plzdontfireme

Looks like you've been browsing the UA forum lately too. Have you left? Could we be so lucky that you have? Would United even hire you?

Emmerson Bigs

“Casual Obsever”? Who casually observes their schedule? Have you actually been put in sub before? Every single time I’ve been in sub (averaging once every two years), I’ve known exactly why I got subbed. If it isn’t obvious, you know it’s okay to ask, right?

We get put into sub for the following reasons as defined in the CBA:
Trip cancelled
Trip revised to begin 4 hours earlier or end 4 hours later
Showtime revised earlier without adequate notice
Wx restrictions
FAR limitations
Contract limitations
Operational Conflict
Training

I seriously doubt CRS is just putting pilots in SUB “because they can”. Really? To what advantage? Why does it help CRS or the operation to randomly put a pilot in sub without a reason? If the trip or initial flight cancels, there is no other choice prior to showtime. Even after show, if you haven’t landed at another airport, technically they can put you in sub but when I did an air turn back, they didn't.

The reasons a UAL pilot might lose a trip listed in their CBA are all pretty similar: schedule repair (our trip revision), being out of position (N/A since we don’t sub after block-out), cancellation (we have this), inability to be dispatched due to being a “high minimums” Captain (we have this), a Pilot refusing to fly with another Pilot (not addressed but someone’s probably going into sub), consolidation or Equipment substitution (we have this).

You think UAL wrote that whole thing to address “an oddball exclusion section”? The entire first part (20-F-1-a) is EXACTLY applicable to our SUB since it deals exclusively with a loss of a trip prior to block-out.

You’ve got some good suggestions to improve our sub. I’d like to see something done to acknowledge the disruption, probably in the form of increased pay.

I found links to what I think are the final versions of the current DL and AA CBAs (although in TA format). You can check me on them and my reading but I think I understand the basics.

Delta

https://d2r1lrrqctgamh.cloudfront.net/delta/TA/Contract%202019%20TA%20Clean.pdf

American

https://aerocrewnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/American-Airlines-TA.pdf

AA has some nice provisions that allow extra pay for the inconvenience and loss of an awarded trip and having to fly an un-bid trip. Delta has some provisions similar to our short-SUB but they have to wait around for 6 hours past showtime for a possible re-assignment as opposed to the 4 hours we wait.

According to the UAL CBA excerpt posted above, UAL has a wide variety of options to re-assign their pilots that extend over the course of the lost trip footprint and also includes many more potential assignments to include seat support for training, field standby, landings class and a trip revision to add flying to an already assigned trip. AA uses a 4-hour period the day before the report day of a cancelled trip for scheduling to find an alternate assignment. Cancellations on the day of a trip are handled similarly with a 4-hour assignment window starting at the time of cancellation. A narrowbody trip replacement assignment can extend up to 4-hours past the footprint of the originally cancelled trip (almost exactly like our sub window). However, their wide body long haul replacement trips can extend up to 24 hours past the original footprint. There’s also the option for a pilot to be expected to fly the remainder of a multi-day trip if all the flights on day one cancel and the next flights leave from domicile for example. They don’t just cancel the whole trip. All three airlines can even DH the pilot to rejoin the remainder of their trip. The pilots have the option to decline and lose the pay just like us.

I’m not trying to claim our sub is good or can’t be improved. Just pointing out some similarities to what else is out there among our peers. Also, none of the "big 3" need to deal with the consequences of a cancelled 12-15 day trip in a single departure line. Anyone who thinks we're going to be able sell going home with a full month's pay for a trip cancellation on one of those is on something.

I don’t know about UPS and cancelled trips. Maybe one of their pilots can chime in. The bottom line is that with the 3 legacy airlines we are attempting to pattern bargain off, none of their pilots just get to immediately go home with pay after a trip cancels. So, can we stop claiming that like it’s a fact? They all have various methods that are in line with their system form allowing their schedulers to get them to do something else to earn their trip guarantee. Since I don’t have all the CBAs available, I certainly can’t say definitively that there isn’t some random airline out there that just pays for cancelled trips and that’s it. But it sure isn’t happening with our closest pax peers (AA, UA and DL). Jury is still out with UPS.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see trip drop result in full pay and be done with it. But saying we should have that because that’s industry standard isn’t an accurate statement. As a minimum, we can definitely take some of the other airline QOL options dealing with trip cancellations and improve sub.