I hear you. Did over a year of reserve as a junior captain at a regional, just to go tour asia with NWA in a 747 and then sit reserve forever on the airbus in DTW. I "think" i'm juuust senior to you in DTW. Maybe like two or three guys. My point is......you seem to be in the same boat i'm in, and I'm expecting to hold a line by December at the earliest. I'm expecting about 50 to 60 new hires on the bus in DTW, as senior guys go back to the 757 etc. It's all a guess as guys would say on the board here. But given the tools we have so far, they're expecting 250 guys on DTW 320 FO by December, with a lot of movement between now and then.

Hope it helps your decision,
fly2002

 

All this talk about the AE is very confusing for a new hire. What I'd like to know is, are we going to learn all this stuff in INDOC or does it come just from talking with people on the line? From my perspective, it all seems rather daunting.

 

I would think that MSP would continue to ramp up. We still have some "new" 90's comming down the pipe, and I would bet a good portion of them do some flying out of MSP. One has to wonder if they bulked up the 88 in NYC for the slot swap, and are now letting it shrink in the wake of its demise.

That being said, if you look at the 22.D.3 report issued with the latest AE, it show most of the -88 categories losing bodies. My understanding is that the 22.D.3 report is where crew resources plans to have all active pilots at the end of the conversion window. Anyone else notice there are 80 fewer pilots on this report than the one issued with the bid in May? Someone tell me what I'm missing here...

And in regards to the long call argument - I really don’t think a commuter needs to fly into his base on long call, just on the off chance scheduling calls in the “witching hours.” (And unless you commute by car, pretty much every place you could commute from has a “witching hour.”) In some categories, you’d be spending 20+ days hanging in your crashpad, and be lucky if you fly one trip. That’s just silly.

And just for the record -I don’t commute to reserve, I never played roulette, and I’ve never missed an assignment. I tried commuting for about 6 months, and between the stress and the low QOL, I just couldn’t do it. So I moved to base. Then they kicked me out of that base - so we made Delta pay for the move to the next one. Now I’m one of the guys that get’s called when someone “***** it up,” and I’m fine with that. I live 15 minutes from the parking lot, and spend most of my shortcalls at the park with my 2 year old.

 

Rick,

Welcome aboard! Ummm, don't tell anyone, but I think you will learn more from this forum than you will on the line.

Oh. Don't feel bad about not knowing the AE process. Very few people know how it really works.

 

You learn it by screwing it up.

Well actually, thats PBS.

For AE, you seriously need to go to deltapilots.org > Committees > Contract Administration > Contract Awarness Bulletins (under Committees Category in the blue box on the left side of the screen).

Start with CA Bulletin 09-12. Its 1100 pages. Download it and save it. Its the best thing I've found to date and it was well done, although it needs an update on the MOUs and LOAs. I talked to the Captain in charge of this, he said he wanted a single source with all of the documents you needed in one place and thats what it is. You can keyword search and learn a lot.

The first section is the get to "Know Your Contract" and its a laymens review of all 28 sections of the pilot working agreement. The PWA is also in this document so while looking at one of the reviews you'll notice it links to the document. Click on it and it'll take you to the source, the PWA, and you can read it for yourself. Before you read it wrong, or have a creative interpretation go further into that PDF and look at the TWG Notepad. It'll help you understand it even better and it is also linked to in the "Know Your Contract" stuff.

This is what's in it:
-Know Your Contract, Section 1-28
-Pilot Working Agreement
-Scheduling Alert Compilation
-When Scheduling Calls (you need that in your flight kit)
-PBS Refernece documents (go there before your first bid and after you screw up your first bid)
-Reserve Reference documents
-Other Reference documents
-Contract Awareness Bulletins: protect your rights, 76-seat grievance settlement, contract provisions implementation for DALN pilots.
-TWG Notepads (THESE ARE GREAT), they give the best understanding you'll find anywhere, thanks to the merger, of sick leave, deadheads, average line values, reserve rules, PCS system and swap board, personal drops, reroute and recovery obligations, training scheduling, and last but not least, Filing of Vacancies which is otherwise known as the mysterious AE, VD and MD.

 

I'm about the same seniority as you two. I bit the bullet and bid ATL mad dog. I'll be ****ed if I'm sitting reserve in ATL when I could have held a line on the 320 in DTW. ATL's a much easier commute for me though. I definitely feel the same reserve pains as you guys. Sitting reserve as a commuter makes this a really tough job. It's worse for us because it's been years already with potentially years ahead still.

 

whaaaaaaa

 

Two other things to learn real fast Rick, just want to help you out.

First, you need an Avatar pic and its best to go with something that conveys the mood you're in.

Second, there ain't no good in an evil hearted woman, and you ain't cut out to be no jesse james, and don't go writin' hot checks down in Mississippi and there ain't no good chain gain.


- Tonights Pandora recap brought to you by an ever increasingly deaf FTB.

 

HEY EVERYONE NEWS FLASH

Cat Ladies is on animal planet!

 

ON THAT NOTE WE NEED MOAR UNDERBOOB,