What if doing VILs is keeping JB pilots off the street? Does the benefit have to touch every seniority or is saving jobs and keeping stone employed a good enough reason to agree to VILs.

And what exactly are you proposing we “gain” in exchange for agreeing to VILs? FLICA waiting room? Not everything the union does is a good thing. It’s okay to think independently for yourself.

 

You’re definitely sus MT 😂

 

VIL’s aren’t keeping new hire FO’s off the street. We’re overstaffed on Captains, but that should correct itself as we take more 220’s and have less 321’s sitting for Pratt issues. I’ve been hypercritical of the union in many areas…that just isn’t one of them. And this sure as sh!t isn’t the venue to question them.

 

We’re overstaffed overall, not just with CAs. The displacement bid is correcting the CA over staffing and loss of the 190. Even with that we are overstaffed for our current flying we’re doing. Either way I don’t see taking a hard stand on VILs as being productive or leading to anything meaningful for the pilot group. Quite possibly the exact opposite. We shall see. Moving on.

 

We are always over staffed or understaffed. There has never been an equilibrium. We are either burned out or begging for hours. That isn’t “The nature of the business”. That’s **** poor planning being implemented in a “contrarian” way. VIL Subjugates seniority plain and simple and $hit rolls downhill. It doesn’t lead to having a weekend or more days off. We just get less productive trips that are un commutable because “They need to use us.” There is absolutely no difference between paying two guys 70 or one guy 85 and one 55. Just because one guy sits at home doesn’t mean the other wants to work 85. Without VIL there is a chance that those who get LCR may not be called or escalated as much. Theoretically the grids should be closer to green allowing drops and swap more often and maybe, possibly on a weekend dare I say. Thats a win for a lot more then the few who bid and awarded these damn VIL’s

 

There’s an idea. Any base/seat where a VIL is offered then the reserve grid becomes unlocked for the whole month.

 

Flyby comin in hot with a mic drop. BOOM!

 

Perhaps overall....but there are seats which are quite understaffed, possible the largest or second largest seat at the company in fact (JFK320FO). They've had mostly red days every day up until the last month or two with a few green days. So while they went massively understaffed, requiring VDAs every day......we had their counterparts in the left seat at JFK who had the highest number of VILs.....up to 100 guys on reserve with none flying.

The balancing of seats was needed. Sucks that guys are downgraded but it makes no sense to pay FOs VDA AND be paying hundreds of CAs to sit at home. Unless we had CAs able to fly as FO (which I guess our ops spec doesn't allow).

 

Not allowing the company to do VILs was definitely a mistake and counter productive. I find it very odd the union rolled over and agreed to a 3% raise in exchange for scope relief (at a time when inflation was well
above 3%), but is taking a hard line stance on VILs which benefit many pilots.

 

new group in the MEC. The group that took the 3% actually took 1% before the pilots revolted. That group would haven given the company whatever they wanted right now.


we didn’t “deny” the company VILs. We simply took an off ramp that was pre negotiated. I’m sure the union would be happy to negotiate continued use or God forbid actually have the company show up to section 6 negotiations ready to make progress.