly or don't fly at roughly the same rate across the category, while not letting very small differences in RAW score result in one pilot flying when he didn't want to, while there is another who wished to, both of whom are in "roughly" the same group of guys.

And I think it a great help. However, the SRH is "merely" a user-friendly summary of contractual language that is already there, and has been for years.

Herkflyr

True, but...when it was just ALV, if you had vacation, MLOA etc, NONE of that applied to the ALV value in terms of what scheduling could assign. So if you had a week of vacation, scheduling could assign you flying up to the ALV in just the remaining three weeks. Now you have your own "personal" max reserve in such months, which is far less.

For all the senior guys who are bidding reserve these days (who never would have before) that is a big difference, since they have vacation 3-5 months of the year.

That is not saying that the ALV+15 rule change was great, but it did come with an important side item that didn't exist before.

TED74

Great system for whom? There is a wide variance across most (if not all) categories with regards to how much pilots WANT to fly while on reserve. Normalizing this and treating everyone identically degrades quality of life at both ends of the spectrum. I'm happy to insert language to avoid reserve pilots going to the sim for bounces (Maybe pecking order changes when one doesn't have required T/O and Lands at 60 day mark? Maybe different categories need different systems?). It's just silly to have one pilot sit in a self-funded hotel while another who wants to be in his own bed is off flying around the world instead.

sailingfun

In addition when you are full was reduced by two hours as part of that package.