They are Golden only in the sense that Training Planning cannot schedule you for CQ on any of those days. They have nothing to do with RES golden days. CQ Golden days apply equally to REG and RES pilots as all CQ Training is pre-awarded and loaded onto your schedule before you bid for a month in PBS. As such, PBS has no idea (and doesn't care) if you will be a REG or RES pilot because the monthly schedule bids haven't been run yet. Clear as mud?

You bid them in iCrew and I think the montly bidding timeline/deadline just changed a little bit with LOA 29. The full explanation is on a PBS notepad under the crew resources tab on Deltanet, but I think you have to have them in by the 21st* with your EARLY/MAY/MUST bids entered into PBS by the 31st at 1800 ET*.

Rough Timeline of Bidding Dates (From the Crew Resources Page)

December CQ Bidding

December CQ Golden Day bids must be submitted prior to October 21st
December CQ Bid Window Opens: October 25th 1800E
December CQ Bid Window Closes:October 31st 1800E
December CQ Bid Results are Posted NLT 0800 November 5th

You can see the CQ Results for December are posted (pre-awarded to your PBS calendar) by 0800 on the 5th which not coincidentally is when the PBS bid window for December bidding opens. Again, you won't know if you're a RES or REG pilot until sometime around the 15th or 16th (but No Later Than 17th) of November. You then will bid your RESERVE GOLDEN DAYS by the 19th* of November for the December schedule. Again, clear as mud???




*check it out yourself, don't want to give bad info. I'm gonna look before mid-November as my CQ comes up in JAN as an early month.

 

My survey was completed last week. Not to get into too much detail, but here were some of my "deal breakers"
*35% min pay increase from the start, but expect MD88 to exceed LUV rates, and larger acft to go north from there based on seats.
*SCOPE--decrease number of allowed >51 seat jets, plus possible restrictions on rj flying such as 500 mi distance limit, no hub to hub flying, sunset current contracts.
More limitations on codeshare flying. Scope is issue #1 for me and I communicated that to them in the survey.
*Min daily guarantee--Any Delta calendar day, ie. DH, CQ, 30 hr layover, etc. pays min guarantee. Period, no exceptions. Way too many 3 day trips with 11 hrs of pay.
*Reserve--75 hrs/mo and 14 days off. Rsv paid the same as a lineholder, put some seniority back in the system re: assigning trips
*Vac--needs to be paying way more than 3 hrs/day.

 

This defeatist, poor-me mentality is exactly what's going to get us a crappy contract. We need to stop moping and blaming someone else for what's gone wrong in the past decade. ALPA certainly had a hand in it, but there were quite a few outside forces influencing the process as well.

Now we finally have an opportunity to alter our course, and a large portion of the pilot group can't even be bothered to spend a few minutes filling out a survey!

The company is making money hand over fist and knows that we expect significant recognition in this next contract. If we're too weak, stupid or lazy to ask for it then we'll have no one to blame but ourselves. The laundry list of BS reasons for not getting on board and pulling in the same direction is just that, BS.

Even if you're the staunchest DPA supporter out there, hedge your bets. Continue to provide at least the minimum required participation (like filling out WHAT YOU WANT) while trying to create a better alternative union. I'm fine with that, but don't just give up. For better or worse, our cart is tied to ALPA for now, and our success and paychecks will depend on how well ALPA can do. You never know, they may actually achieve the unthinkable (in the DPA crowd's vision) and help us negotiate an industry leading contract. One thing is for certain though: Without some minimum participation from the pilot group, ALPA will not have the leverage to achieve what guys supposedly want (but apparently aren't willing to get off the couch for.)


**This rant was in no way directed at you 88. I admire your continuous beating of the restoration drum and just happpened to quote your post that was referencing the rampant apathy.

 

"Hope" is a lousy strategy. What are they doing to turn things around? And why aren't we hearing anything about it?

 

Sounds almost identical to mine roadrunner. I asked for vacation to be paid at the min daily guarantee.

 

Will our profit checks be bigger or smaller this time

 

They will be A LOT smaller than the difference between what our W-2's will read and what they should read.

 

My most shameful O club experience was at miramar during an F-8 reunion. I can / will never drink free shots of yeager coupled to a heineken all night long. Nothing good can/ did possibly come of it.

No I will not go into details...bad, just bad.

 

Thanks Luv. That'll buy an adequate watch.

 

Not to get too into what I was pushing for, but here's where I sat.

*I think 5% over 5 years with a minimum of 5 encouraging phone calls, meetings, or commendations each quarter from an upper level executive/management type who smells of a combination of mahogany and expensive black label scotch. (I call this the 5-5-5 plan)

*Scope relaxation up to 100 seats in exchange for allowing pilots to sell commercial advertising space on their flight kits, luggage, and uniforms, in addition to 1 company-issued, monogrammed, blue Snuggie.

*1% point below LUV rates under the terms and conditions that it is formally/officially put in writing that DAL pilots are superior to SWA pilots in every other way as pilots and men.

*Vacation time to remain at 3 hours under the conditions that each pilot is permitted 5-10 minutes of loitering "free time" in the front lobby of a Skyteam Lounge of their choosing each calendar year.

*Sick time allocation and usage relaxation to allow pilots to trade banked sick time for on board beverages and snacks at a rate of 4 Twix or 2 Pringles for 1 hour of sick pay.


I know it's not what everyone might want, but keep in mind that the times have changed, C2K might as well be CULater because this is probably the best deal we are going to get.