It is 100% in my head... Now let's revisit your post when the JCBA is released to the group for review.

 

^^^ This. ^^^^

 

The better GRID provisions are the QOL improvement. The drop to zero is for the lady-of-the-night pilots. Don't pretend otherwise.

 

For repetition’s sake, B6 pilots would love to have DTZ but only if rules about our reserve grid and VDA are overhauled to allow everyone to use DTZ.

Using today’s B6 grid system and VDA priority, DTZ will only advantage the top few percent of pilots and screw over the majority of the pilot group.

Since these rule changes would require substantial pilot hiring costs for no increase in pilot productivity, the company will place a certain dollar value on these improvements - value that will have to come from some other section of the JCBA. This is the reason for resistance. Not because B6 pilots wouldn’t want DTZ.

 

Boom... Boomer.

 

This is exactly the issue. If you're junior, VDA doesn't do you much good unless there's a bad storm or other system-wide disruption. Meanwhile the top few guys in each base/seat win big with VDA every single weekend. I think that we should overhaul that system, and allow for a rotation like some other companies do. BTW- Delta doesn't let you green-slip until your block is up to a certain level, so the drop the whole schedule and pick up VDA trick wouldn't work under their rules. Just food for thought.

 

Well it’s not an “improvement” for spirit pilots, it’s the status quo.

 

VDA doesn’t benefit me more then 2 or 3 times a year and it never will. Yes I VDA every day off I don’t have something going on but I get about 3 a year. I don’t want DTZ for that reason I want DTZ for the QOL improvement. The VDA approach sprint has would have to come along with DTZ. The current JB system benefits a handful of people and I will never be one of them. Yes the grid needs an overhaul but DTZ should be part of our JCBA as well.

 

You are a high credit guy. Period. Most of the trips in open time are crap. Why do you need/want to go to zero hours? You always have high hours. What will you do with DTZ that I'm not seeing?

 

Wait a minute. JB has …what? 4700 pilots? And you are paranoid about DTZ because you think one (1) of them has found a way to exploit it that you haven’t figured out?

I don’t understand your fears or your concerns over the cost of it. Yeah, the company will have to add a few more people on reserve. They will need to do that regardless if there are going to have to be ANY improvements in the grid and after the latest Christmas WN IROPS disaster ALL airlines are probably going to have to do that anyway because of proposals coming out of DOT and Congress that will hold the airline responsible for hotels, per diem, and every other expense on ticketed passengers denied boarding for any reason that isn’t unequivocally an act of war or an act of God. But those people added will be the cheapest people, new hire FOs and the most junior CAs, so the hit from managements perspective won’t be as bad as it might have been.

From the presently employed pilot’s perspective, that’s that many more pilots JUNIOR TO YOU, which never hurts. For the new hires it’s an opportunity and for the new CAs it’s a chance to upgrade sooner.

From the JB pilots perspective, the whole buyout is a hell of a good deal IMHO. You get a bunch of new pilots in a group that in the aggregate is junior to you - that’s a win, a bunch of newer aircraft and a huge order book of aircraft that will dramatically lower your fleet age and a bunch of new bases. I’m not exactly sure why your so paranoid that someone is going to put something over on you. Did you have a real $hitty childhood or what?