Some did, but believe the vast majority did not, we treated it like an insurance policy.

 

If I remember correctly if there were no new positions than the monthly APA showed no positions avail, but you could have in a perm request for different positions on file. Nu prob remembers the details.

 

Those hours are still available to you, should you need to use them.

The benefit that you still have is correctly called "Top Up":

Top-Up Benefits:
In addition to receiving value for your sick leave through the reimbursement of the DPMA/DPMA Equivalent premiums, your sick leave may also provide additional benefits to you. Whereas the reimbursement percentage was a one-time calculation, the receipt of “Top-Up” benefits will depend on how you use sick leave through your Delta career.
The NWA sick bank you carry over at DCC is charged 80 hours for each month you receive disability and DPMA/DPMA Equivalent payments, since the combination of these payments is equivalent to 80 hours of NWA sick leave. Top-up benefits will be paid to pilots who have a NWA sick bank balance remaining at the end of the DPMA/DPMA Equivalent payment period after being reduced at the rate of 80 hours per month for each month of DPMA payments. Top-up benefits are paid exactly like sick leave and will be paid until the NWA sick bank is exhausted or the pilot returns to flying status. In this way, a NWA pilot receives value for his sick leave hours.
Since DPMA/DPMA Equivalent coverage will supplement disability payment for up to 12 months, a pilot who has more than 960 hours (12 months of DPMA X 80 hours= 960) at the start of a disability period, will receive top-up benefits until the remaining NWA sick bank is exhausted. For example, a pilot with 1280 hours in his NWA sick bank at the start of a disability period will receive top-up benefits for an additional 4 months; 960 hours were deducted during the 12 months of DPMA coverage, leaving 320 hours for Top-Up benefits to be paid at 80 hours per month.
Summary
The focus of the JCBA negotiations was to identify a way for NWA pilots to transition into the Delta programs. We were very aware of the need to retain the value of our sick leave program, and believe that the two transition mechanisms discussed above—the reimbursement of DPMA/DPMA Equivalent premiums to represent pre-paid sick leave and the top-up to represent additional accumulated sick hours—provides significant, equivalent value to the NWA pilot population.
If you have any questions about this you should contact your ALPA rep or call the Delta MEC R&I Chairman.

 

And Southies pay for this benefit bi-monthly while leaving hundreds of hours in their annual banks each year. Brilliant. We went with right system? Ha!

 

In theory, if there weren't any, they wouldn't run one. But there was always some "churn" in the system...people going base to base and what not for one reason or another. I can't remember a month going by without some kind of award.

NWA micromanaged the staffing, so there were always awards as they tried to balance things out. They would also try to balancing things using the temp system as well.

As to how it worked, easy peasy:

Bids were for positions effective 4 months out. The company would publish something about it around the end of the month prior, and bids closed on the 5th of the month. Awards were posted on the 20th of the month. From the date of the award, your new position was effective in 3 1/2 months.

They had to have you trained and/or in that position by that time. No random conversion dates. No guess as to when you went to training. The timeline was pretty tight from the award.

Temp bids also ran monthly. I want to say Temp bids closed on the 25th of the prior month, and your award would show up as a Temp position when bidding opened for the subsequent month (so a bid that closed on Jan 25th would be for the March flying month).

You could do a Temp bid from block to reserve (and vice versa) in your base, or block or reserve in any other base that had your equipment. The caveat was that your present position had to be one of excess, so they didn't need to replace you if you Temped somewhere else.

For the bidding month at your temp category, you bid behind everyone with a permanent position, but in seniority order with other temp holders. Positive space from home and back, and hotels/per diem for the month.

The pros of the system was predictable bidding, non-random training dates, and rapid conversion into a new category. Since there was always some churn in the system, you could almost always go base to base. If the flying in your base turned bad, or the commute turned sour, you could egress fairly rapidly without waiting for the AE gods to spin their wheel of fortune. The pref-up lists gave pretty good intel as to which way the tide was rolling, and if you didn't want to go to training over your vacation, summer, holidays, etc, you could just pull your bid for a few months, until the training window passed whatever dates you were trying to avoid. You didn't have to worry about missing a bid, because they ran every month.

The only downside I've ever heard postulated by anyone about this system vs our current system, was that if you were in the bottom of a category, you could be subjected to some amount of "flux" by getting bounced around constantly, whereas in the current system, you'd survive at the bottom of a category longer due to the longer cycles of AE/displacements. This was true about getting bounced back and forth from block to reserve, but that happens with our current system as well.

True in theory, I suppose, but I never witnessed it. In reality rather than displacing people, they'd offer up temp bids in categories of excess, and they always went pretty senior. That would soak up excess fairly quickly.

The problem with all of this is that it was tied fairly closely to the way management staffed the airline, and it took a pretty good amount of micromanaging on their part. There were some other tidbits, but that's the short version.

Nu

 

Re the top up it would have been nice for the pilots to have the option of keeping the NWA balance or going to the top up system. Oh well : )

 

Let's review. C2012, pay raises of 8, 6, 3, 3%. Back then, pay was referred to as pay rates, not total compensation. We also gave up some profit sharing and sick leave rules.

They should have done it once, done it right. No more concessions.