Well for one it removed the penalty for wet leasing.

That’s that wet lease penalty payment that Pat thought was just in the contract to serve as some measly bonus to us for outsourcing while he ignored the “penalty” part.

 

That is a patently false statement...I'm not accusing you of trying to be insincere.....I'm not sure you actually read the section....It's explicitly clear. m Perhaps you ought to re-read section 1 of the TA. When you call me names, I will quote the verbiage here. Penalties imposed on wet-lease beyond a certain threshold were increased significantly.....and that applied for domestic and international...based on total block hours.

Now you may say it's not enough of a penalty....but to say it was removed was false. It removed the penalty for the first 1% or 1.25% depending on hull growth projections, but increased the penalty (SPF) and it doubled the increased penalty very quickly beyond the threshold.

It also penalized wet-lease during furlough, something CBA 2015 does not even address....now I have no issue if you want to say the penalties were insufficient, but it is simply not true that they removed penalties for wet-lease.

This pilot group will not be able to "get together" as long as people from both sides deal in hyperbole and gas-lighting.

 

Come on now. In his defense, most of our guys haven't even read contract 2015 and certainly aren't well versed in it's content. Just take a quick glance at the repetitive questions on JetFlyers. 😂 How do you expect them to actually know what was in TA2023? 🤷🏼‍♂️

 

Changing from Credit Hours to Block Hours was a significant give back. To say it doubled the increased penalty, I think is a false hood, if you take into account the switch from credit hours to block hours.

I would think the company would have come out ahead. It is always the fine print that gets us. They have it all calculated out before they ask, exactly how they are going to screw us with the verbage. Sorry for the poor sentence structure, but I hope you get my drift.

 

Where did I “call you names”? I read the section. It’s the ONLY section I read because once I read section 1 there was no point in reading the rest. Your own bullet points listed section 1 as a give back in the way of “more flexibility to the company”. Let me ask you this, if the company can already “do whatever they want with scope” with the way Section 1 is written now then why the hell the do they need more flexibility? You got GOT, dude.

 

I think it's important to understand scope and not just taunt people and throw spears. I'm offering this in good faith. When you see this you'll see that the block hours was not a giveaway. Also....CH implies work rules....now the guys flying the wetlease....they don't follow our work rules....so the company had to creat "notional" pairings, according to our work rules.....since they are relatively long haul....(Look at the historical wet lease reports).....HNL, BQN, CDG.....they all paid CH equivalent to block hours as the company wasn't going to create a notional pairing using trip rig and wash it out and pay more than block with notional "long layovers".


If you look at all the previous wet lease reports....the company wet leased on long haul flights that would have paid block hours. Actually when it comes to 2x (SPF) which is what they would pay if they wetleased over 1.75% total block, then once you get a leg more than 1.5 block hours from Memphis....they pay more by blk than they would under credit hours, especially when you consider the differential in penalty pay between the TA and the existing CBA

For example....one SPF is three guys at max pay.....would have been twelve years under TA1 rates. One Captain, One RFO and One FO.......Under the old system....they would pay a wetlease penalty only if they exceeded their allowable wet leases (which they hardly ever did by the way).....and it payed "average pay for a crew complement".....what that means I have no idea.....average payrate for Capt and FO at top scale?, Mean Pay rate?....Current contract doesn't specify.

So for the purpose of this discussion, I'm going to stipulate that a Capt, FP, and RFO at max payrate under TA1 can be converted to a nominal 3 crew units....now Captain pays more than FO, and we don't really know what CBA 2015 rate defines as "average payrate".....but for the quick napkin math..."Average pay" for short haul domestic would be AVG Capt and AVG FO.....that converts to 2 Crew units under CBA 2015
.....I've done the math.....and that is generous.

So let's wet lease to TUL about 1 hour blk, 6CH Trip Rig...Under 2015 CBA penalty..pays 2 Crew units x 6 CH =12 CH
Once we get to more than 1% under TA1..........................................,.... ............pays 3 Crew units x 2 Blk = 6 CH. (Rip off right?). Remember 1 SPF = 3 crew units..... so......
When it goes above 1.75 % .................................................. ....... ..TA1 Penalty pays 2 x 3 Crew units x 2 Blk =12 CH


So we are "Giving away 1%-1.75%.....and basically after all that, the penalty gets to what it was in CBA 2015. breaking even.....but that's just for one block hour out, and one back that pays on 6 hour trip rig.

Lets wetlease IND...about 1.5 blk each way, 6 CH trip rig..........Under 2015 CBA........Pays 2 Crew units x 6 CH= 12 CH
at 1 SPF this trip penalty is 3 Crew units x 3 Blk hours = 9CH......so we are still giving away penalty at 1% here.....but when it goes to 2SPF, then IND wetlease pays 3 Crew Units x 2 x 3 blk = 18 CH which represents a 50% increase in the penalty......

Lets wetlease DEN....about 2 hour blk each way, still 6 CH trip rig...Under 2015 CBA....Pays 2 Crew units x 6 =12 CH
under TA1.....and 1 SPF...This trip penalty goes to 3 Crew units, x 4 blk = 12 CH, so the penalty is the same.
But at 2 SPF, the penalty goes to 2 x 3 Crew units x 4 blk = 24 CH which is a 100% increase over CBA 2015 penalty.

Let's wetlease PHX....3 hour blk each way....Anything longer would pay Block hours anyway......

If we wetlease PHX under 2015 CBA, the penalty would be 2 Crew Units x 6 blk hrs again still 12 CH total....
But under TA1 at 1 SPF, it becomes 3 crew units x 6 blk hours which is 18 CH which represents a 50% increase over Penalty paid under CBA 2015, and at 2 SPF, the penalty would be a whopping 36 CH which is 3 times the penalty under CBA 2015.

Because of the dynamics of trip rig....you can't just say "Paying blk is a give away".......There's only so many places we fly that are an hour away....remember, all trips under 3 hours out and back, all pay 6 ch per crew member......

Now the crux of this is that we "Give away 1% of flying...." to get to the penalties......but once that happens.....The penalties under TA1 get stiff pretty quick because we fly to a lot more places over an hour away, than we do to places just an hour away. Once you get to 1.75% of wetlease block hours.....every additional wetlease costs a lot more money than CBA 2015.....The only way I can figure it is designed to prevent wholsale domestic wetleasing......

Obviously long haul trips automatically pay a huge penalty after 1.75% giveaway. 9 hours to CDG each way. at 1% giveaway:

1 SPF is 3 Crew Units x 18 blk = 54 CH ........but in this case, it pays MAX pay for three crew members, while CBA pays 3 crew members AVG pay.....

Now the reason I normalized into crew units, is because sometimes there's an RF2, etc.....but 3 crew members at TA1 max pay is significantly more than average pay for 3 crew members under CBA...

When the wetlease goes .75% more....that same trip penalty is 2SPF.....which pays 108 CH at new pay rates. Under CBA2015......that trip penalty is still just 54CH under CBA 2015 pay rates....

Now the crux of the problem is wet leasing the 1%.......I've done about a 10 page analysis......using actual wet lease reports and numbers from the contract. Under the light wetleasing the company did in the past (they didn't even exercise all their options most of the time) we indeed would have been paid less wetlease penalties than under TA1.....but at a small rate.......I'll have to pull that analysis out of mothballs.....I did it a year ago....anyway...it was three figures for a year....chump change.....but we were still "Giving it up"....

What we were giving it up for was a system that would discourage wholesale wetleasing of our operation.....which I don't think they'll do anyway...but if you're afraid of that....then run the numbers yourself.....

What percentage of our flying did the postal service represent? I don't know, but I'm sure it was more than 1.75%...especially if you look at the month to month decrease in blk hours for certain airframes.....

TA 1 also had a penalty for wetlease during furlough....Now one of my good friends said something once that is oft repeated by many: "Wetlease and Furlough should not appear in the same sentence!".....well in this case they did in TA1.......but rather than look at that as unacceptable, do you realize there is nothing in our current CBA that prevents wetlease during furlough? THe penalty for that was 2.5 SPF

NOw you can say the 1.75% was too much, you can say the penalties are not enough, but mathmatically saying that the blk hours vs CH was a "Giveaway" is just hyperbolic and too easy to say....but it does not stand when given a realistic analysis..
I'm sure someone will try to poke holes in this. that's fine. Sooner or later, we're gonna get a TA that either does or doesn't address scope. For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about scope.....I've run into very very few people that have even looked at a wet-leaser report or really read the scope provisions of TA1 and put pen to paper and modeled them.

And remember "SPF" under TA1 was always 3 Crewmembers regardless of the pairing at what ever the top payrate was at the time... CBA 2015 talked about "Crew complement" at average payrate.....could be 2 domestically.....or three internationally

I'm not willing to argue silly points back and forth, but if you want to talk more.....go ahead and PM me.

Jakal

 

Great analysis. Good discussion....but I can imagine it won't move the needle of the argument much...as it seems logic has no place in an emotionally based argument

 

Jakal,

Do you acknowledge that TA1 Scope section was a concession? That pay rates were staggeringly below industy leading? That vacation, R16, and student lines were QOL givebacks? That the signing bonus was a joke? All for what gain? That's why it failed.

Several posters, mostly on JF, posted hard data on exactly what the company could do in regards to block/credit. I will not get into it here.

Let's hope TA2 is an improvement.

Healty conversation tho, thanks.

 

I wasn't talking about why it failed....I was simply pointing out that what was said was factually untrue....the penalties weren't eliminated...then the focus whas changed to whether blk vs ch was a concession, and I tried to show it was certainly more nuanced than the "sound bite" that is oft repeated without critical analysis.

No I don't acknowledge that TA1 Scope was a concession....I think it was "cost neutral" as the company likes to say. I don't do Facebook, but from what I hear the conversation on JF is more sophmoric than here. The only "hard data" of what the company can do is in the TA....that analysis is "hard data"....I also used actual wet lease reports and did an analysis of what we would be paid under TA1 vs the existing CBA as penalties. What I wrote previously was not that....that was just napkin math in general about the penalties.....What is true is that Wet-leasing at the current rates pay less under TA1....not by much.....but if the "Fear Porn" about the company trying to wet-lease the whole business tried to happen, the penalties get enormous.

I will tell you that anyone who has been here a while knows that a wet-lease penalty has never done more than buy a very expensive dinner for a large family......if it ever paid at all. In analyzing actual wetleases from the past, TA1 would reduce that payment amount......only by the amount that equals your daughter's boyfriends share of the dinner (and we didn't like him anyway)....

In return, we got a method that while allowing the company to pay a little less in the event they do light to moderate wet-leasing (as compared to past practice), financially discourages wholesale wetleasing.....and the largest penalty saved for when wetleasing while furloughing.

If the discussion on JF is anything like here, then I imagine their analysis on "Student Lines, R-16" is similiar. I don't think it's really a hard win and certainly not a "Concession"....it's just different....and the whole "it'll change the way people bid argument" is specious. Everytime a contract is changed....people change the way they use it.....I imagine right now with BLG's down.....I bet the Student lines would go way senior. Same with the R-16......

What has often been cried about as a "Huge Concession"....during these discussions mostly centers around someones ablility to use the new language. "Someone moved their cheese". R24 was a "win" for Memphis residents and those who can commute in easily.....it was a perceived concession for those who live farther away.....simply because of the way R24 was used for the past 25 years.....they would call you in for 4 days of Hotel STBY...period end of discussion. There was no "sitting reserve from home" away from domicile. And if you got an actual assignment, then there was no such thing as "leveling", as any subsequent assignment did not need 24 hours notice.....so they couldn't use anybody else on the R24 list....hence they would turn you and turn you until the end of the block.

So I do not concede that these were concessions. I will not be persuaded to concede by emotion and group pressure because a whole bunch of people decided to listen to what their buddy said instead of crunching the numbers themselves. I wil note that the only reason I got into the weeds on the scope thing is that a friend of mine (who has been here 20+) called me and said: "All these guys seem to really think the Scope section is a problem....I know you....tell me what you think." (He basically did what the rest of the crew force did and instead of working it out decided to rely on someone else's opinion). He also knew I would run the numbers.....after I gave it the smell test.

As far as R-16 and student lines, I relied on what PM said and my own experiential knowledge having bid R24 and never having the seniority to buddy bid LCA's. Why rely on PM? Well, I was paying him thru my dues to do the negotiation, and do that analysis. I listened to what he said based on my knowledge of the situation and my experience here with 20+ years of working under the contracts here. I listened to the SIG. Then I re-read the section. THen I came to a decision.....

I'm not here saying TA1 was the end all be all.....I merely pointed out when a poster said that the Wet-Lease penalty was eliminated "By Pat".....that what he said was patently false....Then the narrative to changed that "well, it wasn't eliminated, but the change to blk hours was a huge giveaway"....and I showed how it was not. Then I wass told....well there's "Hard Data", on JF....

I spent hours crunching numbers from wet-lease reports to figure out the difference in penalty payments and am willing to bet most of the loudest voices on JF and here did not....you know you didn't. And I know that because I'm aware of my own personality quirks and the fact that once I get into the rabbit hole, I go all the way down until I find the bottom. My vanity doesn't let me take someone else's word for it.....and unfortunately for the people in my life, I spent way too much time crunching wet lease numbers......just to know. And I know most won't go to that much trouble, and if they did, they would also not repeat stuff that is commonly heard but is not true!

And now the focus was changed to R16 and Student lines as if to somehow discredit the fact that I pointed out the hyperbole about the penalty.

Look, with the next TA we're going to have to go thru this whole process again. I have people in my HOA who didn't read the covenants before they moved in. Some people don't read their mortgages contracts which is why we need to sign so many disclosures that even more people don't read their mortgage documents. Most of us don't even read the "Terms of service" that they agree to everytime they update an app (they rely on someone else to tell them JF or APC style...."hey, if the App was a scam, someone would say something". More dangerous are the people that don't know what they don't know and are not willing to back away from a position that they got emotionally aligned with and refuse to absorb new information contrary to their world view.

If you ever want a TA to ratify, this crew force is gonna have to do critical analysis....take the time to do the research you don't feel like doing....quit following the loudest voices, picking sides, then trying to "discredit" people who aren't "aligned" with your camp. In this cycle, we had a block rep whom people trusted and elected....then he said "I learned more...I've changed my mind"...then they didn't trust him anymore....We had a NC that no one seemed to have a problem with until the TA.....then they didn't like what they said and he became "untrusted" by many. Hopefully this crewforce will learn to pick someone to trust first...then listen to what they say even if it's something they don't want to hear. Then they will do their own analyzis....make a decision and quite relying on social pressure to validate their decision.

 

I trust the new NC that hired a scope specialist lawyer than anything previous NC state.

Truth is scope is what the company interprets the language. Not what pilots read in it!

Which side opened scope section?