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Old 09-11-2015, 07:53 AM
  #81  
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Originally Posted by FDXLAG View Post
And they do that now [game the system]. Look at all of the 3+58 turns in INDY....
I know you turn through IND a lot, and I get your personal experience there. I just don't see how you have lived through the company gaming the system now, and how you don't expect them to game the system by building pairings with 2:28, and 4:58 turns (i.e., NO NEED FOR EXTRA SLEEP ROOMS).
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Old 09-11-2015, 08:03 AM
  #82  
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Originally Posted by CloudSailor View Post
I know you turn through IND a lot, and I get your personal experience there. I just don't see how you have lived through the company gaming the system now, and how you don't expect them to game the system by building pairings with 2:28, and 4:58 turns (i.e., NO NEED FOR EXTRA SLEEP ROOMS).
I dont know what to say, they will, it will be up to us to call in fatigued. They have a stake in this too, I really think they care about us getting adequate rest on hub turns.
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Old 09-11-2015, 08:20 AM
  #83  
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Originally Posted by FDXLAG View Post
...I really think they care about us getting adequate rest on hub turns.
Really LAG???

I only believe what will be printed on our CBA. Past precedent has made it clear, loopholes will be exploited!

Their intentions, or their 'caring for our rest' would have been clear during the Disputed Pairing process over the last how many years???
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Old 09-11-2015, 08:22 AM
  #84  
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Originally Posted by CloudSailor View Post
Really LAG???

I only believe what will be printed on our CBA. Past precedent has made it clear, loopholes will be exploited!

Their intentions, or their 'caring for our rest' would have been clear during the Disputed Pairing process over the last how many years???
Let me repeat, if they wanted to get rid of hotels they would simply schedule turns at 3+58. They don't why not?
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Old 09-11-2015, 08:24 AM
  #85  
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Originally Posted by FDXLAG View Post
Let me repeat, if they wanted to get rid of hotels they would simply schedule turns at 3+58. They don't why not?
I give up man... you win...
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Old 09-11-2015, 08:29 AM
  #86  
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Originally Posted by CloudSailor View Post
I give up man... you win...
It is not a win or lose, just a disagreement. I seriously believe the company will do whatever it takes to cheat us out of money. However, they did not have to build all of the sleep rooms (yes I know they did it to fool the feds) but they did. Do you think the sleep study is eyewash?
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Old 09-11-2015, 08:38 AM
  #87  
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Originally Posted by Raptor View Post
I may be wrong on the one month forward. I will go and reread that. I want to be accurate. I do think, without hype, there are givebacks that I can't fathom why we'd agree to them.

I wasn't trying to say the company HAD to buy first class fares. I agree with the FFC being rare, but FCF is often used. I have a lot of experience with that (as I'm sure many others do too) and feel confident speaking to the what-ifs of international DH and deviation procedures and what's feasible and likely.

Wouldn't you agree that we should have specified true full flat to cabin floor and direct aisle access if we were to modify this section to accept flat seats as satisfying higher class of service rules?

Wouldn't you also agree, that if we nibble away at our deviation bank by reducing FCF to simply C, we should have negotiated to capture the saved cost of the international GT as that can be expensive?

If we're looking to make a give back (which I don't think is necessary) we could have added these things and STILL kept it cost neutral to cost positive to the company. Why didn't we?
I would like to see gains in almost every area of the contract.
Will I miss taking a shower in an Emirates A-380...sure. Is it a deal breaker...I have to look at the entire package.
I like that I can rejoin a trip on the 2nd leg of a deadhead and undeviate. That is a big gain for me and something I have complained about for years. For the pilot that never DH's, he could care less.

I think the incremental gains of the TA outweigh the limited givebacks. Could we/should we have gotten more. Maybe.

That said, after looking at the "signing bonus/retro pay," I am leaning towards a "NO." Not because it's an insult, not because the contract as a whole doesn't value us. I've run the numbers, and for me, the signing bonus doesn't come close to what we should have seen with yearly pay raises. I don't like incentivizing the company to drag out negotiations on future contracts.
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Old 09-11-2015, 10:07 AM
  #88  
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Originally Posted by TheBaron Deux View Post
NO! It absolutely does not! They are on a NON-INTERCONTINENTAL deadhead. They can expense 3 days hotel in lieu of deadhead. Very simple. It's in black and white (and blue and red.)
Baron, I think you're wrong and ask you to re-read section 8. This is why I say that:

Current CBA:

DH International--anything outside the 48 contiguous states. (ANC, HNL, MEX, YMX, CDG, HKG, FRA, CGN, etc were all international).

DH Domestic: everything else that wasn't international.

Two flavors of hotel in lieu of DH in current CBA (HILO DH): Domestic...you had to start and end two different trips in the same revenue city (EWR and JFK didn't even count--I tried it once). You could end a trip in ORD on Friday, start your next trip in ORD on Monday and trade in BOTH domestic DH tickets to pay for hotel and per diem in ORD. Note it required BOTH DH tickets and the max was 3 nights with possibility of ACP extension.

International HILO: Trade in ONE DH ticket for automatic 3 days (and up to 6 days with FOX/ACP preapproval--I know because that's the max FOX let me do and the max my ACP would let me do--even though 6 isn't language in the CBA) for hotel and per diem. Thus, my ticket MEM-CDG, or MAD-CDG, or HKG-NRT all qualified under the current CBA International HILO to trade in ONE DH ticket for up to 6 days hotel.

NEW TA RULES:

Definitions:
Domestic Deadhead:
A deadhead that operates solely within the contiguous 48 United States.

International Deadhead:
A deadhead that originates or terminates in a location outside the contiguous 48 United States.

Intercontinental Deadhead:
A deadhead that originates on one continent and terminates on another continent, and is scheduled for more than 5 block hours (OAG).


New TA:
d. Hotel
i.
DomesticNon-Intercontinental Deadheads

A pilot who is scheduled for consecutive
non-intercontinental

deadheads from and back to the same
domestic city, may expense

up to 3 nights of hotel use in the contract hotel in lieu of the scheduled
deadhead tickets. The hotel use shall be between the scheduled
deadheads. Use of a non-contract hotel, and any hotel use for
greater than 3 nights, requires prior approval of the pilot
's ACPFleet

Captain
, or his designee.

ii.
InternationalIntercontinental Deadheads

(a) A pilot who deviates from
internationalintercontinental deadhead

travel may expense up to 3 nights of hotel use in lieu of the
scheduled deadhead ticket. The hotel use
at an international

location
shall be on consecutive days in conjunction with the

revenue portion at the beginning or end of a trip. Hotel use for
greater than 3 nights requires prior approval of the pilot
's

ACP
Fleet Captain, or his designee.

(b) A pilot who deviates from
internationalintercontinental deadhead

travel may expense hotel(s) as part of his deviation travel as
follows:
(1) he may expense 1 hotel room as a deviation expense, or
(2) he may expense up to the same number of hotel rooms as in
his scheduled deadhead.
Intent: A pilot scheduled for an intervening layover during
a 2 duty period international deadhead may expense an
intervening hotel use enroute to his scheduled destination.
iii. Domestic and International
iii.
(a) A pilot who deviates from deadhead travel at the beginning of a

trip may check in at the contract hotel a maximum of
1 day2 days

early. This hotel use is a deviation expense charged to his bid period
deviation bank.
iv.
(b) When hotel use is an allowable/reimbursable deviation expense:

(a)
(1) the pilot is responsible for his hotel reservation,

(b)
(2) reimbursement shall be limited to the contract hotel rate for

the city associated with the revenue portion of the trip, and
(c)
(3) authorized expenses shall not be direct billed.

e. Non-Taxable Per Diem
A pilot claiming hotel use as a deviation expense under Section
8.C.3.d.i. or C.3.d.ii. (above) may also claim non-taxable per diem for
the period covered by his hotel reimbursement claim (i.e., one night
hotel use equals 24 hours per diem) and not otherwise covered by per
diem for a scheduled trip. This per diem shall be paid at the rate for the
city associated with the revenue portion of the trip.

__________________________________________________ _

We see that Domestic from the current CBA is directly replaced with Non-Intercontinental and International is replaced directly with Intercontinental. Remember red is deleted language and blue is inserted language.

So....under the TA, two flavors of HILO:

Non-Intercontinental: all DHs USA to ANC/YMX/HNL and CDG-MAD, CGN-ATH, HKG-NRT, HKG-SIN are now not over 5 hours and between continents so therefore you have to have TWO trips that end/start in the revenue city and give up BOTH tickets.

Intercontinental: only between continent tickets like MEM-CDG or LAX-HKG qualify and you can give up ONE ticket for 3-6 nights hotel and perdiem.

HUGE loss for FDA folks:

There are several commuting HKG pilots I know and probably many more who are wiped out by this. Many pilots in HKG who are spending much of their time in cities that are not part of their revenue trips (they are spending time in MNL when their DHs they give up are to SIN or other locations).

Every trip sequence in CGN except one is a DH (I last looked a several months ago when my wife and I were discussing bidding CGN for this very reason). Even the train positioning trips CGN-CDG are DHs with an assumed bank of the airfare cost between CGN-CDG.

How you could use it in CGN: You could give up ONE CGN-Switzerland ticket at $800 and keep your other for the month and deviate. Then you take your wife to Geneva for 6 days, get $800 (one ticket) reimbursed in hotel and per diem (government level perdiem, not CBA level per diem), you expense your two train tickets and all cabs out of the other $800 DH ticket and your wife's train tickets are paid by you. Nice vacation every month all over Europe with very little out of pocket costs. Makes up a very nice benefit for folks going over to CGN on narrow body pay and sucking up a lot of bad things in the FDA LOA. Some pilots used this a LOT and others not so much, but now we are taking away a huge benefit and the main reason many people are living in the FDA at a stroke of the pen because the majority of MEM based pilots don't understand how valuable of a benefit that was. It was worth zero to over $10,000 a year depending on how adventurous the family was.

When NC was asked why they traded this away, they said they didn't think it was being used as intended. What, YGTBSM? It was intended to be and used as a benefit. Money you saved on seeing Europe/Asia, or improving your life, or improving your commute (as difficult as that may be commuting to an FDA and without a move package), is money that is still left in your pocket. The MAJOR reason I was contemplating moving to CGN was to use this and see Europe with my wife and save $10,000 while doing it. Major benefit given up and majority of pilots don't see it. Who knows, over the next decade, maybe many of you reading this may have considered an FDA in your later years with kids out of the house. Now the poor FDA rules and flying your a$$ off to domestic parameters just got suckier for no reason.

You say "but Raptor, they can still use it in CGN if their trip starts and ends in CDG, it's just not as good now since they have to turn in two tickets". Yes, they still have the potential to use it somewhat, but now all those train tickets and cabs are on you and you can't use it hardly as much as a large proportion of the trips don't necessarily start/end in the same location. And, the company can just build pairings in the future to prevent start/end purity and realize more savings. I bet they already have those pairings built to eliminate start/end DH purity the moment the TA passes. Even if they don't do it immediately, they can at any time they wish to save more money. They'd be foolish not to do it at some point. Another gotcha with the change is the non-intercontinental rules require use of the contract hotel at the contract rates, which they might not give you. See the discussion below.

Last point, sneaky change in TA:

For current CBA domestic/new TA non-intercontinental DH HILO:
A pilot who is scheduled for consecutive non-intercontinental deadheads from and back to the same domestic city, may expense up to 3 nights of hotel use in the contract hotel in lieu of the scheduled deadhead tickets. The hotel use shall be between the scheduled deadheads. Use of a non-contract hotel, and any hotel use for greater than 3 nights, requires prior approval of the pilot's ACPFleet Captain, or his designee.

For current CBA international/new TA Intercontinental DH HILO: A pilot who deviates from internationalintercontinental deadhead travel may expense up to 3 nights of hotel use in lieu of the scheduled deadhead ticket. The hotel use at an international location shall be on consecutive days in conjunction with the revenue portion at the beginning or end of a trip. Hotel use for greater than 3 nights requires prior approval of the pilot'sACPFleet Captain, or his designee.

Bolding and underlines are mine above for the points below.

Current way the company permits one to expense hotels domestically as I've experienced it first hand, not theoretically: I wanted to use a backend DH in EWR and frontend DH in EWR two days apart to visit an old college roommate's family in PHL and stay in a hotel as they had just moved in. Couldn't do it in PHL I was told as it had to be done in EWR only as the CBA referenced "city" in the language. Another example, had back and front DHs in ORD and wanted to take my wife to Chicago for the long weekend. Both hotels on the pairings were at the Westin airport, we wanted to stay downtown naturally. Company wouldn't let me do it, even with ACP approval as it wasn't at the contract hotel. I said I would just take reimbursement up to the rate at the Westin while staying downtown and was told the CBA didn't provide for that.

Contrast that domestic experience above with my international experience which provided much more flexibility. Under the current CBA all that was required was to trade in one international ticket and you would get paid hotel use at an "international location". I used this provision to travel with my wife by trading in CDG tickets and traveling in France (not Paris/CDG), traded in tickets from Spain to France to travel Spain, etc. Not once did I stay in the revenue OR DH city, let alone use the contract hotel for these HILOs! Once again, this is first hand knowledge of how it was applied.

Note the sneaky change that under the new TA the wording "at an international location" is being deleted. The new wording is: "The hotel use shall be on consecutive days in conjunction with the revenue portion at the beginning or end of a trip." At first I thought this was just to align the wording with their new non-intercontinental versus intercontinental definitions, but I got to thinking of how this seeming inconsequential change could be used to our detriment. I believe the company, with this deletion and the insertion of the language "in conjunction with the revenue portion" would be within its rights to no longer permit the flexible use of HILO intercontinentally as before. They could restrict use to only the contract hotel in the revenue city--making you an unpaid standby, if they ever reached you, while you were "on vacation". I know the NC will say this isn't the intent of the new language, but intent stopped cutting it with me after 4.A.2.b. I can only look at plain language and imagine the worst case and assume the company will do it. Why else are we now splitting hairs on these new DH location definitions if the company doesn't have big plans to reduce costs at our expense?

So, not only will the FDA guys get hosed, but even if you do have an intercontinental ticket to use as HILO, you may be surprised to find out that you must stay at the Pullman in CDG and they won't give you the contract rate. Now you no longer have flexibility and will have higher out of pocket costs too.

Also, internationally (old definition) I've used current CBA International HILO at HNL and ANC. Can't do that under new TA as I won't have back-to-back DHs to trade in (how often have you seen front and backend DHs to HNL to be able to use the new TA definition--almost never!) Want to go fishing in ANC with a single DH under new TA...can't do that anymore...it's non-intercontinental.

I'll admit there are some positive changes throughout the TA and in chapter 8. But, there are more givebacks than necessary IMHO. The company is already cost neutral or cost positive in the best gain in this section. Every other change is extra giveback IHMO. Your opinion will differ from mine naturally with your experiences, but I really do think that many yes voters just haven't heard about many of the unnecessary givebacks that substantially affect QOL or dollars in our pocket. This FDA HILO killer is a substantial problem for each and every pilot currently there, whether or not they use it at the moment. And, it will be gone for every pilot in the future who is contemplating a move to an FDA--this was a good benefit that will be destroyed.
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Old 09-11-2015, 10:10 AM
  #89  
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Originally Posted by busdriver12 View Post
So to get this right, basically, the change is that the non-intercontinental dh in the TA changes it to the same rules we have now for domestic dhs. Right now, we can take a dh MEM-YVR, and get three nights in a hotel and per diem in exchange for trading in the dh monies (with approval, up to six nights). That goes away. Correct?
Correct. And many pairings in HKG and virtually all the CGN pairings are affected too. And, read my previous post, I think the company on the intercontinental DH Hotel in Lieu Of has plans to require the new hotel use to be in the revenue city and at the layover hotel where before you had the flexibility to take your "vacation" anywhere.
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Old 09-11-2015, 10:18 AM
  #90  
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Originally Posted by kwri10s View Post
I agree completely that it is not a huge give back. I will probably never in my career fall under that option in Europe but I have looked hard at it twice for San Juan and Hawaii when I had DHs. I thought they would make real nice "take the wife" trips. I'd just have to work my bank or js to make up for the lost DH. It did not work out with the family, but like a lot of areas here at FDX; just because I don't do it, does not mean I don't like the fact it's available if I wanted to. Someone does it, and I could too. Since chance are the hotel cost less than the DH, bottom line, it was a zero cost to the company. They are providing a nice feature for free and I appreciate the gesture.
I had always thought this was a win-win for the company and the pilots.

But, when you say you will never probably fall under that option in Europe, that may be true for you, but over the life of this TA and beyond that option is gone forever.

Has anyone added up how many pilots are currently in both FDAs. That number is the number affected at a minimum. Also, every pilot in the MD-11 and 777 could be affected if they have an international DH without it being an intercontinental one. Think YVR, YMX, HNL, ANC, SJU, MEX, etc. And, as we get 100+ 767s, where do you think they will be flying? As we transition to a 757/767/777 fleet, it will affect everyone at that point. And it will affect everyone in the future who is thinking of moving to an FDA. It doesn't affect me much at all now, but the FDA pilots I've spoken too are up in arms about it. That makes me too. We've already hosed them over by passing substandard FDA LOAs and now this just compounds it.

When I think of all the things in the TA that don't affect me now, it's not too bad. But, when I think of all the things that are actually major to small slices of our pilot group, it makes me mad. And, many of the things that don't affect me now have a good chance to in the future.

Don't give back QOL issues! When we only get COLA pay raises, I don't expect to find any givebacks--and not in these numbers certainly.
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