Most of the Hawaii three day trips are worth around 11 hours, with the last leg being an allnighter back to LAX, SEA, SLC. NYC has plenty of 3 day trips that leave JFK late and get to LAX, SEA, SFO at around 10pm. They leave the next evening, arriving JFK at around 6am. MSP, SLC, and DTW have them to ANC (dtw in the Summer), leaving late and arriving back on the allnigher. LAX has one to Guatemala City where you leave at Midnight day one, allnight to GUA, and then back to LAX on day three, all for 10 hours and 50 mins of pay. ATL has a bunch too to the West Coast, on 737s and 757/767s, and LAX 73N probably has the most, with 3 day allnighters to MCO, PHL, RDU, CHM, etc that can come back to LAX on night three and be worth 11 hours. If you come back in the morning on day three, you are worthless the entire day. I used to fly those types of trips, and then decided to go be senior on the MD88. If you want to look at them, it's not hard. Look at the bid packages for LAX, ATL, NYC, MSP, and SLC 7ER, and LAX/ATL 73N. Brutal. 5:15 should be min for EVERY DAY YOU ARE FLYING. Calednar day is huge. USair has that for their own Hawaii to PHX flights. Each 3 day is worth 15:45 according to my buddy over there flying them, and the trip flying time is less than 12 hours total from AZ.

 

Given the 73 is the 76 replacement, , but really where we're about to have a lot of growth and these 10-11 hour 3-day trips sit, a min per calendar day would be a huge win for most of us going forward.

 

How can you be as productive on a 777 as you can as a SWA pilot in a 737 with 5 legs a day? Delta chose which planes would be used on certain routes, and 737s all the way to Asia just can't do it. 777s have first class cabins and can pull in huge amounts of revenue from cargo uplifted on those longer routes. Southwest just can't do that. You just can't compare SWA pilots to Delta pilots, the operations are different. Just stop that nonsense.

 

That would also take care of some of the reservations over the reserve rules and ALVs. A 3 day worth 15:45 would get you closer to that ALV, meaning more pilots would be necessary to cover the current trips worth 11 hours. If there isn't Calendar day in this TA, I will vote NO.

 

I have a question, Section 22 D.2 and D.3 staffing reports for November 2012. Why a 1,000 pilot difference between 9,500 and 10,500?

 

Well, that's the thing about waiting for the TA to see what is there. I have no idea why the notepad dropped these little nuggets, who is to say this is something DALPA is wanting vs the company wanting and DALPA is floating it out there for reaction or to allow for specific dialogue and feedback between reps and the pilots to prove a point to the company?

I don't know, it's bread crumbs on the floor with no idea what's at the table.

It could be nothing more than relief with the ALV limit in exchange for gains elsewhere. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

But if it was just what has been shown, well, I don't feel very confident that the TA (which if it makes it to the pilot group will be passed imho) is all that good for where we all. We shall see. But hey, when the FA's say "the pilots got a 10% raise, why not us?" The company can counter, we'll match your pay to theirs as a percentage of what you were getting prior to bankruptcy... so here's your pay cut."

 

I think the real issue here is that many of these 50 seaters are under contract to fly through 2017. To park them before the end of the contract results in substantial penalties.

 

That was my whole point. I was in denial I guess.
It didn't really sink in until I saw this Negotiator Notepad and then tonight when I logged on and read all the posts from you and especially alfaromeo.

ALPA has accepted that "the world has changed". Its now a world where airline pilots make substantially less money than we used to make. The bankruptcy rates aren't some temporary emergency thing. They are the new baseline. "What we used to make is irrelevant".

I was still clinging to some faint hopes. Not anymore.
We're not getting back to C2K during my career. And probably never. It just saddens me to see "airline pilot" drop so steeply in the hierarchy of respected and highly compensated professions in the world.

 

That's why we won't see it. If the company wants out of 50 seater leases, the last thing they would do would be to agree to also have 102 additional 70 seater leases to have to dump just to get 50 76 seaters on a lower over all cap below today's 255. That is why the TA will allow more than 255 RJ's over 50 seats.

You may see a lame attempt at a bait and switch with the number 255 or even slightly below being paraded around, but if that is the case it is because 70 seaters were taken out of the number, but still allowed at DCI, and 255 or whatever the new number winds up being just includes 76 seaters...or worse.

Like I have said, this is like the old joke about offering a hot girl 20 bucks to sleep with you and she says no and gets offended (what do you think I am!) but then offering her 1,000,000 dollars and she accepts, to which you say "good, now that we've established what you are, let's talk price".

If we establish that more scope is for sale, even for theoretical gains, we have established that its going to happen. Since the gains for the company for operating more aircraft off our list are marginal to the company in the grand scheme of things, and since the best we can EVER hope for is a relatively small percentage of those gains (they wouldn't share them all with us otherwise they wouldn't care about them to begin with) then the company wins every time we play that game.

So the next spin tactic will be blah blah blah, evil Emirates will rule the world and there's nothing anyone can do, woe as me, unless you give up more 76 seaters...in which case you will have peace in our time.

That angle is so ****** funny its impossible to get upset when its used. Its just funny.

Finally, when the TA has more large RJ's, and it will, supposedly for a "one time lease relief deal" or whatever, look for the lack of iron clad sunset clauses for all the new and existing large RJ's. That is how you will be able to prove they are lying. When they (the company and the MEC) claim they "need" more large RJ's just for this one time thing, and those new large RJ's are permanent with only non binding promises of growth if we allow them, their real agenda will be so obvious a caveman could spot it.



No offense to cavemen/women.