OK.. that's it.. I am officially old. :rolleyes:

OH THAT'S AWESOME. I'm going to get so fat that I'm going to end up going to the gym so often that I'll finally learn all of Katy Perry's songs!

Yeah, that Elmo is HOT. Who was that ugly girl in the video? What a distraction of the main character, ELMO.....

Well I was referring more to Katy Perry. Too young.. not interested in her or her music.. Either that or I have been to Brazil too many times, and she just ain't all that. :D

Katy Perry is probably a lot like Tanya Tucker was when she was new but just totally different.

http://image.kazaa.com/images/25/827...est_Hits_3.jpg

And the one big exception is that I'd never say this about Katy Perry but it was said about Tanya Tucker: "This album will get your ears hard!" :eek:

The point is this. Anytime there is a critical comment about ALPA reps the immediate defense is how hard they work and the fact that if you do not do ALPA work you have no right to be critical. In this case it was that working for ALPA causes divorces and they do 10x the work an any line pilot does. Just bringing out that most pilots now do more then just fly the line and have stresses as well.

I am not opposed to FPL for reps at all. Even if they get paid a bit of an ALPA bonus is fine with me. We need guys to do the work. The issue I really have is that we are not allowed to be critical of anything that they do.

I have to huge issues with the ALPA currently and those are a lack of communication and a lack of transparency.

What is the problem with having posted flight pay loss amounts for anyone in ALPA receiving it?

First, its not just the elected reps and MEC officers on FPL. There are lots of committee members getting FPL.

FPL like any other type of "pay" for doing non-flying work, can be underutilized or abused. The only way to find out who is abusing it is by looking at FPL numbers which up to now have not been published in written format.

There are also two forms of FPL, one is paid out of your ALPA dues, the other is paid by the company.

Next you have to define abuse.

Hypotheticals Start Here:====================================

If there is someone collecting 100 (insert your own number here) hours of widebody captain pay as FPL but has a permanent position of (example) narrow body FO/widebody FO/narrowbody CA, is that abusing the system?

If a pilot drops an 80 (insert your own number here) hour trip to attend a 4 day MEC meeting, is that abuse?

What about a pilot that bids something on reserve knowing full well that they will be spending all their time doing ALPA work, will never be on call for one hour and would never bid reserve in a higher paying category if they actually were on the line?

Would it smell funny if someone doing ALPA work were getting paid 150 hours/month of FPL funded by DL instead of DALPA?

Disclaimer: I have no personal knowledge of anyone at DALPA abusing FPL, but I would still like to see the numbers in writing.

End hypotheticals Here ======================================

There are lots of volunteers that lose money by doing ALPA work. My hat is off to them. No one should be doing that, but some people are dedicated or motivated enough to put up with it for awhile.

Like any other situation there are always the 2% or so that stretch the rules. Sometimes more, sometimes less. The best way to minimize that percentage is to put all the numbers out in the open as well as the source of the funding.

At a previous airline, it was interesting to watch the FPL numbers change after the historical ones were published.

A good first attempt by the MEC at publishing the agenda for the next MEC meeting... but they didn't provide a list of (or text of) the agenda items to be discussed and sent up for approval.

Grade for first attempt: C-

That doesn't have anything to do with Katy Perry at all. Not one bit. :confused: