Originally Posted by gloopy (Post 926077)

I guess I got hung up what I thought you meant WRT the "accuracy" of ALPA's (or anyone's for that matter) EF&A because by its very nature its analysis is short term and extremely static when it comes to something as operationally dynamic as outsourcing half your flights to a convoluted matrix of ACMI RFP low bidders.

The paragraph below was what I was mostly referring to:



The way I read that came across as you basically saying that ALPA/DALPA have accurately weighed the full impact of outsourcing. Not the "we make X per hour and they make X per hour and the difference is X per hour" of course they get that accurate. How could they not. But its the other variables that I think, upon further review, they get an epic fail for misjudging. Not only operationally as previously discussed, but when the so called experts do their super secret drink your ovaltine ninja math and then think they come up with a value for the "savings" of outsourcing, and armed with that "knowledge", they then derive that it will be good for the pilot group and the company, and then, almost immediately in some cases, we see the entire industry reverse course because their recent decision has pooped the bed. The company bleeds, hard. The pilots endured thousands upon thousands of furloughs and downgrades. The company bought multibillion dollar high and sold pennies on the dollar low. And its not that they got it wrong, because anyone can get something wrong. Its that they all got it so terribly wrong precisely after the "trust us, we're EF&A/MBA's" lecture of how us peons could never fathom the sheer genius of their industry prognostication in the first place and then still proceed to keep doing the exact same thing today!

Yeah 76 is the new 50, but other than that its the same basic miscalculation and the company is in bed with common type 118 seat operators (one who also flies 150 seaters) and others with firm orders for semi-next gen 100 seaters. After the shellacking they just got on their less than stellar judgement call, the answer of the company seems to be that had they had those magical additional 26 seats everything would be alright, and the national union that prefers to barely if at all even address the issue while implying that it will take care of itself because the market forces of the smaller RJ's is playing out...at the same time they run huevos to the wall on the maximum number of larger RJ's.

Outsourcing the bottom half of the company was an epic fail, so the solution is 76 is better than 50, move along, nothing to see here?

And all of this, all of it, was at one time endorsed by the company bean counters and ALPA's EF&A. They both got it wrong, by the billions and billions of dollars, and so IMHO neither of them should be viewed with anywhere near the same level of credibility they both once commanded.

If airline managers can't manage their own airline, they have no business in the business. If pilot leadership can't realize that section one trumps every single issue, not because it is more important per say, but because it in essence is every other issue, how can they be trusted to protect careers and "the profession" in the first place?

It isn't even about Monday morning quarterbacking, although I realize that's how it may come across. But it is about admitting where we screwed up, collectively as an industry, a company and a group because if they (management) won't, and/or if we won't admit that the MBA's and EF&A's were wrong about outsourcing, and they got it as wrong as they did with the 50 seater, what is going to happen with the current "armada" of larger outsourced jets and their up to 118 seat common types?

Management: use your "executive talent" to run a real airline, not a virtual one, or you by default don't know what you're doing.
Pilot leadership: with all due respect, its about the jobs, stupid. No matter how much the "bargaining credit" is, we are still burning the furniture to heat the house when we allow it.

So anyway sailing, my original rantishly sounding reply to you wasn't aimed at you but at the notion that EF&A and the beancounters get outsourcing wrong, don't want to admit it, and still say "trust me I'm a doctor" almost as if we didn't notice just how wrong they got it. That's all.

Originally Posted by sailingfun (Post 925841)

As far as why not pilots the answer is simply. There is no reduction in headcount. In fact under mainline work rules your pilot headcount goes up quite a bit.

Originally Posted by hoserpilot (Post 926113)

Carl can be very entertaining. He can also be rude but enlightening. He's right and he's wrong. But we need more Carl's. He is a very senior pilot that understands the importance of scope. A bunch of us have written our new reps. Now lets give them a chance to do their work.

Originally Posted by boog123 (Post 925958)

Pick up time question. WS pick up is ALV plus 15. Swap with pilots is FAR limit. Is it an option/strategy to swap with someone to lower your line value , pick up an open time trip, then swap the trip from the "friend" back?

Originally Posted by Dirtdiver (Post 926120)

Yeah. Commonly referred to "parking" a trip. I personally think it blows.

All other means of jacking up our pay involved us dipping into the big D's pocket. This one is a zero sum game amongst pilots, using a loophole in the contract.

Originally Posted by Dirtdiver (Post 926120)

Yeah. Commonly referred to "parking" a trip. I personally think it blows.

All other means of jacking up our pay involved us dipping into the big D's pocket. This one is a zero sum game amongst pilots, using a loophole in the contract.

Originally Posted by sailingfun (Post 926131)

The company has deemed this a termination offense for the flight attendants. I think you will see some joint guidance coming out from the union and the company soon. This activity is certainly against the spirit of the contract and harms the junior pilots in category.