We're expected to be at peak performance every time we show for work. That's why we're evaluated twice a year in the sim, twice a year at the doctors office, once a year on the line and occasionally random checks by the faa. If your not at peak performance, don't be in my cockpit, call in sick or fatigued. Simple.

I doubt you'll find anyone to fly with.

To add to Red Letter's, busdriver12's and Full Pull's great advice (as compared to the very bad advice of excersising care when calling in sick/fatigued) - if the company were to harass a pilot for using sick time and/or calling in fatigued, not only would the union get involved, so would the FAA. It is illegal.

It is so simple. You're sick, call in sick. You're fatigued, call in fatigued. We can be our own worst enemies in self induced pilot-pushing.

I've read a bunch of crap over the years on the site. THIS IS THE WINNER. Dumbest post ever. FP, please go away.

Just block Anthrax's posts Rock.

There may be guys that complain then sell it back, but I sure hope your attitude towards PBS doesn't spread. I've never heard ANYONE speak of PBS dismissively like this, either at Fedex or other carriers who have it- in fact the opposite. They advise to fight it like mad. I believe it's a HUGE deal and hope you do too. It is imperative we keep the OPTION of scheduling our vacations and then working every other day, or just taking it and having the enormous flexibility we have now. I will fight tooth and nail to prevent PBS, for what my one opinion and vote matters, rather than have one day vacation for one day off. We spend enough time away from home as it is.

Never mind the trust it would take to work under that system.

I have to second BlackKnight's comments. If you truly believe PBS isn't a "big deal", then it's hard to believe you really have a complete understanding of what it would change in our current system.

Just compare the options available to a line-holder with a 7-day vacation with those available to someone with the same vacation and a secondary line.

Junior pilots with carryover or training can manage their conflicts to occasionally allow selection of better trips - that ain't happening with PBS.

Friends at UAL bidding in the bottom half of their seat used to describe the utter futility in even attempting to bid for a few extra days off. The top half of the list got average to above average numbers of days off per month. By the time they got to the bottom half of the list, there was so much flying left that everyone had to be maxed out just to cover it.

As lean as FedEx mans this place, you don't think that would be a problem here?

Our system is far from perfect, but extrapolating your experience at a pax carrier with a mature PBS program (and likely a vacation system unlike ours) isn't valid.

As I said, I prefer our current system.

However, just like anything else, it has a price. Unlike many of you, I've worked under PBS.

If that is United's current system, it isn't a well implemented program. Our current secondary line system is an example of a poorly designed system. Don't get me wrong here, PBS maximizes efficiency for the company. Less pilots required.

Most PBS systems work like this: pairings are built, just like they are now. Pilots (in seniority order) select the pairings they want, the days off they want, cities, TAFB, length of pairings, min blg, max blg, etc. You aren't able to knock out a full month on vacation. You work around your vacation that you could slide. Vacation takes up time from your monthly Blg or you get greedy and don't count it (much like our current secondary line holders).

The company would have no need for secondary lines as this is already worked in the process. This requires quite a few less pilots and is more efficient for the company.

As I've said, I've worked under this system. I've heard these horror stories about it. While I much prefer our current system, I'd listen to an offer. 20% raise? I don't know...

I have more issues with the pairings than anything else. They have really got worse over the last 10 years. PBS doesn't have to effect pairing design...

Personally there's almost no raise that'd persuade me to vote for PBS. Certainly none that I believe Fedex would offer. Again your sentiments concern me. Money isn't everything, especially if you're too wiped out to "enjoy" it. Time off to enjoy life, family and friends is always what counts in the long run.

One of my friends that rails against PBS is at United now. He has nothing but severe contempt, and he's one of the smartest guys and best pilots I know.

I know you're saying you prefer our system. But then you once again state examples, and give me several impressions that you'd be willing to entertain it. The efficiency would shove everyone backwards, top load seniority and screw the bottom half at least, and destroy the vacation system. Terrible idea for a few bucks and a bit of bidding preference.

Not trying to pig pile on you bud, but I sure hope you're in a very small minority at FedEx re: opening the door for PBS.

Please explain what you mean/how your bolded statement above can be accomplished. I am not aware of any way of doing that. :confused:

Regardless, I am a big NO for PBS. Of course our Secondary Lines suck!! Mainly because the company is using a first generation PBS system and apparently loves it (and the loss of goodwill that goes with it). :(



.

Again, you've talked to someone that worked under PBS. I've done it. That was 15 years ago, before Fedex. Even with the antiquated computer systems of that time, it was not near as bad as you believe it is.

Sure, you can't knock out your line with training, which I've done many, many times. While I'll gladly take advantage of this kind of stuff, it really abrogates seniority. Why should a junior guy get first dibs at trips (CIC) before a more senior pilot that bids a secondary line? Look, I've gone from 30% to 90% recently, but I chose to be junior.

Again, I'm not advocating PBS, but if the system was designed adequately, and the price is right, I'd listen. Not saying I'd be interested.

You want to buy my house? Car? Not saying I'd sell it, but I'd hear your offer...

We had 57% of us agree to a lousy contract, why not keep it going...

I believe you can now say how much vacation you want credited to your Blg on secondary lines. I always bid reserve on vacation months, so I am not sure of this.

Don't get in my cockpit sick. Unfortunately you can't call in stupid.

Flew with an FO that started coughing and sniffling regularly enroute to the west coast.

Believe this ... this dude was sick.

I gave him a few options:
Call in sick.
Or.
I'll remove you from the trip.

Pretty simple.
He called in sick and went home. Good choice. The better choice is simply stay home.

So, Doc, if he was so sick ... and contagious ... why did you let him fly from the west coast to Memphis?

Did you give him a scrip after you rendered your diagnosis?

Finally, how exactly were you going to remove him from the trip?


I'm glad you don't suffer from any allergies. ;)






.

I don't go to the doctor for colds.

And the company policy is not to call in sick without a doctor's note, so......

If you don't know the difference between your and you're, I don't want you in my cockpit.

I'm not always at my peak performance in my own cockpit. Half the time, I'm below average. :p






.

Wouldn't it be better to just get removed? That way you wouldn't need a note.:cool:

In our job this is 95% of us 95% of the time.

Think that was alafly's point...

It can be annoying for sure that adults can't figure out the difference.

Was at a restaurant the other day when one high school graduate asked another (waiter asks waiter) what 36 divided by 2 is. The other said "13...? No- 16" before the first guy had to use the calculator on his cell to figure it out...

Ugh.

It's not complicated.
He got worse on the way back.
I do have allergies regularly - every Spring. Sick calls as needed. FAA approved meds are pretty good so it's limited.

Never had anyone before or since like that guy.

I'm not a Doc.
Never said I was.
Remove him from a trip? Simple.
Make a phone call and coordinate it. I'm sure you can figure it out from there.

Losing credibility fast. One of (if not THE) most important aspect of our system that would be decimated by PBS is vacation. You readily admit that you "always bid reserve" with vacation and don't even know how secondary lines work with it, apparently.

Up until CBA 2015, secondary lines and vacation worked exactly opposite of what you stated above. You had to take every day x 6CH up to whatever you had available in your vacation bank. 7 days, 42 CH and the rest up to BLG is trips. No extension, no expansion - 7 days of vacation is just that. The new change you mention below is listed as TBD under implementation date. I've not heard anything from the company or union indicating that has changed. ALPA has been pretty diligent on keeping us appraised of changes as they are implemented. So, how could our "greedy secondary line holders" be doing what you claim (as you make it sound like it's been going on for a while)?

Since your view of our vacation system seems bit myopic, may I suggest you get a little more familiar with it? It might be worthwhile if you understood the ramifications of what you're saying you'd consider for a little more silver in your pocket.

Good thing Capts never fly sick.... Can't wait till the next time I fly a leg and realize the Capt is sick, so I can have him/her removed! 😂

So have I.

Don't mean to pile on golfandfly... I flew for an airline which thanks to ALPA's hard sell on "how awesome it would be", voted in PBS. It DECIMATED our QOL. Absolutely destroyed it, from senior to junior alike. I then flew for another airline which had pilots and flight attendants on line bidding (like we have). Then there was a vote for PBS. FA's went for it, pilots said no way. Well, we saw the absolute destruction of the FA's QOL. We used to fly the whole month together with the same schedule. Them going to PBS and us staying on line bidding was the clearest way to compare and contrast the absolute destruction of QOL that PBS brings to airline schedules (mostly for the mid to very senior). The pain it inflicted was not only on vacation and training months, it was every single month. I hope you're kidding golfandfly, PBS would be far worse for us than the most updated optimizer. Please, wake up and realize how it would destroy our QOL before spreading your point of view on being open to being bought out for PBS.

I bet you've never fat fingered the fms. Good thing we have live online spell check here.

Never when I was at my "Peak Performance."

;)


But half the time ...




Glass houses ...

Throwing stones ...






.

I realize this may be a subtle difference, but I think it might be significant.

Are you going to REMOVE the Captain (as GetRealDude claimed he would), or HAVE HIM REMOVED, as in convince someone with the actual authority to do so?


My review of §121.547 doesn't seem to indicate that I, even as the PIC, can remove an operating crew member.






.

I suspect, as PIC, that you could call security, and get anyone removed, physically, from the airplane. As an FO, you could do that also. However, I can't imagine doing that unless I thought they were inebriated or a security threat.

You're out of your mind. I have worked under PBS. My wife works under PBS.

PBS is the devil's workshop. Don't read another word from this guy.

That's it.

Pipe

I don't have a calculator, what IS the correct answer?

PBS would be the worst thing ever.

golfandfly: I do mean to pile on. No PBS. Period.

Couldn't agree with you more Tony. Sarcasm aimed at the "Capt God" mentality that still exists (though is slowly moving into the 21st century) here at FedEx. 99% of the Capts I fly with get it. But there are a few holdouts left that think they are "above it all". Just poking those people in the eye 😀.

I bid reserve on vacation months. It's works best for me. Call it myopic if you will.

Currently, you get 6 hours a day credit on secondary lines. Not having a contract handy at the time, I apologize for not memorizing the implementation schedule. However, you will eventually be allowed to decide how many days of vacation credit you want to take when bidding secondary lines. So, those "greedy secondary lineholders" will be able to reduce their vacation to zero if they wish.

I hear a lot of people talk about QOL issues then work 20+ days/month.

Again, I've never advocated PBS, but pretty much everything has its price. It's a very high price, but everything is negotiable.

No, the flexibility here that allows me to have 6-7 weeks off every summer and winter is NOT negotiable. Not at any price - not at 200% pay rate. Just stop selling yourself short. Our new CBA should be enough of a sell back for you. By advocating "everything is negotiable" you are in fact advocating for PBS. Wake up.

Bidding reserve with vacation isn't myopic. It's a good plan if you have the flexibility to actually be in MEM on reserve for the days you don't knock out. Especially if your vaca is at the beginning of the month and you get leveled for it.

Based on your statements about secondary lines and the fact that you've never used vacation other than with reserve, I said your view seems myopic.

I understand we will eventually be able to have more control over vacation hours used on secondary lines. I also don't expect you to memorize the implementation schedule - just don't throw out some BS example as if you have personal knowledge of it happening when it's not even possible yet.

There is a limit to secondary line holder greed, FWIW. There's still a 40% buy-back limit at the end of the year, so they have to take it some time (or simply lose it). If they lose vacation for no pay, then I would suggest they suck at being greedy. :D

Frankly, who cares. There are lots of ways to be greedy here depending on circumstances and seniority. Most of them involve working harder than required. If a guy wants to fill his calendar with blue, fly extra carryover at straight time, sell back vacation and work himself into the grave, I really don't care (since we're not in negotiations). If he chooses to work his butt off and complains about it, then maybe chalk it up to his membership in the 5% club and move on.

You'll hear a lot more complaints about QOL issues if we go PBS, except then most likely the complaints will be very, very valid. There is no realistic pay raise that would be worth giving up the flexibility and control we currently have over our schedule. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

I've been at this game a long time and I never sell myself short. That said, I'll entertain any offers.

As I've said, I've worked under PBS. I haven't just heard about it from a friend at United. It would cost them a lot, and I'm quite sure Fedex wouldn't pay what I'd require. Again, they want to talk, I'd listen.

We have other line in the sand items. We wanted to burn the heretics that dare considered to look at other retirement options. I have to admit it, but I agreed with the union's position at the time. Now many of us wonder if that was so smart after all. If they would have said, "the retirement high five number would stay at 260k", would you have entertained any other options? Let's say you are 30 and just got hired here. What is 130k (minus any survivor benefit) going to be worth in 2046? We can only use statistical inflation numbers to guess, but I'd say it won't be worth a lot. What would a 17% B fund (cash over cap)be worth? Again, we can only guess at market performance, so we really don't have a clear picture. But, needless to say, I think most of us would have listened to the offer had we known that our A fund wasn't going to improve.

This conversation started when someone said he thought we our contract was a win because we didn't get PBS or give up our A fund. I simply mentioned that we already have our A fund and current bidding system, and really wasn't a win to keep what we already have. Could we have missed an opportunity to improve our A fund if we discontinued it for new hires? Would we be throwing them under the bus, or did we do that by insisting to keep them under the current plan? I think we should have looked at it more closely, but our myopia caused us to not listen to other options.

Again, I'd be willing to listen to any offers they want to talk about.

Look, I agree with your points here. I know the contract pretty well and I know we've had a change to our secondary lineholders vacation bidding. It's TBD, and I never said I knew if anyone that had actually done this. I just knew that this has changed. I also don't care what anyone does here outside of negotiations. Fly every day, sell back your vacation, take off the summer/winter, whatever.

The key word was "realistic". My selling point for anything concessionary is not going to be realistic. They'd never pay the price that I would take, but again, I'd listen to them. That's all I'm saying.

Very valid point. The NC thought they were doing new hires a favor when most likely, there were better options for a young guy. I agree looking at other options might have allowed gains we'll never know now.

Unfortunately, from what I understand, we negotiated the 10% and yearly raises to follow BEFORE we got the "line in the sand" drawn on the A-plan. Our NC accepting the raise schedule was predicated on them also getting us A-plan improvements. Since section 4 was TAed, we never went back and re-attacked the raise plan after realizing the A-plan was not budging. Money - BIG MONEY - left on the table.

One positive point (and it's only a small positive) of the new CBA is that vacation anywhere in the month now counts for leveling. One no longer has to use strategery to plan where to bid vacation during reserve months.

We can guess, based upon historic and expected market returns to evaluate which is the better deal. We also have to guess\assume that there's no huge knockout blow to FedEx in the future. There's no way of knowing what technology may bring to us in the future. If you think FedEx is going to go away, then Freezing or eliminating the A play is a better bet. That 130k would look mighty good to whatever the PBGCC was willing to pay out if they let FedEx handover the A plan (Current PBGCC is 39k at 60, 60k at 65)

That 130k is going to be worth about 70k in todays dollars (ballpark WAG using rule of 72, it'll be a bit more if you use Govt's WAG, bit less if you use historic norms. Way less if the US implodes ala Greece)

Keep in mind, that if you look at expected wage growth in the US, that 130k is still going to be above the Median and Average income in the US.

As to a 17% B plan, most people who run the numbers never quite think of the fact that Taxes will be an issue and cut into your returns. Companies contributions to the A plan are tax free to US and that's a huge benny, and they always will be. A big B plan runs into issues with cash over cap surprisingly quickly if you are also saving into your 401k. But, for the purposes of Internet Number calculations, let's assume that cash over cap isn't an issue and the company volunteers to pony up extra cash to pay for the taxes involved. And let's also assume a newhire that wants to enjoy some relative Seniority and QOL who was fortunate enough to be hired as a WB FO, the NB Capt at 6, then WB Capt at 15. Assuming the 6% expected return will net you a cool 3.46M at 30 years. (of course that 3.46M will only be worth 1.86M of today's dollars)

Sounds great, and way better than the 1.83M a 9% B plan will get our mythical newhire.
Until you look at the cashflow.

Suggested cashflow for your $$ in retirement is a 4% drawdown rate. 4% of that 3.46M nets you 138.2k. The cashflow the lowly 130k pension will get you plus the same 4% drawdown of your tiny 1.83M will net you a cashflow of 203.2k

It's quite true that the value of your 17% B plan will be greater than the 9%, possibly leaving $$ for your heirs-especially if you die early. But if leaving money to your heirs is a goal, doesn't take very long of simply saving the extra 64.9k the A+B plan combination gives you to match the money in the big B plan.

And, just as we don't know what will happen with FedEx, we also don't know what Medical Advances are just around the corner. There's been some recent breakthroughs with stem cells, so certainly not outside the realm of probability that lifespan could increase another decade or two.