December SAM is below 64, or is it really? 4a2c in February barring something miraculous. F word being tossed around - but no early outs, userra exemptions, or 121 flying? What?? Seriously, what is the best case scenario at this point? We get a deal and all is kumbaya? Not happening. That goodwill ended with TA1. As said before, I think if you have a 7 digit employee number or under 45, you need to be actively looking elsewhere. Never thought...

 

That’s the plan…every 30 yr old out the door is one no voter gone. Post TA2 who knows the relationship but this is their chosen path to get there.

 

What was the name of that truck driving school? Truck Masters?

 

I mean the Silent Majority was asking their management buddies they were in bed with if furloughing would remove voting rights of those pesky young No voters.

“Welcome to the FedEx family” —->> “Probably better to leave”

3600 hires project between the big 3 this year fortunately.

 

Anyone know how big we were pre postal contract? 4000 pilots or so? Feels like they really want us back to that size

 

Who could argue with such an astute observation.....thanks for the conspiracy giggle. I can see them all now like Mr Burns rubbing their hands together! Silent Majority pulling the strings.

 

Quite a lot of those bottom of the list "seven digit" employee numbers are on the right seat of the 777 and MD11. Internationally, those seats are so short-handed right now, that they are constantly being revised/extended, and called for draft - not to mention that Captains are being called out on reserve (or revised/extened) to work as RFO's in those seats in order to fill the holes.

In order for the company to actually furlough in seniority order (and operationally get away with it), there would need to be a system wide "excess bid" to flush all of those individuals to the right seat of something like the 757, and then time would need to be taken to train up their more senior replacements.

I'm also not even taking into consideration that we are approaching nearly 200 "age 65" retirements a year - a number that does not even peak until we are near the end of this decade, nor early retirements, people who go out on LTD, or unfortunately pass away before they retire.

Understand this. From a company perspective, furloughing is not free - there is a significant cost to it.

As it stands right now (just as it was the last time we were in 4.A.2.B. fifteen years ago), the company is currently in no position to furlough.

So until the seniority list is actually "rebalanced," I will consider all of this nothing more than a contractual money grab and scare tactic by the company, through abuse of the SAM, and nothing more - just like last time. For anything beyond that, I'll believe it when I see it.

 

You may be right. I think to get that pre postal contract number to something that reflects todays situation we have to consider the non postal contract growth since then as well. I would bet that will make that 4000 a bit higher. Then take into consideration the number of retirements, the potential of new business, and the amount of time it takes to go from planning saying we need more bodies and getting them trained. In my opinion, this all adds up to the F word being tossed around being a scare tactic, and 4A2C being a way to cut their losses while they retrain people into seats where they are needed. Simply put, they are trying to make us pay for their mismanagement while F#$&ing with us to get a cheaper contract.

 

What is the difference between 4A2B and 4A2C?

 

4a2b introduces some scheduling restrictions for both the company and for the pilots. Think trip trade restrictions for pilots and carry-over restrictions for the schedules. B also gives options for leaves and has the company consider early retirement incentives. The NC has described 4a2b as a speed brake that attempts to avoid dropping in to 4a2c. The goal is to voluntarily reduce headcount and keep the system average metric (SAM) above 4a2c levels.

4a2c actually lowers monthly minimum pay (purple calls it Bid Line Guarantee or BLG.) There are systemwide restrictions due to imbalance of needs from certain markets, for example the international side is actually very busy and healthy right now, the domestic side is adjusting to the loss of the postal contract.

Both of these provisions were originally introduced to avoid furloughs when the company was in financial distress. That isn’t what is happening now.