Unofficial word is another 100. Which, of course, means more schedule cuts through next year until they plug the hole....

And that is precisely what makes it so damned frustrating for us furloughed guys. "Too many retirements...Gotta shut down the training pipeline and park a dozen aircraft."

Well, I've found that an overwhelming majority of newhires at non-regionals are coming from the regionals themselves, not from the furloughed. My unofficial research. It appears that if you were furloughed, you'd have to start over at the regionals.

One of my AA buds (1984 hire) tells me the Company wants you guys to go with a PBS (preferential bidding system) like we have at Delta, and he's very much against that, even though he is a very senior (sn about 380?) 767er Capt. and he actually would benefit, not be pushed backwards by the surplus manning it will create at the bottom.

Perhaps that's why the company is NOT recalling and training as fast as they could, to replace these retirements? Maybe they have done the math and realize if they get the PBS, it will save them about 10% manning, so no need to recall, train and replace these early outs?

Please please please, we need to stop thinking of PBS as a loss of jobs. If PBS is implemented, and there are no other work rule changes, the number of pilots remains the same! Let me repeat that - if there are no other work rule changes, then the number of pilots remain the same. Everyone is always confusing preferential bidding with changes to the bidding rules. Yes, if bid rules change, then fewer pilots will be required. But if the rules do not change, then it still takes as many pilots to fly the schedule as it ever did. Why is this such a difficult concept?

At any rate, the APA has already made it quite clear that the AA pilots will not accept PBS.

Sorry Carl... if AMR cannot be trusted with a normal trip trade system, can you imagine the disaster with PBS?

No Vote for PBS... Period. It would screw us beyond belief. Maybe other airline managements can be trusted with it... not AMR.

What do you guys do today, bid off a sheet of pre-built lines, then drop any trips that interfere with training and/or vacation?

That's what we did at DAL for the past...75(?) years, then in 2004, PBS was implemented as one of the all too many concessions, to -ward off- bankruptcy. (you see where that got us)

I was very much against it, as were many others, because we all knew it would cost jobs.

BUT...having said that, and having used PBS for the past 5 years, and finally being senior enough to get (most of) the trips I want, and (most of) the days off I want, I can say I wouldn't want to go back to bidding lines of time that...someone else...built for me, and then trying to clean up the mess, using swaps/drops/pick-ups.

Now, as Carl correctly points out, the jobs lost will be directly affected by any -other- changes to scheduling rules, such as increasing the caps, etc. Our system went from just about a 75hr. hard cap, up to....what ever you can pick up off the swap board, up to the FAR's, and some guys have been able to put together greater than 100hr. months, which costs jobs, no doubt.

The conservative number I heard (form our own DALPA Scheduling guys) was about 8-10%. So, for a pilot group that is over 12,000 (DAL) that is roughly 960-1,200 jobs lost...

The Devil is in the Scheduling Details, but the ONLY reason the Company would want to go through the Expense of implementing a PBS System (it does cost them money after all) is to save even more money, on reduced head count, obviously.

We went from about 75hr.line average, to over 82, that's 10% right there, and because we can now pick up quite a bit more than we ever could before, our reserves don't fly all that much, they have trouble picking up enough time to get over the min res. line value of 70 hours.

PBS does not cost any pilot jobs. The work rules associated with PBS or in many cases line of time bidding are what cost jobs. You can program PBS as a example to award a line without regard to conflicts or vacations and then drop conflicting trips exactly like line of time bidding. If you have touching trips for vacation in your contract then PBS has to honor that.
At Delta most of the jobs lost were to work rules outside of PBS. Most of the job loss at Delta can be chalked up to 3 things. Vacation changes, Loss of the cap and pay for flying over the cap or ALV. You could bring back all 3 and the company would have to hire a huge number of pilots even if we keep PBS.

I will say this again: PBS only works well if you have a good cooperation between the pilots and management, with the pilots/union running it (a la TWA.)

PBS in AMR's hands is akin to giving a gun to a criminal and giving him free reign. They would MASSACRE the pilot group with PBS. We can't even trip trade with open time efficiently! The company runs the "traffic lights" (red/green) which determines whether we get it traded or not. PBS would be an absolute disaster for us. They simply cannot be trusted, period.

To answer Timbo's question: yes, we have lines off the bidsheet and bid accordingly, with vacation/training drops. And we want to keep it that way.

On another note...

NOVEMBER 1 AA PILOT RETIREMENTS: Effective Tuesday, Nov. 1, a total of 68 active and inactive pilots will be retiring. Of the 47 active pilot retirements, 11 are age 60 or older and 36 are younger than age 60. Eight 777 Captains, 14 767 Captains, two 737 Captains and 13 S80 Captains are among the active pilots who are retiring.
Thats it for now. Thanks for checking this hotline.

Incorrect. The efficiency of PBS finding solutions and eliminating the trip dropping that goes on with month-month transitions, mil leave and vacations is worth about %15 staffing

The month to month transition alone is worth %7 in a 6000 pilot group.

If you look at strictly the block hours, you can get away with saying it doesn't affect staffing. But if you look at the mechanism of trips dropped, how they stack up, and the excess staffing required to cover that flying, it gets to be a big number quick.

Nu