Brake Drop Delta requirement
 

I'm with SkyWest, very senior. This is not a slam on any airline or anybody.

We recently got a new requirement that we can't drop the parking brake until we have been cleared to push. For some domiciles there are typically 10 minute delays to push, thus this is a big pay cut. We have no recourse to battle this as we have zilch representation.

My question for this group is this new rule been put to your pilots and what are your union reps able to do about it?

It was reported that your MEC told your management "NO" to what is basically a pay cut? This being said I'm presuming your time begins at parking brake drop?

Just looking for some info to pass along to the SkyWest pilot group.

Again this is not a jab at anybody or any pilot group.

Thanks for any info!

Drop the hammer... Make that money.

Problem is at SkyWest we are an "at will" employment ruling.

Management can and will and has fired people for any reason, word is a 6 year Captain was fired last week because it was reported he was on the organizing commitee.

They will fire a few just to make a statement like they have done many times before.

Well then, duh!

Get a union.

Eh, not my problem. You asked what we do here. We drop the hammer and get paid, and we got 27 years of past practice backing us up. Came up about a year ago, management was trying something similar. We were right, they were wrong.

Do whatever you gotta do to keep your job. Cheers. Ill be dropping the hammer.

That won't fix it. Maybe after 5-7 years, and their pilot group doesn't want a union anyhow so who cares. They're too good for it. Some of them still believe they make more than us.

If you all drop it when the doors closed. And they fire you all who’s going to fly the aircraft. Do what you’ve always done. Eventually Chip will get the idea.

Pilots act in unity? Especially non union?

God i need a second to stop laughing...
... ... ...
...wait wait... wait I'm not done holding my sides yet... ... oh man you made my night.

Our management tried this about a year ago. We politely passed since that significantly affected our pay during IROPS and during NYC in general. Hasn't come up since. Instead, we now just don't turn the beacon on until ready to push lol.

There's going to be a big rise in flights blocking out late if they try this. Once it starts hurting their performance, it will go back to the old ways, IMO

This. Several years ago they went as far as putting out a memo here saying "don't drop the brake until you're ready to push". I believe the on-time performance was below 40% for the three days it took them to rescind the memo. Even if you've got the door closed at D-3, traffic behind you could easily make you late out.

Of course with zero union protection, I suppose it's possible Skywest could fire individual pilots for on-time performance but at some point they can't fire everyone.

With regard to the 6 year guy fired for being on the organizing committee, if you're at a non-union carrier and you're on the organizing committee, you've got to keep your nose clean and follow absolutely all the rules. If you do, it's illegal to fire you for attempting to organize a union, if they haven't crossed their T's and dotted their I's they could easily be sued for that. However oftentimes the easiest way to sue for wrongful termination is through the union, so without a union you've got to go get your own lawyer.

Just one more reason I'm shocked Skywest can fill classes. I guess west coast bases trumps Pay, QOL and union protections.

I wouldn’t be so quick to say this. This change is so they can better identify problem areas in the operation.

It's slowly cropping up again, but fortunately our contract (its a thing a union and company sign that clearly spells out work rules, requirements, pay, protection) is cut and dry. If they want to enforce this, I'd happily drop the brake at push in exchange for a rig or getting rid of SAT for marketing times.

And when the short the marketing times again (when the SAT language was written) you'll be begging for SAT again.

A rig here would fix a lot.

True. Amazing how CS always manages to cut a few minutes off legs and turns to make IROP days legal.

Rigs would fix this and the firebreaks.

It surprising company's haven't changed to a system based on aircraft movement as the technology is available .

I'd love to get a 2:1 duty rig but I don't know what we have that's valuable enough to trade for it.

Maybe on this training scheduling LOA a better trade would have been a duty rig over an increase in long call percentage.

I've heard the company wants to end in-class recurrent and do it all remote via LMS, maybe that's valuable enough for a rig or another day off for line holders to match reserves.

I want a duty rig but it'll be hard to secure one.

An explanation of Ratio in Guarantee
https://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/...-rigs-101.html

They have here for 117 flight time, it's now based on forward movement but they can't change brake release for pay without negotiating with the union because that's defined in our contract.

For Skywest they could change theirs tomorrow and they'd have nothing to do about it. No union. No contract.

When you outsource the ramp operation, this is what you get. No matter how hard they try to fix the ramp, if you don't proactively drop the brake, on-time performance will go down the tubes.

No one got fired for “promoting alpa”.....

Oh God, now you done it. They'll be here any minute defending their pilot student council.

It's getting tougher to do though, I'm sure.

They found a couple other things to fire him for that happened awhile ago. But he happen to be the guy spearheading things for organizing.


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That's the risk you take being an organizer, but he would have been treated with kid gloves by HR. Otherwise he'll have his job back shortly. Either someone else steps up or you continue doing what you all signed up for, undercutting other regionals and praying it never bites you.

It's pretty tough here with the Utah strength koolaid.

The guy that got fired was on the organizing commitee and the company dredged up things from months ago.

Remember we are an "at will" employer and can be fired for anything or simply nothing.

Our glee club representation is bought and paid for by management, so there's no help there either.

Even at a real company fireable offenses often come from acts months in the past management just finds out about.

I've seen guys get fired from at will employment states, and that after one day. The funniest case was telling a guy he was fired, the private lawyer who the pilot retained had his job back with two phone calls. Best part was he was paid to sit at home until the situation was resolved.

I didn't think there would be any help from your student council. I was pretty sure i made that clear, but if not let me do so now. You're effed.

That’s the risk you take for being non-union in this business. Skywest had a pretty good reputation for keeping up with the union airlines in the past. In some cases maybe even better. But things change. Heck, it’s not even the same upper management team today. I for one would not take it on faith that they’re going to play nice

If they don't want you releasing the brake prior to push then don't be in a huge hurry to release the brake. Do everything by the book.
Lets see what happens to the middle manager who came up with this brilliant idea. When your on time departures fall down with the likes of Frontier I expect this brainchild of an idea will go away.

OO has the same set up as you for the 117 calculator.

HR stuff or airplane flying stuff?

As particular as Delta is about on time performance, I’m kinda shocked Skywest management would do this. On time performance will drop significantly.

Yeah but skywest managers will fight the delay codes and put it on the ramp. Trust me, if every regional did this (and sacrificed pay) the ramp wouldnt suck. In fact, mainline would probably have to take it over.

You (endeavor) guys may not believe this, but this is gonna be amazing for us. Skywest pilots takes the pay cut to expose the ramp for useless.

For the years of undercutting us, this almost makes up for it, so thank you skywest.

This isn’t a SkyWest thing. It’s from Delta as it's been our policy for years. Now, does everyone follow it? That’s another story...

I have yet to see any official memo from OO about this. CheckComplete...can you provide a reference?

This is a ridiculous excuse. Delta has reprogrammed the ACARS to see when the wheels are rolling on pushback. They don’t have to pull $$$ out of crewmembers pockets in order to identify the problems. They can already see that. This was purely a cost cutting maneuver.

Brake Drop Delta requirement
 

Interesting...I didn’t know Delta had authority to change the ACARS at SkyWest. This is a change in procedure, not software.

I just hope they don't plan on flying any slower.

Years ago, some beancounter decided to connect the paylog to safety-related items like the parking brake or the rotating beacon. He should have been kicked for this idea. :mad:

9E uses TLW and tactical CI, right?

I’m actually Republic, just took interest in this thread. Our policy for brake drop is still communication with ground crew for all codeshares. We had a similar issue a few years back with united changing block out to wheel movement on the push. Fortunately for us it violated our contracts definition of block time so it couldn’t be instituted.