So those that want to get furloughed to free them from paying back their signing bonus. This is what I don’t understand. What is keeping you from having to pay it back? You trust the verbiage of that contract but none of the others? Once you get recalled from furlough if you refuse do you have to pay it back? That’s what confuses me about that argument. Can someone clarify or send a link to the signing bonus contract and payback stipulations?

 

Uncle Sam IS paying for salary right now that’s public information. They are not flying the lineholders over minimum because it makes no sense when Uncle Sam is essentially paying to keep everyone on the book so the easiest way to keep everyone at 76 hours of pay is to give all lineholders 15ish days off and 50-60 hours of flying and pay for a bunch of reserves to sit around at 76 hours on the government dime. Once Uncle Sam stops giving free money it will make more sense for the company to condense the flying so everyone works 18 days and 85 hours.

Let’s just say there are 1000 pilots right now with Uncle Sam paying the bill and you must keep all 1000 pilots. The airline is given 15000 hours of flying or 30000 man hours. That’s 30 hours split evenly, but let cut out 30% for reserves so we have 700 pilots to cover 30000 man hours or 42.9 hours per line holder. The company has no issues right now paying each pilot to only fly 43 hours because Uncle Sam is really paying for it.

next month they won’t have the luxury of Uncle Sam so they are going to cut as much as they can. They can effectively cut down to 500 pilots the 350 line holders at 86 hours each with some reserves left at 76 hours to fill in the gaps.

right now at 1000 pilots @76 hours its 76000 hours of pay for 30000 hours of labor.

if they furlough half it will be 350 line holders at 86 which is 30100 hour of pay plus 150 reserves at 76 hours or another 11400 hour
So with furloughs the total hours paid will be close to 41500 hours

this is why it benefit the company to make the flying as efficient as possible and work the remaining Pilots as much as possible, expect full duty days, min days off and as much credit as they can physically cram into lineholder as possible

 

The company will not go after you, it’s a losing argument. The company says if you have 12 months left on contract and they furlough you for 6 months, then bring you back you’ll owe 6 months left. I would like to see them try to win that in court. That’s their interpretation of the contract. The contract says if furlough, null in void.

 

What we still don't know is part 2 of the orginal cares act.

If accepting cares act money you can't furlough.
1st part until after sept 30th. (Everyone knows this)
2nd part until all grant money is used up. (This one is the one most don't know in which mesa may not have done.

They may not even be able to furlough.

No In Unity

 

Dude you don’t understand how pairing construction works. I can’t help you but understand that the flying cannot be coerced in any way to be made more efficient. The company isn’t intentionally making the pairings inefficient.

 

I bet it can if we had min duty day in our contract

 

Looks like another solid question to ask the reps. These are much better questions asked than the dumb town hall questions.

 

There are two conf calls scheduled. Someone ask. Both are during times I’m in the air.

 

Yes, that’s what I was getting at. I’ll try to get some submitted.

 

So they can’t do anything with those extra days they are not using? They can’t do anything with those extra hours they are not working? How is it that every other regional that is furloughing has the ability to cram more hours into the people left? Let me guess magic! Of course not, there is no doubt the flying is less efficient but they can still use people for 3-4 more days per month. That’s at least 12-15 hours, per person. They can extend the duty days from 8 hours to 13 hours and add one more turn or let you sit in base for 4 hours till the last flight to an outstation vs the noon one. There is a lot they can do, they are choosing not to because they have the personnel right to to keep the schedules bearable.