Originally Posted by scambo1 (Post 922097)

Gloopy;

I respect your opinion, but I cannot understand how you characterise Dal pilots as not productive. 80 hours a month equals 1000 hours a year. The FAA doesnt let us be any more productive.

Originally Posted by gloopy (Post 922189)

There is plenty of room for improvement that increases productivity for the company and QOL for the pilot group. The goal is total compensation and QOL, not simply forcing them to hire more pilots to cover the same amount of flying for its own sake.

Originally Posted by newKnow (Post 922180)

Gentlemen,

What's the most reliable way to figure out what the REAL loads are for a flight? I just convinced myself wait and to take a flight in the morning instead of the last flight out tonight, only to check back and find out that it went out with close to 40 open seats. It showed that it was full ALL DAY. :eek:

Originally Posted by johnso29 (Post 922182)

New,

I always check the airport standby list. It shows a better picture of what's going on IMO.

Originally Posted by BigGuns (Post 922200)

The number on travelnet (AV/AU) is the actual number sold and the REAL number. The number on the airport stby list shows seats assigned, so blocked seats (ie bulkhead exit last row etc) will show as available, until released to the gate (aprox D+30), even though those seat have been sold (thus HKs).

The AV/AU number could contain reservations that the computer auto backed up for misconnects. Those pax could have made their conx or other wx events, and will not be on the flight even though there is still a seat reserved. When the gate gets control of the flight the agent will drop those seats. This is probly what happened in your case.

So, outside of D+30 the Travelnet AV/AU is the actual number of reservations, but inside D+30 the airport stby list becomes the most acurate.

Originally Posted by BigGuns (Post 922200)

The number on travelnet (AV/AU) is the actual number sold and the REAL number. The number on the airport stby list shows seats assigned, so blocked seats (ie bulkhead exit last row etc) will show as available, until released to the gate (aprox D+30), even though those seat have been sold (thus HKs).

The AV/AU number could contain reservations that the computer auto backed up for misconnects. Those pax could have made their conx or other wx events, and will not be on the flight even though there is still a seat reserved. When the gate gets control of the flight the agent will drop those seats. This is probly what happened in your case.

So, outside of D+30 the Travelnet AV/AU is the actual number of reservations, but inside D+30 the airport stby list becomes the most acurate.

Originally Posted by newKnow (Post 922205)

Thanks, guys.

I guess you really never know if you should head up to the airport until you head up to the airport. (D +30) :o

Originally Posted by sailingfun (Post 921688)

The NW copilot I just flew with told me that they only got the 1.5 pay on time over 80 however there was a cap on that time and you really could only get it for about 5 hours a month? Can any of the former NW pilots explain the system and how it worked? Was there a max you get get the 1.5 for?

Originally Posted by Pineapple Guy (Post 921690)

Also, who had priority if pilot A had 60 hours for the month, and pilot B already had 80? Did it go strictly by seniority, or was there some other system?

Originally Posted by hoserpilot (Post 921706)

So I was flying with Carl the other day and he leaned over and said, "Why do we have 20 Asian flight attendants on some flights and only 10 conus gals on a domestic flight?"

"Oh my greenskeeper buddy, its because the flight attendants have a 2500 pound total weight limit!!!!"

Originally Posted by gloopy (Post 921975)

That is a very good point that's often overlooked in the superficiall rhetoric of "more pilots = good, period, end of story". The goal should be the most pay, QOL, scope and benefits for every pilot on property, not simply more pilots for the sake of more pilots.

As an extreme example, what if we limited monthly credit to 30 hours. Wouldn't that "require" more pilots? Of course it would, lots more actually. Wow, your seniority would more than double! Weeeeeee! Heck, a cap of 20 would be better! How about 1 leg, DH back, rest of the month off! Weeeeeeeeee!

But the cost to make that happen would strip a lot of pay and QOL as the "costs" of making that happen would be taken out of whatever the pilot group was able to negotiate as a total. So we all get 40,000 new pilots hired on to the bottom of our list, but take a huge pay cut and lose tons of benefits to pay for it. No thanks.

Look at it this way. How often has someone pointed out how we deserve SWA pay for narrowbodies? Or JetBlue pay for any type of 100 seater? After all, if they can fly those planes for that, by gosh we should be able to get at least that as well, right? Of course we should. But those carriers have very, very high productivity. Engineering schemes whereby we create the need for more pilots by spreading the existing flying thinner is extremely costly and we end up paying that cost.

If we had the ability to negitiate such a scheme, and were willing to sacrifice the negotiating capital to do so, then the only way it would happen is if we took it out of other areas and I don't think you're going to find a lot of support for that.

If we're looking for "restoration" or no matter what you call it, but several hundreds of millions per year (maybe a billion or more?) in additional pilot costs, who is going to fight for that to be spent on hiring more pilots to cover the exact same amount of flying? That use of money in a future contract is by far the most expensive item because its amplified by every other item. Pay raise per pilot, more retirement per pilot, better health care per pilot, etc...and more pilots to cover the same flying? That is simply bad and counter productive negotiating.

Let the hoe's fly as much as possible (and I'm a min sked more often than not kind of guy) because if we want a fat raise/restoration the last thing we need to be fighting for is massive additional pilot overhead to cover the exact same amount of flying. The only possible exception to that would be scope reclamation but that's apples : oranges as that flying is already being done by other pilot groups anyway and it should be being done by us, one way or another.