Just went through the entire Q&A that has been posted. Am I the only one disappointed that there are no yes / no answers?

I understand the importance of context and background, but it appears they went out of their way to not use an easy yes or no then provide background. The best I could find was a "confirmed".

I admit I probably missed some, but I get the feeling our Association has learned the art of double speak from our company.

 

Yeah- we're running circles. My original question came from a post by Kolohe:

(shortened) "... planned to sell us PBS as the secondary line replacement vehicle".

My question isn't how PBS works- I think I already understood, and why we don't want it as our primary/only way of bidding. My question is, keeping our current primary system of bid lines, how would PBS be different if used for our secondary system? Not use PBS wholly, use it only for secondary lines... how would that be different than what we have now? One guess would be PBS, if written into contract language, would include elimination of vacation buffers...

Clear as mud?

Thanks bud.

 

I assume that when the 2006 Contract was negotiated Management knew the 727 was going away (it's likely they knew they had already purchased 757s) and that the 757 & 737 were likely replacements. They snookered us with an imaginary A380 purchase and REALLY BIG pay rates in exchange for calling the 757 a narrow body. Are we the only ones in the industry that does that?

Different subject ... I don't remember having a trip trade approved in the last 5 years (always DENIED; INSUFFICIENT RESERVES). Here's my hunch ... I'd bet a McDonalds Big Mac that when the scheduler sees the trip trade thats the default reply (likely just a single "Return" key). The scheduler might be able to process 5-6 trades/minute by hitting return, return, return ... This could be fixed by a High School computer programmer in 1 day. Heck, President Obama's Obamacare's programmers could fix that!

And now, no significant retirement improvements, VERY modest COL increases, no improvement in bidding procedures, years of negotiating (part of the Master Plan? to save money?), Management gets your FUEL SENSE bonus. This is a very LUKE WARM deal in my estimation. It seems like LOTS of things could and should have been fixed for very little cost if Management wanted to be bothered?

PBS? That was likely an intentional distraction intended to drag negotiations out an extra year ... it worked! Management wanted to find super efficient cost savings with PBS but can't figure out how to program real time trip trading? Really?

Just ... shut up and color!*?

 

I'm afraid, yes, "just shut up and color..."

IMHO, PBS was not only a distraction and delay pawn but also a symbolic pawn that the company KNEW the pilot group would NEVER ratify. PBS was our red herring -- improving/modifying/enhancing our A Plan was manglement's red herring. Each party had their red lines in the sand and neither party was going to budge. As a matter of fact, recall that early on and even later in negotiations the company wanted to, in effect, freeze our A plan and offered up an "industry leading" B Plan contribution. HA! I contend that in this round of negotiations the company wanted the A Plan BAD because of the overbearing cost to them. Much of this was discussed in the first conference call yesterday, and it doesn't take too much reasoning and mental prowess for one to put the pieces together and get an overall framework and picture of what the company negotiators wanted from us -- it was the A Plan, pure and simple. All else was noise.

This is a collective bargaining agreement between two parties. A two-party negotiation governed by the rules of the RLA. And, IMHO, in 2015 the RLA works completely in the company's favor. Sharpen your crayons kiddo's!

 

Got it now. I don't claim any PBS expertise, but I'll offer my opinion based on buds at other airlines that use it and what little info I've picked up over the years.

First, IMO, PBS isn't a specific item that could be evaluated in a way to answer your question. PBS simply refers to a method of building schedules. An airline that builds schedules using that method may buy a software program from a third party that accomplishes the task or develop their own.

So, the answer to your question depends on the quality of the program FedEx might choose to replace what they currently use for secondary lines. Is it easy to use and understand? Does the resulting schedule correspond to the seniority and requests of the pilot? Impossible to answer without a specific program to evaluate.

Removing vacation buffers from the contract would obviously have to be negotiated like anything else. I'm not sure removing them from the contract would be something the company would see as a big gain. After all, the secondary pilot is only getting a one-for-one return on his vacation days and the planners have the rest of the month to use. Maybe there's more to that I'm missing.

Frankly, anything developed in the last decade would have to be better than what we currently use. A big part of the problem is there is so much mis-information out there about how to use our current system. Many pilots don't understand how it works because it's not very clear and there's very little information available. Did you know the planners actually still input each line of our secondary worksheet manually and assign an arbitrary point value to each line? Then the program runs and builds each line in order based on the point ranking. Total points for each pilot's worksheet is 1000. Oh, and it doesn't try to give everyone their number one choice. I've heard that one thrown around a lot.

Anyway, that's my .02

 

Gotcha/understood. Thank you.

I mentioned vacation because that is one of the first, and biggest things mentioned by my friends elsewhere under PBS: 7 days vacation= 7 days off, with little or no manipulation.

Anyway, the SLR developments is something we definitely need to keep and eye on.

Cheers.

BK

 

You know a PBS system might be better processing secondary lines than what we do now. BUT, the major problem I have is that the changes are controlled by a secondary line working group. If this is the best TA the NC could get, can you imagine what the SLWG could come up with? And then it just has to be signed off by the union with no pilot vote.

I just don't want a decade long contract that has unknown health care costs and unknown QOL degradation via a new secondary line system. I bet if these procedures and costs were spelled out in the TA, any fence sitters would be HE11 NO.

With all the give backs here and there in this TA, I must think of the worst they could do with the secondary line system, expect it, and vote based on the worst. I have to live with it for too long before we can negotiate to fix it to think otherwise.

Another point, if 20% of the reserve lines are held out, and no min number of reserve lines have to be produced, we've just agreed to significantly increase the amount of secondary lines there will be in each bid pack. Folks, this TA introduces PBS on us for a significant portion of the crew force, and in greater numbers than secondary lines exist today!

 

NO, you are not the only person disappointed at the non committal answers.
YES, the answers are carefully scripted and IMO politically spun to reflect only the positive while not spinning around our concessions.
The authors of those replies have a bright future working for Hilary's presidential campaign, they sure need some help about now.

 

BlackKnight, subsequent responses to your good question are reflective of my concerns--Raptor packaged it nicely above.

BL: In concept, the SLR would be an automated version of our existing secondary line process containing improvements that improve company efficiency more than it would our QOL.

My rub is that the company gains their desired efficiencies with SLR PBS yet we have little/no commensurate gain with IT tools to garner OUR desired QOL efficiencies through real time trip trading and other bid line adjustment venues. If the scheduling parameters are tweaked heavily in their favor (probably a viable assumption) and we lack the effective mechanisms to adjust fire, I see a degradation in QOL ( even from the existing psuedo-PBS process). The SLR will automate--therefore potentially exacerbate--the current deficiencies of the existing secondary line process if the parameters are not favorable...yet our mitigation remains the same.

It is a trust issue. The company is clamoring for PBS (probably not for our benefit), looks as if they will introduce it via the SLR MOA, we lack the appropriate tools to adequately improve our schedules/defend against prejudiced parameters, and I am not confident that the SIG involvement as crafted in the LOA will effectively mitigate company desires coded in the software.

I look forward to the union explanation of the SLR LOA.

 

So at risk at being declared a member of the 12 Angry Men Club, here it goes;

Management drew a "Line in the sand" over retirement. There was "No more money" to be had. This came from the same management negotiation team that purposely delayed negotiations, after a good faith 3% raise when the contract was amendable. And our negotiating team believed this enough to bring us this TA? I am so confused.

Look I know there are some gains and money in this contract. I am not asking for the moon when it comes to a new contract, just to pay us for what we are worth with very little room for interpretations. To tell me that I am to take a contract that leaves me with a retirement with roughly 50% the buying power as someone who retires today makes me a fool by voting yes. And my gosh there are way too many concessions in a TA brought to us during record profits/growth.

Listening to the Q/A was very disheartening, as answers were spun towards voting "Yes.". Hearing an ALPA lawyer basically shut someone up over a legit question about the TNT purchase was just plain wrong. (Listen lawyer, you did not answer the question) I surely hope this thing doesn't pass 51/49, but I fear it will. Please ALPA, tell everyone the good and the bad.

Serenity Now!