DAL Contract
 

Some questions have come up regarding the DAL contract and maybe some of you guys can fill us in.

• Is the minimum day 5:00 or 5:15?
• Is it an average day per trip or an actual minimum day?
• Would you say there is adequate open time available for a pilot to add 10+ hours to his/her schedule monthly?
• How often does DAL normally have an AE?

I end up at Ice Station MSP training camp for half of Oct and all Nov so I should have some good quality rumors to pass along.......:eek:

Thanks

We have what is called a "Duty Period Average" or DPA and it is 5:15 per duty period when you are an "in the seat" crew member. It is per trip. If you have a four day trip with only 3 duty periods of active crewmember flying (Deadhead doesn't count), your DPA is 15:45.

As for adequate open time, I'd say for the most part yes, but, depending on your category, there will be periodic times when you might not be able to do it.

We used to have AE's about every 3 months but with things the way they are, who knows how often they will be? Latest word from our VP of Flight Ops is there will be a fairly large bid out sometime in the first couple of weeks in October. (Per his code a phone)

Always nice to hear good rumors!!!! Some thing else that'll spin me up!! :)

You can always find open time to pickup. The question is can you pick it up in advance or are you willing to pick it up the day prior or day off. When a category runs short of open time then you will have to put a blank pickup request in. There are parameters you can program into the request to insure you get the type trip you want. There are always people calling in sick so you you can normally get a trip that way if there is no open time. Another thing to keep in mind is that there are no time limits on swaps. You can be at 84 hours and swap a 1 day trip for a 4 day trip. and have 100 hours. I know many NWA pilots are concerned about not being able to fly as much at Delta however on average a Delta pilot gets more credit hours per month then a NWA pilot so you should see a additional increase in pay. In many categories especially in the summer you can pick up greenslip flying at will which will pay double pay after 1 Jan. I don't work a lot of over time and I normally see 180-190k yearly in a category where the hourly rate was 160k. I know copilots who make the same getting 115 an hour however they are very senior and use rolling thunder and other options to boost their pay.

Just to add on, a four day trip with only three duty periods would pay more than 15:45. The trip rig would kick in and protect you. I just flew a four day with only three duty periods and it paid over 21 hours.

Trip Rig
 

What is the trip rig at DAL? (The number/ratio, not the definition of a trip rig)

It's 1:3.5. One hour for every three and a half.

What are the current NW trip and duty rigs?

Questions about NWA hotels. A NWA friend told me that they are often placed in airport hotels on international layovers. I find it a bit hard to believe they would stick them at the airport on 24 hour plus layovers. Anyone have the correct info? I hope this does not give Delta ideas!!!!

Unless your friend is referring to Toronto or Montreal, I think your friend is wrong.

In fact, the hotels on international layovers are probably a bit too far from the airport. Some are over an hour away.

These would be hotels in Europe.

In Europe, I only know about AMS which is downtown.

In Asia, we are doing long/short layovers on the 757. Long are downtown, but yes short (under 16:15) are by the airport. Both (NGO & KIX) are very nice.

NWA is 1 to 3+45 (1:3.75). 1 hour for every 3 hours and 45 minutes

Thanks. Did you fly the F-4? Always wished I had gotten the chance.

International Layover Hotels
 

In general, airport hotels at NWA destinations cost MORE than a non-airport hotel plus transportation. At KIX (Osaka) we have a 55 minute bus ride to Kobe for the layover, However this may be construed as an airport hotel since its about a 10 minute ride from the Kobe Airport.

At NRT its a company "owned" hotel that is about a 25-30 minute bus ride, almost a sure bet that DL crews will move to the NWA layover hotel in NRT. Not sure if that will be an upgrade or not since its further from downtown. If you haven't seen the NW operation at NRT before you will be amazed. The only carrier at NRT with more "slots" than NWA is JAL...

HKG, MNL, SIN, BKK, PEK, NGO are all non-airport hotels and long layovers.

ICN is always a short layover so its at an airport hotel, but its a very nice Hyatt.

FRA, CDG, AMS, LHR, BOM are all non-airport hotels.

Your friend must be doing shorter layovers on the 757.

P.S. During times of political unrest/terrorism threats, NW will sometimes put as at "more secure" hotel locations than the normal layover hotels.

How does the DAL international reserve work, especially what you guys know as "short call"?

24 hrs on short call.
No duty requirement for international so what they do is one day short call one day long call and so on.
First 12 hrs you can fly a domestic paring that is in the ER trip parings, after that it has to be an international parring due to rest requirements domestically.

Really kind of sucks.

wonder how they will work the -400 with no domestic flying on it's pairings.....

Not yet anyways..... just wait til the Delta scheduling folks get their hands in the mix.

Yep, you'll be flying the -400 from ATL to MCO. Plenty of short legs.

Not with Glen at the helm you won't. If the range of a -400 is 6500 miles than that's what you'll be flying. I think I've only flown a 767 to MCO about three times this year. The rest of it has been a 757.

Same way we work the -ER out of NYC now... we have ZERO domestic flying. What's your question? Not being snotty, I am just wondering what it is you are wondering about.

I was referring to the long call vs. short call for reserves with all int'l flying..... The question was regarding acl65pilot's post:

That's because I've been flying all the other 767 legs to/from MCO.

I don't really understand what you are saying either. The part about domestic he posted refers to the Whitlow ruling with the FAA. If you are flying domestic you must always be able to look back in any 24 hour period and see 8 hours rest. Being on call on reserve is not rest. If the company places you on short call you must block in 16 hours later or you have committed a FAR infraction. No such rule applies to international. His point was if the company puts you on a 24 hours short call you are no longer legal for a domestic leg after 16 hours. The company cuts it off at 12 to avoid issues. Has nothing at all to do with international trip assignments. They can give you anything they want at any time during the 24 hours you are on call.

They can assign you long or short call at their leisure.
I have been given six periods this month where as some of by buddies have had none to two. There is no rhyme or reason to who they assign it to.
Also please clarify what you are asking about with the short call rules.
Basically international stinks.

Well then you need to share the wealth brutha'. I think I forgot how to land a 76 its been so long.

Heck I have not landed anything in over a month.

Bid reserve, that's my strategery.;)

Mine too, and I am not flying that much.

Crap. We're all bidding reserve. Apparently that means the secret's out. I just need everyone senior to me to keep getting lines and not bid reserve. That makes my life complicated. My only concern is with the next AE. I am worried that the guys junior to us are going to bail to the ER and the guys senior to us are going to come back to domestic and push us to junior reserve. That's not a good prospect. I know I can hold a line in the ER its just hard to give up the domestic senior reserve lifestyle.

I know what you mean. Got my second choice again next month.

It really is not worth it to bid a line. With the ALV at 72.00 is just does not make any sense to me.
Now with the AE I will bid the 767 at the 77th percentile and then the ER. That way if an influx of people comes in senior to us or leaves junior to us I am protected.

Absolutely smart play.

How do you bid just reserve? Despite my preference for Saturdays off, I must have got unstacked into a line next month. Did not expect this "problem" so soon. Just a year on the property and holding a line on the 767 domestic. Also, how much time is a payback day worth? I was thinking of knocking out a 4 day ....

Provides a frame of reference to measure the differences by after the merger.

If you want Saturdays off or else try a reserve line that gives you that, enter Saturdays off as your preference in PBS followed by Else Reserve. That way if it can't give you all Saturdays off it will dump you to reserve.

Also you may have vacation, or training next month. It will fill you up that way as well. But yes in a non-holiday month it can unstack to the 60% (I think) I know it is to the 50% in a holiday month.

Stupid-question-guy here. How exactly does unstacking work? I've never been able to wrap my head around it. (Kindly omit snide remarks.)

Basically when the computer gets to the end of a run and there is a given day or set of days that has too many trips for the reserve pool to cover, the computer will go back and assign trips in inverse seniority order to us to get down to an acceptable amount of uncovered (open time) trips on a given day or set of days.
Really upsets the guys in the 50-60% range in December because they are always unstacked and never see it coming.
Basically unless you are above the 50% you can have your preferences overridden so that the company meets required manning levels.
It happened the first weekend of Aug too. (Last weekend before all of the kiddos went back to school) Lots of mid to junior line holders were unstacked.

Well buck. I just looked at the reasons report and you did not bid. That with vacation gave you two four days over the weekend. Not bad, pick up a trip and make it a good month. Too bad there are not a lot of trips later in the month.

thanks, acl...I appreciate it!