DAL/NWA 4: The Search for Best Practices
 

I'm hoping to spin this thread of the "Latest and Greatest" because the merger is helping everyone realize there are better ways. North people have some advice, and South people should listen to all options. A civil discussion could help us identify things that would benefit everyone, and let us petition/pressure Flight Ops for better policies, as we ait for a new contract.

I'm trying to specifically make a distinction between Section 6 items, those that will require massive leverage and efforts, from Best Practices and procedures that make our lives easier, provided we ask for them with a unified stance. For example, how to look at immunization requirements, IT issues, communting, etc. These best practices make their way into our next contract, but we don't buy them: they're a matter of conducting business efficiently, and keeping the peace.

Can we buy an "off the shelf" scheduling program in replacement of Icrew? I know even the regionals have pretty good systems that they've tailored to their operation and I've got to believe they don't have the IT departments to make them from scratch.

How did I do that? Two posts at once

FtB;
The majority of their stuff operates off of Saber. You know where Saber's Main office is located? Trinity Blvd in Euless Texas--err Fort Worth. Right next door to the company that spun them off AMR.

Sabre!

A 1981 study by American Airlines found that travel agents selected the flight appearing on the first line more than half the time. Ninety-two percent of the time, the selected flight was on the first screen. This provided a huge incentive for American to manipulate their ranking formula, or even corrupt the search algorithm outright, to favor American flights. American eventually did just that under the name "screen science."

At first this was limited to juggling the relative importance of factors such as the length of the flight, how close the actual departure time was to the desired time, and whether the flight had a connection. But with each success American became bolder. In late 1981, New York Air added a flight from La Guardia to Detroit, challenging American in an important market. Before long the new flights suddenly started appearing at the bottom of the screen.[9] Its reservations dried up, and it was forced to cut back from eight Detroit flights a day to none.

On one occasion, Sabre deliberately withheld Continental's discount fares on 49 routes where American competed.[10] A Sabre staffer had been directed to work on a program that would automatically suppress any discount fares loaded into the computer system.

Congress investigated these practices and in 1983 Bob Crandall, president of American, was the most vocal supporter of the systems. "The preferential display of our flights, and the corresponding increase in our market share, is the competitive raison d'être for having created the system in the first place," he told them. Unimpressed, in 1984 the United States government outlawed screen bias.

OK, so what are the outsanding issues that need to be addressed? So far, I've identified.... (please feel free to fill in the blanks):

1) Procedural Concerns/Vol 1 Issues:

a) Most of the North procedures, and some of the South procedures, have been changed.
-Main arguments: the North thinks it sucks, and many of the practices they're adopting don't make sense to them. The South agrees it sucks, and even some of the few procedures we've adopted don't make sense.
-Consensus: changing procedures suck.
-Status: Flight Ops says it's not a Best Practice issue, but an "Expeditious SOC" issue. The promise is that we will develop better policies going forward.

b)[What else?]

2) Personnel/FOM Items:

a) Delta wants pilots to have YF shots.
-Main arguments: the North pilots don't wnat to be forced to do it [is it just the DC-9 guys?], and feel the South guys aren't interested. The South guys have already done it, not that we loved it, and many of us didn't realize this was an improtant issue. We're more worried about malaria, and the fact you can't vaccinate against it.
-Consensus: noboday wants unneccessary injections.
-Status: some modification has occured: DC-9 guys don't have to get YF shots.[Beyond that, I don't know. Don't know what guys want from here. Ask for waivers if they accept responsibility in case of sickness].
One editorial comment: not getting the shot AND expecting not to fly certain trips is a non-starter. Not for the company per se, but for the other pilots in category. If someone can't handle all the trips, they shouldn't bid.

b) The Delta JS policy is evidently not as good as the NW JS policy.
-Main arguments: North guys are more likely to commute, and this is an important negative change for them. South guys never had the NW JS polciy, and are somewhat less likely to jumpseat.
-Consensus: better JS policies are good. I'm not sure there is a consenus of what "better" means.
-Status: Flight Ops took a shot at better (with unionion input I'm sure), increased the windows, and is promising online booking soon.

c) [What else?]

3) Delta Corporate Practices:

a) The paycheck distribution is not evenly split.
-Main arguments: [be my guest]
-Consensus: They're definitely different. Some South guys are excited too.
-Status: [?]

b) Medical Benefits are not very good.
-Main arguments: I don't think there's much of a dispute here.
-Consensus: see above.
-Status: I ahven't seen anything to suggest any changes.

c) The Delta IT system is said to be retarded.
-Main arguments: North pilots hate it. South pilots don't think it's great, but this is the part where we got a little lost in the discussion, and words like "whining" got thrown about.
-Consensus: computers suck. We don't want to become experts. We want to sign in, print, and fly. We don't want to push F3, and OK three times to log landing currency.
-Status: I think some improvements have been promised.

...

These are the issues of which I'm aware. Feel free to add to the list.

N guys are having real heartburn with the Manual system. The whole "one place, right place" concept should be ammended to add "where the H*ll is that place." There has got to be a better method than what I've experienced so far. While there were certainly flaws in the NW manual system, they were at a minimum more orderly and simpler to use.

Get rid of the memory items (anachronistic) and bring back the Red Bordered Checklist.(truely "one place, right place")

I am all for the 30th check being for 35 hours and the 15th check being 35 hours plus all the other stuff. Work good, last long time.

And why not? We didn't design such practices, and we're not married to them. I don't want to change for the sake of changing, but only to make things better. What's not to like about getting paid for your month's work at the end of the work, and in getting your pay in two (almost) equal portions?

I was going to say: "we have the technology" in jest, but I wonder if it's true, now?

You, sir, have a PM. :)