Now ain't that a kick in the head?

 

Reduction of 146 positions. I may be displaced, again.

 

More CAL furloughs?

 

CAL management doing their best to make sure that the hard core unionists at EWR don't make more than 49% of the pilot group.

CAL management doing their best to reduce 737 flying by 26% this fall and transfer more mainline jobs to Colgan (which happens to be doubling its Q-400 fleet and picking up most former 737 flying).

CAL management doing their best to prepare for UAL merger.

 

I know that they are reducing some of the B737 EWR flying, if you would, can you show me where the 26% of it was forecasted?? Must have missed that raw number.

Realizing that there are reductions, I find it hard to believe the number was that high when there was a fair amount of Vacancies shifted to IAH on the B737.....obviously the numbers of the IAH vacancies were less than the EWR reductions....but reflecting the 26% that you quote....surprising.

Facts/Figures??

 

EWR 737 CA goes from 411 to 291 (reduction of 29.7%)
EWR 737 FO goes from 421 to 285 (reduction of 33.3%)

Fred Abbott stated that EWR 737 will fly 26% fewer passenger miles.

Yes, there is some "growth" in IAH but it appears that management's plan is to keep enough 737 pilots in EWR to sit reserve and cover the AM launches, and redistribute the fleet so that IAH based crews would cover most other EWR flying.

They're not giving up slots, in fact they just made a deal with Air Tran to acquire 3 more slots in EWR.

They apparently are replacing a lot of the shorter haul markets (BOS, DCA, etc.) with Q400s. I'm sure that they'll come up with a new marketing scheme to distance themselves from Colgan though. Maybe they'll rename the Q-400 the "737-500NG" and unsuspecting passengers would never know the difference anyways.

 

I'm not sure that displacing EWR pilots to IAH changes him/her to instant yes voters. They may be trying to cut the legs out from under the EWR LEC, but this seems like a very expensive way to do it. However, this place is now run by folks who would cut off their nose to spite their face. I do smell something fishy though. If you look at the first paragraph of the flt.ops bulletin compared to previous system bid bulletins, there's no detail about aircraft, routes, block hours or bases. This one just said the economy is bad...we're reducing. Hastily put together, it appears. I have no doubt though that fully intend to carry it out. Like I was told the other day by a crew scheduler, "min res coverage" has nothing to do with our staffing level....as my trade was denied.

 

There lies the mis-print.....you included the EWR 26% reduction. Before when you said 26% reduction w/o qualifying it (taking the fact literally, 26% system wide), I was like that is a bit 'way' off

I did not have the 'pleasure' of catching Fred's Road-Show while he was in IAH last week....was out taking care of the obligatory line flying.

Thanks for the clarification.

 

Ah yes, I see what you mean - 26% systemwide versus 26% BES is a huge difference!

 

If I add up the available positions in all the BES from the standing system bid page, I get 4042.

How did the previous poster come up with the reduction number? Is that the difference from the previous bid? I never understood how come our system bids (like everything else at CAL) are so convoluted.

I'm glad I took that leave of absence when I did... Good luck to my classmates who will try to find work in this environment. If any of you CAL guys really get down on your luck and need a place to crash while you get your life back on track - drop me a private message, no questions will be asked.

Dear fuel hedge guy, friends of Fred, and scabtains: Thanks for the nice send off. Don't bother recalling me. I was treated with more respect when I was a fishmonger in high school.