What’s going on?
 

So I’ve been getting emails and text messages from the union all day about staying engaged and ready. It’s going to happen quickly...I guess they are stuck in the negotiating process?

Yes. I’m sure negotiating with these guys isn’t any easier than a few years ago. We will know when it’s agreed upon.

In a brief text from my Capt rep. “ Details will be later today “ - we will be bidding for the colas for APRIL so it may be a super short bid window. - IE less than 24 hours

I’d be willing to bet that the company is trying to wipe everyone’s schedule clean so they don’t have to pay people who loaded their schedules... id also be willing to bet they’re trying to get rid of the MCO for April... they’re definitely trying some bs...

Rightfully so. Picking up open time you know will cancel when our jobs are at stake? Despicable!!!!

I have a feeling you may be right. I wonder if the podcast was intended as a dosis of Kool-Aid more than a showing of leadership.

Man up you’re dealing with a company that made over a billion dollars while saying they couldn’t afford payrates because of Brexit. They have plenty of capitol to weather this storm by the fact they aren’t even sure if they want to take the bailout if it doesn’t benefit them enough. If they didn’t want to pay people for April they should’ve offered 50 colas like every other airline weeks ago not wait until the last minute literally and put it on the union to save them.

Loa 15 on the alpa app is out. Basically same Ava notifications and 50 hour COLAs for April, may and June if you bid it. Minimum credit you need to finish with is also down to 50 vs the 60.

If your performance in the COLA thread didn’t establish it conclusively, we now all know the depth of your naivety. You would get destroyed at a used car dealership.

I take it back. It sounds like a good deal...I think...

It is. I know because I just read it

I was impressed as well and LOA-15 looks very reasonable. They appeared to have covered all the bases I can think of.

Paragraph A.1. is totally contradicted by A.3. and A.4. Paragraph 1 states that you will be pay protected for conditions that warrant officials telling you “personally” to quarantine. 3. and 4 are conditions that officials are saying you need to quarantine due to the covid-19 virus. But you aren’t pay protected for 3. or 4. Just given an emergency leave of absence. So if you don’t take the COLA and a family member tests positive for covid-19 you’ll go on emergency leave and you won’t get paid even though you have to self quarantine due to covid-19. Not a well written LOA and leaves people who don’t take the COLA susceptible to lower pay than those who choose not to work. Maybe that’s by design.

There no contradiction. Scenario 1 you have or potentially have the virus. 3 and 4 you don’t. 3 and 4 is specifically written for family members. Now 4 can turn into 1 if you get sick. It’s the same language as other carriers. These guys didn’t just make it up. Also there’s nothing about officials telling you to do anything in 3 and 4. Seems like it’s not a well Understood Loa by you.

Does anyone have any idea of how many the company was hoping would take COLA 1?

That is how I read it as well. Plus guidance from government agencies can change. It doesn’t hurt to have both. Just use 1 if you can.

I know it’s domicle and seat specific. As far as how many thier looking for I would imagine it depends on domicle and what month. As time goes by less and less. I’ll guess 50% April in most domicles minimum. Based on the block they cut. 40/50% May. Less in June.

3 and 4 just enhances emergency leave language to include this virus. It’s already contractually available.That’s the intent. You can already call in sick to care for an immediate family member. Think of 3 and 4 as a way to save sick if you don’t want to burn it. More options is a good thing to most people.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN21I1ZD

This could pose a problem for the company.

Why?
"For those with fewer than one a day five times a week, they would only need to fly once per week."

Right, but according to flight aware cancellations tomorrow we have 95% of our flights canceled. Admittedly I don’t know exactly how many city pairs we have either daily or five times a week to, but just guessing it’s more than 5%. Meaning F9 would have to operate a flight five times a week to those cities. Thankfully we do operate several city pairs on a less frequent basis.
The issue is IMO the company would like to cancel more flights, however the stipulation to provide service may force them to operate more flights at a loss than they are comfortable with. That was the point of the post.

And apparently you are correct vis a vis the latest update from the union.

Makes zero sense to fly empty airplanes around the country. I get what they are trying to do but is bad business.

“Airlines could seek waivers”. Time
to start drafting some I would imagine.

You're right. But it is no longer a purely business matter once there is public money being injected into the companies.

I think that metaphorically these minimum flights could be looked at as a public-private partnership. Or flights subsidized by the government to fulfill a certain public interest.

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

What did it say? I didn’t get the email.

Basically they think that in order to accept the grant money they will be required to provide more service.

So maybe they offer fewer leaves

I interpreted that email as "if you're planning on holding your line instead of taking the COLA, you might be flying more on AVA than you originally thought so factor that into your decision."

That could certainly be

So the April COLA award has not been posted and it’s past noon, east coast, on 01APR. We also received an obscure email from ALPA yesterday regarding more routes that may have to be flown if grant money is accepted. It makes me think the company may be reconsidering taking the grant money and putting most people on 50hr pay for April; they may want to take a much more draconian measure to conserve cash.

Someone else posted this link but I’ll post it again. These rules put in place for the airline grants by the Secretary of Transportation have HUGE implications for us. The Secretary basically formed his rules to give the Legacies massive relief for reductions in daily flights on a given route, while giving airlines like Spirit and Frontier basically nothing since we typically only operate one flight per day on our routes. The rules could be incremental but they’re not, they target us.

IMO, this is our corrupt U.S. government in action, legacy lobbyists have found their government stooge and now they’re trying to squash us before we emerge with our “huge cost advantage” [Biffle quote] on the other side of this. If we aren’t allowed exemptions on the majority of our routes, I see no advantages to them taking the grant money; and this is unlikely a coincidence and more likely by design to hurt us.



Excerpt from Reuter’s:

The department said carriers that flew domestically between cities five days a week or more before the impact of the coronavirus pandemic would need to continue to provide at least one flight per day five times a week between the points.

Those routes with fewer flights would only need to be flown once per week. For cities where there are multiple airports, carriers could consolidate operations at a single airport.

The department said airlines could seek waivers for specific flights, saying that “even with these reduced service levels, it may not be practicable for covered carriers to serve all points previously served.”


Reuters: U.S. backs minimum flights on airline routes in assistance review

I actually took that email from the union to mean the opposite. To me, I got the vibe that the union was basically saying “If you’re planning to roll the dice and bid reserve, not fly and get paid 75hrs to sit at home instead taking a 50hr COLA, you may find yourself actually having to work more than you thought”. I could be completely off, but it sounded like the company was more solid than ever in their decision to take the grant.

Also, the revised bid notice states that awards will post “No later than 1700 Denver Local April 20, 2020”. They still have five and a half hours to post.

We’re taking the grant. I’m about as close to 100% on that as possible.There’s probably more coming at some point in the future. By the way cola is out. At first glance it’s hundreds. Now they can start working on waivers.

Yeah the first part of that was said almost word for word a page back, I would agree that interpretation of the Union email. The second paragraph you posted references system bids not COLA-1, specifically rebidding the last system bids that were canceled.

The whole reason behind the 5 emails/texts from the union was to prepare the pilot group for a very abbreviated timeline for bidding April COLA-1. And the award could happen ASAP since the COLA month was starting immediately.

Look under the COLA-1 tab in flica. There is a revised deadline notice. The post date/time was changed to this evening by 1700.

The cola award is out. Check comply

So since he COLA 1 is out thought I would post the numbers.

Counted every domicile and seat twice for accuracy, but could still be off by a couple but here’s what it looks like.

TOTAL 369

CA 179
FO 190

CHI CA 27
CHI FO 24

DEN CA 59
DEN FO 71

LAS CA 25
LAS FO 33

MCO CA 28
MCO FO 29

MIA CA 5
MIA FO 8

PHL CA 35
PHL FO 25

I got the exact same numbers, not bad but not great either. Roughly a 7% reduction in pay obligations, though 33% would be the max reduction from guarantee with every pilot on COLA.

I took your numbers and compared those against the April bid packets. I subtracted the 36 pilots listing for “Training” in April.

369 pilots took COLA-1 out of 1355 bidding pilots. Which is 27.2% participation system wide.

The percentages by base/seat are in your quote below. COLA awards divided by line bidding pilots.

For May we get to add the 67 pilots that were on the No Pay COLA, so we are well over 400 if the same people do May too. I would venture a guess that there are going to be more people bidding for May who didn't want to give up their April credit.

take it off the average credit and it’s around 40%. There’s not a whole lot of pilots finishing at 75, reserves included now. Not to mention there shouldn’t be any crazy 200 plus credit paychecks by the end of the bid period. I’ll bet it’s closer to a 10% payroll saving. May should be more.