Was referring to pilotguy21.

So there is value in the A Plan.

The pot of money for them to use is already there in the pension. They would be thrilled to get rid of the pension. We have leverage there and should use it.

It sounds like you are waving the white flag. As a no voter myself, I will not vote on a simple rearranging of the deck chairs, total or substantial. The reality of our situation is a lack of focus and a lack of understanding of the word collective. In February of last year, the company's offer was a FAE for all of $330k. No waiting, just retire and if you will get your FAE up to $330k. Their pay offer was an increase of 22% and 3% a year for the next 5 years. We were asking for a 31% increase, a shorter duration, and higher yearly increases. We were further ahead then than now. The current MEC decided to blow it up and wanted to start over, throwing away any progress that had been made. Since then, the big gain has been travel CPAP. I sincerely hope that you are wrong and that we will gain our focus and get the increase over TA23 that is available to us.

In 2020 and 2021 you were on here trying to convince people how great this place is. You even posted your pay in the end of year salary thread. In late 2023, you were still posting about life at fedex and still acting as if you worked here. In a different thread, you claimed to be gone now and at someplace else for 2.5 years. If you were here for 6.5 years, you wouldn't take home $3500/month because 13% or 14% rounding up of $260K doesn't add up to that. Probably just making stuff up, aren't you.

In 2020-2021 things were going pretty good. We weren't flying at a huge discount relative to our peers at other airlines. We were doing more of our flying than ever before and growing in every region (think sunrise sort domestically, growth in Europe and Asia, plans to expand in South America and Africa). The reality is that demand dropped off fairly quickly and that was painful but that drop in demand coincided with the rapid rise in outsourcing which led to the demise of our intra-EU narrow body network in favor of outsourced carrier(s), the loss of the postal contract, and a significant change to the optimizer. By the end of 2022 it became clear that ALPA was not interested in bargaining for things that were important to our pilots, remember those pesky openers? ALPA became hyper focused on only one of the three pieces of the opener and sacrificed the other two to fund the one. By the end of 2022 our peers were lapping us but our leaders didn't even take one pause to evaluate the temperature in the room. I'm not going to take the time to do the math on a pilot that leaves after becoming vested in the plan but before retirement age because it does not apply to me, I am here for the long haul or until they shut the lights off. I hope ALPA addresses Sec 1 so that my career ends on my own terms instead of someone else's. In the meantime, I show up on time and ready to work, holding up my end of the deal to the very best of my ability.

Couldn’t have said it any better.

Got here in 2022. Was promised at indoc that I hit jackpot and this was the last time I’ll ever have to job hunt. Was told they would be hiring 70 a month for the foreseeable future. I Watched my dad work here for 30 years and always thought (rightly so) that FedEx was the Major leagues.

Hiring stopped completely less than 2 months later and every single aspect of this job’s potential has deteriorated, most likely beyond repair. QOL is literally zero and I make far less money on 4a2c than I did on Active Duty. The vast majority of young FOs are stressed to the max and working another job currently to make it all work. I wasn’t told that we would have to do that at Indoc. We are talking about real big time emotional and financial stress that none of us saw coming. Every single day for the first 2.5 years of my time here I asked my wife, “should we stay, or start over?” Those were not fun convos.

The company provides zero information on their strategic plan, and when they do provide nuggets, they are lies. For example the Cologne transition plan or the “overmanned” line while constantly drafting in every fleet even though we are in 4a2c. Not to mention everything I was told about future hiring plans at Indoc. Lies. Over and over again. So decisions are based on rumors and heresy, again stressful. But I’m not leaving. I simply don’t have a choice.

But I shoulda done my homework right Max?

Old guys, resist the urge please…this shouldn’t make you go “wahh wahh I sat sideways for 23 years back in my day.” We get it, it’s been tough at times for different groups. That doesn’t make us wrong here.

It should make you realize “dang, this company is really treating us all so poorly, I didn’t realize it was that bad for the junior crowd.”

The company is who we should focus our fury on. Not each other.

I don’t want a pension, I’ve made that clear. I think there is a much better vehicle. I don’t like that it causes people to vote yes regardless of the landmines in the rest of contract. But, I do think the old pilots absolutely deserve to be taken care of. I am on their team. There is a way we all win. We have to start pulling in the same direction. Until we convince the company it is in their best interest to give us a contract, nothing will happen. Right now, it’s not in their best interest. That’s our fault.

Got here in 2022. Was promised at indoc that I hit jackpot and this was the last time I’ll ever have to job hunt. Was told they would be hiring 70 a month for the foreseeable future. I Watched my dad work here for 30 years and always thought (rightly so) that FedEx was the Major leagues.

Hiring stopped completely less than 2 months later and every single aspect of this job’s potential has deteriorated, most likely beyond repair. QOL is literally zero and I make far less money on 4a2c than I did on Active Duty. The vast majority of young FOs are stressed to the max and working another job currently to make it all work. I wasn’t told that we would have to do that at Indoc. We are talking about real big time emotional and financial stress that none of us saw coming. Every single day for the first 2.5 years of my time here I asked my wife, “should we stay, or start over?” Those were not fun convos.

The company provides zero information on their strategic plan, and when they do provide nuggets, they are lies. For example the Cologne transition plan or the “overmanned” line while constantly drafting in every fleet even though we are in 4a2c. Not to mention everything I was told about future hiring plans at Indoc. Lies. Over and over again. So decisions are based on rumors and heresy, again stressful. But I’m not leaving. I simply don’t have a choice.

But I shoulda done my homework right Max?

Old guys, resist the urge please…this shouldn’t make you go “wahh wahh I sat sideways for 23 years back in my day.” We get it, it’s been tough at times for different groups. That doesn’t make us wrong here.

It should make you realize “dang, this company is really treating us all so poorly, I didn’t realize it was that bad for the junior crowd.”

The company is who we should focus our fury on. Not each other.

I don’t want a pension, I’ve made that clear. I think there is a much better vehicle. I don’t like that it causes people to vote yes regardless of the landmines in the rest of contract. But, I do think the old pilots absolutely deserve to be taken care of. I am on their team. There is a way we all win. We have to start pulling in the same direction. Until we convince the company it is in their best interest to give us a contract, nothing will happen. Right now, it’s not in their best interest. That’s our fault.

Wow actually agree with you on 99% of your post.

Company has always put the screws on us during negotiations. This is no different. When we force them to give us a contract we will get one.

In 98’ they told us we would have 5000 pilots soon. We had 3200. Took over 20 years to get there. Did they lie or just miscalculate?

Thank you. All well said. 4A2C is the big elephant in the room. While we're all in a circular firing squad, the company not only refuses to RAISE our pay the 40% we lag the industry...they've decided in bad faith to unilaterally CUT our pay by 15 percent (unless you're on the triple). That doesn't just hurt junior pilots. Everyone points at each other..."you get what you deserve because you flew draft in 2022"..."old guys should lose all their pension." "waah--I had it worse on the panel"

Management has the popcorn out and is really loving all of it. Tomorrow...recall votes in LEC 26. Couldn't be better if you're in C suite.

Great Post PG21. Thanks. There are probably more grey beards that sympathize with your position than you realize. Not apples to apples but enough common threads to appreciate your perspective. I don’t think the Tiger merger, the purple nugget displacement, the second purple nugget displacement, the last 4a2c, or Age 65 change was super fun for folks caught up in it. We were all told that we hit the jackpot in BI and to expect amazing. And then something happened. COVID was the worst thing that could have ever happened to this pilot groups QOL. Collectively, we should have never gone along with that arrangement for as long as we did. A few months of quarantines and getting hosed down with bleach should have been enough. We did it for years. The company learned, became more efficient, and now we run COVID ops and COVID schedules which nobody assumed would continue. I agree that it’s our fault. Your last three sentences are spot on and I hope we can wake up and start rowing together.

Agree,

We can point a finger with one hand and row with the other going in circles, mean while the river is bringing us closer to the falls, or we can all row with both hands and go straight, together and reach the promised land!