727C47

So far some tours making the extra, others broken airplanes get written up, and slow things down, Pilots get tired and fatigue, in my experience the IBI has not changed one iota, guys fatiguing, and doing the right thing with write ups, overall it’s been a plus, and the guys I fly with have been nearly unanimously pleased with it,Cheers : )

GeeWizDriver

By some accounts, fatigues are down 50-70%. Yea, sure, nobody has changed their behavior to chase the money....

Meanwhile, I had to say something about their retarded day 6 plan or my duty numbers for the last tour would have been WORSE. I’m TRYING to give them the benefit of the doubt since last tour included President’s Day weekend.

Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter what we think of the new contract amendments. It’s what we’ve got and it ain’t gonna change.

727C47

I’m just reporting my own experience, YMMV of course, but in the humble XL fleet, it seems as of now , and by my own ( singular ) observations that both fatigues, and write ups are being handled both correctly, and professionally, with zero pushback from higher authority. Cheers.

Flyfalcons

Nothing is going to change the sucky parts of the job. Dropping off a plane at maintenance or giving it to another crew resulting in a mid-tour airline (saw two of those in one tour recently), an airplane breaking and you're the best option to recover, the company needing you to be available early because there is a potential trip brewing, the company deciding to give us 1.5 hour shows in the winter, etc. This all goes with the type of operation we have. The good news is, we're getting paid extra when some of these sucky things are happening to us. And we're also getting paid extra when we're out busting hump flying trips while other crews are hanging at the hotel. As someone who has always been on a busy fleet at the company, I'm ready for that change. I go to work to make money, not because I'm one of our geriatric retired airline types hoping for a cush week away from the wife. Extra pay for doing work and dealing with sucky things, pay parity on the FO side, HBA access for all current crewmembers, more money into my retirement? Yeah I'm strangely okay with that.

Blueridger

FlyFalcons is dead on with his comments. Even a guy like me who flies short tours and minimum workdays per month is averaging an extra $800+ per tour so far. Yeah, things are busy. But I’m noticing more efficient scheduling and still getting minimum 12+ hr overnights for the most part. As far as behavior modification goes, I’m sure there are a few that are pushing harder then before, but money *****s are in abundance in aviation. It hasn’t changed my use of the fatigue policy or aircraft write ups, and in the end, it only takes one pilot to shut it down.

One other thing is certain too. The work culture at this company has changed for the better. Everybody seems to be pulling on the same side of the rope finally. Crew support is doing a phenomenal job making my life easier on the road and accommodating some personal requests. I’m almost to the point that I enjoy this job again!

AirBear

I believe the 2500 hour requirement is written into the owner contracts so they won't even look at you until you have it. The requirement is one of the reasons NetJets can get away with charging so much more than our competitors.

GeeWizDriver

As has been said, YMMV.

I have seen more scheduling idiocy in the last three tours than in the preceding 3 months.

The extra few scheckels have been nice but this was sold as a QOL improvement package. Still waiting to see that.

LloydBraun

Wow, 82 hours. How many days? Been out of the fractionals for a couple years but that’s one of the biggest changes I saw when going to 121. Fractionals get you accustomed to being run ragged. Just finished 2 3 day trips back to back because the second one paid 200%. 38 hours of duty in 6 days.

GeeWizDriver

7 day tour

13.1
13.1
10.0
12.1
16.0
8.3
10.0

82.6

Would have been worse if I had accepted the Day 6 plan. My partner wanted to do it because it would have been 4 more hours of FDPP (and another 5 of duty). I said NFW.

But nobody is changing their behavior to chase the money, right?

FNGFO

Life improves when you don’t have a gaggle of cubicle people dedicated to finding ways to use you from 0001 on day one to 2359 on day last while ignoring realistic timeframes for rest, travel and aircraft prep.