Contract Openers
 

Was it today that we exchanged openers with the company. Has anyone heard anything.

I believe today was supposed to be the day. I say 'supposed' because I'm sure the company didn't have anything productive to do if they even showed up

Meetings on the 25th and 26th.... nothing. I am sure we will hear something in the weekly update. We shall see.

I heard it's all done boys, just waiting on legal. /s

This is a marathon not a sprint. Buckle down and get ready for a long fight.

I will say, it is probably a lot more in depth than I am thinking. But the current contract is already pretty good. I feel like it shouldn't take too long to inset/edit/remove some pieces and be done. But it depends on how bad the company wants to stop attrition. Lets see if they understand how losing people in a revolving door works *cough cough* regionals* cough cough*

Heard it’s United’s’ new contract plus 1 percent and a Hefty bag.

Pretty good? I have to disagree, look how often the company tiptoes around verbiage of the contact and interprets it to their best interest. Major improvements needed in language in most sections of the contract. The contract lagged behind most other carriers previous contracts, now it needs significantly improvement. Buckle your seatbelt and enjoy this ride.

I actually mostly agree. Obviously there's room for improvement! But on the last contract we got some major things knocked out like switching to a fully DC retirement plan and increasing the different reserve options. Insurance costs haven't risen either which is huge as Healthcare prices have sky rocketed.

That being said, we need some improvements in pay, training, scheduling, LTD, Section 19 protections, etc.

This contract fight will be very slow and very painful. I caution anyone who thinks it'll be quick to seriously reset your expectations. Frontier is (still!) filling classes and therefore doesn't see any real reason to kick out a kick ass contract.

If you are on the fence about leaving or doing the wait and see how the new contract looks, I highly recommend you split immediately. You could leave here and be a captain at Delta before we sign a new CBA

The 5 most important things we learned since our last contract (in order of importance):

5. Lots of ancillary items like health insurance costs, short call costs, DC to 18% (like everyone else), etc.
4. Reserve rules. Too many improvements need to list but the big ones are # of times converted from LC to SC, movements to RSV B and E, etc and certainly only having 12 days off per month. Changing #3 below to 5.3 hours min day (to include reserve days) would solve this easily.
3. Average duty period. We definitely learned the hard way on this one. Needs change to either a min day (of 5.3 min) or the trip/duty rig.
2. Pay rates. When prospective candidates are looking for jobs, the #1 thing they look at are pay rates. QoL could be top notch but if rates severely lag, recruiting and retention are difficult. Both the company AND the pilot force need competitive rates - and since it seems the Big 3 are all gonna have just about the same rates (after AA rework and snap up provisions), until we match, this will always be an issue.
1. And singularly most important - Grievance process and consequences. Every contract is only as good as its ability to be enforced. We have all learned the hard way through this and with all the grievances we have, the way the company changes pairing construction philosophy, Section 19 usage, etc, we most certainly need better way to protect ourselves vs. the company not following the contract.

You spelled "Spirit" wrong.

My serious guess is Spirit +1, just like last time. And if this is the case, The Company is gonna want to lock those rates in before Spirit starts the JCBA with JB.

On the flipside, if the JB thing falls through, it will be Frontierit all over again, in which case I predict a multi year fight to ultimately make less than Spirits current, already below industry standard rates.

(if it matters, I work at NK)