Generally speaking it’s defining who is allowed to do the flying that contributes to JetBlue’s revenue.

Ideally that would be only pilot’s on Jetblue’s Seniority list.

Worst case is very open ended where we have regional carriers flying smaller and increasing larger aircraft. Also problematic are agreements and joint ventures with other carriers foreign and domestic.

 

Scope of work determines who can fly with JetBlue painted on the side of the airplane. For instance, at Delta RJs are limited to 76 seats if they are a CRJ 700 or E170. And there’s also a total limit on the number of “large” regional jets. There may be a limit on the number of small CRJs too, but I can’t remember.

Basically, with no scope section if the company wanted too they could hire SkyWest to fly A320s and paint JetBlue on the side of them with little bitty letters that say “Operated by SkyWest.”

 

It’s so important that it makes up the latter third of the contract comparison guide:

http://www3.alpa.org/portals/alpa/je...Comparison.pdf

Southwest may not subcontract flying, period. That’s the gold standard.

 

Here’s an explanation of the effects of “selling scope” or not having any.

A lot of Alaska’s former 737 flying has turned into e175 flying by SkyWest and horizon. At one point greater than 50% of the daily departures of the 3 legacies were done by regionals, many on mainline (hub to hub) routes. I was at a regional and flew LAX-IAH among many other 2-3 hour legs. What “region” is that? Mainline flying got siphoned off to slave wage regionals, delaying people from getting on the seniority list, outsourcing flying that would otherwise add airframes and jobs to majors, and significantly contributing to the lost decade, and lowering the bar for everyone with respect to wages and lifetime earnings.

Scope was sold by the legacies for a few buck hourly gains (or for fewer concessions), because those guys already got theirs and were on the list, and screwed everyone behind them. ALPA allowed this. Pilots are greedy. Management played ALPA/legacy pilots against everyone else in the industry (to include even some of their own who got furloughed from legacies) and made regionals huge. This was one of the darkest spots in our professions history. This “commuter feed” morphed from little turboprops to 76 seat jets and screwed people...hard.

ALPA has acknowledged screwing the industry by allowing scope to be sold, and now that a bunch of regional guys are at the majors, management knows they can’t sell more/bigger regionals to legacy pilots (scope is a function of their pilot contracts). Scope sales is generall a nonstarter now.

Now management seems to be going after scope on the widebody front. Delta passed their TA with a give in widebody scope that DAL seems to keep using to park and not replace Delta widebodies with. Sonthe highest paying and best career jobs at DAL are being eroded. How are they doing it? Joint ventures. These JVs enable delta to fly pax on widebodies that cost significantly less to operate than DAL widebodies. DAL had 787s on order. Order was canceled. But DAL flies DAL passengers on Aeromexico’s 787s. DAL owns 49% of Aeromexico. Their pilots make significantly less than US 787 pilots. That’s one example of JVs, but there are many, flying DAL pax across the pacific and Atlantic.

This is a long convoluted post showing effects of scope gives. If management could outsource all flying to keep profit margins higher, they would. They’ve proven that. They’ve historically exploited pilots number one weakness (greed) to pass scope sales, hoodwinking us into thinking it was the best short and long term course of action for the company and its pilots. We’ve lost billions because of it. Hopefully now enough in the industry know about the destroyed livelihoods caused by it they won’t let it happen again. This is why everyone is ****ed at the Alaska arbitration award. This is why scope is the first section in a contract. I hope in 5-10 years all 76 jets are operated in house by majors.

If our 60 E190s were given to SKW to operate, or we just got rid of 30-60 of them and replaced with contracted E175s for our markets that need a smaller plane, our seniority list would stagnate or shrink (furloughs) for years to come. SKW is salivating to do a deal with us...that’s what regionals need to grow. Our management has always said they want to operate everything organically and not outsource because they want to tightly control the product. They need to put that in writing in section 1 of our CBA.

 

It looks like scope was negotiated earlier this year before we entered mediation. While not fully TA'd, it appears most of the section has been agreed upon.

 

Oh also, always gotta watch for management tricks trying to sell scope. They will say “we will buy 50 more 737s” or “15 new widebodies” if you allow 50 more regional jets. Pilots and their votes dont buy airplanes. Management buys airplanes. If it’s a good business decision to buy airplanes, they will do it anyway regardless of the pilots vote on something. That’s a regional tactic used to whip saw pilot groups and force one into taking a substandard contract. They basically promised more growth/movement (and captain jobs essentially) to the pilot group that accepted the bad contract who would be awarded new flying, and that has been introduced at the majors.

Recently, during DALs negotiations, their CEO said they would buy 50 or 60 (I think) 737s and 20 E190s if they ratified their (failed) TA back in 2015. Pilots still voted it down, the next day the order was canceled. Not too long after that, delta ordered more 737s and 75 C Series (with 50 options)...which pays way more than the e190s anyway over there.

So, scope isn’t just an independent clause that sits there. It’s historically been used as a bargaining chip.

Why would jetblue ever get widebodies if NAI/NAS/aer lingus/Hawaiian/Emirates/etc will codeshare with us and fly our pax for us? If these codeshares turn to JVs it could get even worse. Or what if JB management/BoD set up an NAI copycat called JetBlue International that JVd with the normal JetBlue and did all the widebody flying but paid pilots significantly less than JetBlue pilots? Know how many regional pilots would salivate over flying a 787 for $50-$100 an hour? That’s what we have to prevent, and the only way to do that is in section 1.

 

You may well be right and I hope that you are. I just used the current briefing list and didn’t go through the older negotiating updates. Many of the outstanding articles are actually in that position where only a few items remain..

 

As a guy who’s in the regional trap, I want to thank all of you for thinking of those behind you by not voting in scope. 👏🏻

 

I wish I knew more specifics, but I did take a look back at the negotiations updates. The negotiations over Scope appear to have ended before filing for mediation. That could mean it's mostly complete, but it may not. Since the latest updates have all referenced negotiating issues like compensation and benefits, I think it's reasonable to conclude that most of the scope section is completed. Perhaps it's one of those sections the NC and company are meeting outside of mediation to finalize the TA language.

It's pretty typical to have many sections remain open until the whole thing is TA'd. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas, except there's no set date to open up the presents. It's a frustratingly long process, with little information to allow us to quantify progress. At least in this case we can do more than just send a wishlist to the North Pole and actually get "Santa" to meet our proposals.

 

Thanks for this and your previous post. I’m pretty new to the 121 world and all I know is I don’t know what I don’t know! I certainly will rely on you OWLs when it comes time to vote-hopefully sooner rather than later...