Quote from lolwut, "In talking with a friend of mine over at Pinnacle that is pretty in tune with these things.... the new contract contains such items as"

I don't think lolwut works for Pinnacle, Messaba, or Colgan

I don't, but I do care a lot about this industry and its improvement.

And there was. This contract does not lower the bar.

I'm guessing "Assey".

I am going to do my best to reply to a few of the thing that lolwut had in his post. Here it goes:

> Reserves going back on reserve after finishing an assignment

True and it sucks. We have a pretty good system in place at Pinnacle from the current agreement, but we get screwed constantly anyway. I only spent 2 months on reserve though, so I can't say much about the current system. At least the TA has a last day provision though. On the last day of reserve before days off, we have to be released by a given local time. Depends on what reserve period you were on.

> Out of base reserve

This goes to volunteers first. As a commuter, I like the idea of it. If I'm going to be gone from home anyway, may as well have a company paid for hotel room and be getting per diem. What do I care which city they put me in?

> 3x Increase in health insurance costs

This is true, but only for Pinnacle pilots, and only if you are single. That said, do you know anything about our current insurance??? It is by far the best insurance I have had since I started working. It is also the cheapest. I paid a total of $290 last year for health, vision, and dental. That is only $24 a month. There is no way anybody could have expected that to not go up. My new rates are estimated at $88 a month. That is still cheaper than any other insurance I have had. How much do you pay for yours???


> Less sick time accrual

True, but not the whole story. We currently accrue 3.75 hours of sick time each month. The new contract has us accruing 2.5 hours per month. Sounds like we get less, but the new contract has an Extended Sick Leave policy where the company pays us after the third day of sick time taken. I don't fully understand how it works, but it is apparently out of Mesaba's current book so hopefully an XJ guy could help explain.

> Seniority awarded training, reserve periods, trip trades (bad if you're on the bottom half of the list)

As for the trip trades being in Seniority order, you are referring to what is in the contract as the "Line Improvement Period." This is the first 48 hours after lines are published where all pilots are allowed to submit 5 trades a piece. The trades are then dealt with in seniority order. After the first 48 hours, all requests are done on a first come first serve basis.

> Minuscule increase in reserve callout time

Seriously, how much do you need? It's called "short call reserve". It's 1:45 at most bases and 2:00 in ATL, EWR, IAD, JFK, and LGA.

> 11 days off actually being 10, with "compensatory days" to make up for it - that you can't even use

Minimum days off is 11. The misconception is coming from the following provision in the Transition Agreement (LOA-2).

"Beginning April 1, 2011 and until such time as Pinnacle and Colgan are able to
implement the requirement of Section 12.E., a Pinnacle or Colgan Pilot who is
awarded one less than the minimum contractual days off in Domicile in a Bid Period
shall receive either a Compensatory Day or an additional vacation day, at the Pilot’s
option, for that Bid Period. In addition, the Pilot shall receive 8 hours of Pay Credit,
paid above guarantee."The next paragraph says that we can start asking for the comp days after September of 2011. There are provisions that the company must award them.Basically this comes down to the fact that we don't have the staffing to automatically require the 11 days off. We know it, and the company knows it so we put this in there to allow for some hiring. We will be given 11 days off eventually.

> Negotiated new corrected DoH not changing your pay, vacation, etc

Yeah, that one sucked. At Pinnacle, we are currently considered employed after passing our checkride. It is being adjusted to the date we started training, but the new date will only affect the SLI. Our pay will still be based off the old DOH. It sucks, but is only worth about 7 weeks of the pay difference a year. I'll assume that is about $1.50/hr for about 130 hours. Hardly something to vote no about.

That's funny, I never had any issue with my 18 days + holidays, weekends off and 90+ credit, and that's with this current contract and no pick ups. Dont' worry I will have fun with my new higher pay rates and work rules.

The day pilots don't complain is the first day I will begin to worry.

your awesome! keep drinking the kool-aid.

amen I like your style...

how is it kool-aid it it is true?? I have the same schedule he does and am as snug as a bug in a rug.