Gustafson

Meals Up and Wheels Down?!? Anyone else seeing this?

Allegheny

Dear Wheels up Team,

I am a former GAMA / Wheels Up pilot and got a better offer so I left. (P.S., I paid the balance of my prorated contract off.) My question to those who are currently employed there is how is the company cash and debt level holding? When I left this last summer, there was a great deal of talk about a cash infusion from going public. Almost immediately after I left there was the TMC merger. Then there was the DPJ alingment or codeshare, and the GAMA merger / purchase. I use the words codeshare merger buy-out to describe the consolidation. As Wheels Up is a private company, the normal required public reports are not available. There has to be some debt somewhere in all those activities? Any idea what shape the company is in on a cash burn and debt basis?

Das Auto

Its actually a smart move if you look at it from a strategic marketing standpoint. $1 million isn't a huge amount for a company of this size and likely wouldn't buy anywhere near the same kind of publicity and airtime that this will generate.

Das Auto

I'm guessing that there are only a handful of insiders who really know, but if you look at the big players invested in this operation there are certainly some deep pockets included in the mix. Delta airlines, Franklin Templeton, T. Rowe Price and Fidelity to name a few. Although demand has slowed dramatically there is still a revenue stream from the flights we are operating right now. Those flights along with the cost cutting / schedule reductions etc. should allow the company to tread water until things begin to normalize.
Add the safety net from the CARES act and it looks like the company is in a good position to weather the storm.

MikeBates

that seems pretty straightforward. So why all the confusion from the pilot group about salary? Am I missing something? Seems pretty simple to me.

hdgbug

I'm clearly in the minority on here, so I'll leave my thoughts the topic at this.

I, personally, have no confusion that they have indicated (vaguely in writing and verbally) that they intend to reduce our salary rate by 33% or 50% respective of which reduced schedule we are placed on. While the numbers work out for their intended plan if you divide it by some hourly amount, we are simply not paid on an hourly basis. We are paid a salary, and this is an important distinction. You can confirm this in your ADP account profile where it lists your regular pay rate, a bi-weekly salary. Again, I understand the concept of reducing the salary in return for doing less work, and I understand why the current economics require it.

My confusion is why they are not publishing this in writing so the pilot group has something definite to reference and to hold the company to. Unless they have intentions to attempt to use this loophole they have created for something that would hurt the pilot group, they have no reason not to publish the new rates. I sincerely hope (and honestly do think) they will honor their word and only reduce salaries in the way they have indicated. However, even though having it in writing isn't binding, it only solidifies the protections for the pilot group.

My final thought on the topic is how this reduction relates to the CARES act payroll assistance funds which they are seeking. I'll preface this with I am definitely not a lawyer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. According to WUPs own handout, the payroll protection portion of the CARES act requires that the company abstain from involuntary furloughs and base pay rate reductions through Sep 30, 2020. As I mentioned above, we are paid on a Salary Basis, which is defined in the labor portion of the CFRs. As I read it, according to those regulations, a key part of being on a salary basis is that the predetermined salary is not adjusted based on the quantity of work performed. According to Department of Labor fact sheets, there are times where a salary can be reduced, and prospectively reducing salary in response to an economic slowdown is permitted. Even still this reduced salary is not dependent on the quantity of work being performed (this is happening to many of my friends in the tech world, same work for less pay).

I do not contend that the company is prohibited from reducing our salaries in general (outside of the CARES act). In fact, at least they are reducing our work AND our salary rather than requiring the same work for less money. What I cannot reconcile is them reducing our pay rate (our salary rate, as confirmed by ADP and CFRs), and taking the CARES act money that prohibits reducing pay rates. This question was brought up by GF in the call yesterday, and he quickly pivoted to something unrelated without providing any details. If they are going to be taking bailout funds that are exclusively for the use of paying salaries (without involuntary furloughs/reductions), it would be wrong for that money not to be used to pay our full salary. Like I said, I'm definitely not an expert on the topic, but it doesn't seem to line up to me. I really hope they will actually address the details on how this works, because right now the optics of taking the money and reducing pay is less than stellar. I know I am not the only one that seeks to understand this apparent discrepancy.

Again for the record, I am thankful for continued employment at whatever rate it ends up being. I certainly have a lot less to complain about than many out there. However, this situation should not let the company off the hook from doing the right thing. Even though I strongly believe the company needs to address some of these concerns, I remind myself to be grateful every day.

jbeauv

Keep in mind that I am in no position to affect change at this company. The numbers are just my interpretation with information I have been provided. everyone else’s will very according to your salaries. Regardless of what shows up on your check you will work more hours than what you are paid for. A 12 hour duty day is pretty much standard operating procedure, so on a 8 day tour you work more like 96 hours not the 80 you are paid for. If you want to put that further into perspective, a salaried year is normally based on a 40 work week that totals out to be 2080 hrs, for us before the cuts, the numbers look like this: 8 day tour @12 hrs a day (8*12=96) 26 pay periods (96*26= 2496) You can subtract 80 hrs for vacation to reduce it to 2416, so on average that is what you work to earn your current salary. They are going to reduce that by .33% To make it 8/13 or get paid for 1374 hrs but will be on duty 1592 hrs.

USMCFLYR

hdgbug-

Your pay system sounds exactly like my federal pay system.

i am also a salaried employee. That salary is based on a 40 hr work work week, 80 hr pay check twice a month which all works out to an HOURLY rate based on the 2080 paid hrs per year like another poster said. My overtime pay and training pay and night differential and all other special pay rates are based on a percentage of my hourly pay. You can look up GS pay scales and then listed as either yearly salary or hourly rate.

Just throwing all of this out there because in your post you said “ While the numbers work out for their intended plan if you divide it by some hourly amount, we are simply not paid on an hourly basis. We are paid a salary, and this is an important distinction. You can confirm this in your ADP account profile where it lists your regular pay rate, a bi-weekly salary” and it just seemed to me that you didn’t think a person could be salaried, yet have that salary based on an hourly rate.

As far as pay protection with the CARES Act goes, not sure about that.
i talked to one of my friends at a United last night and he is sitting at home for the next two months at 2/3rds pay and he believes United has either taken the funds or plans to take the funds so it doesn’t seem like they will be getting FULL PAY either during this time till Oct 1st. They (and you) aren’t furloughed, but pay reduced for less hours worked.

Good luck in the situation in any case. Hang tough.

jbeauv - Your point on a 12 hr work day is correct. In my case I have a 14 hr duty day possible per P135 refs but my pay duty day is 8.5 hrs. If I work past my pay duty day, I started collecting OT. On the other hand, if my plane breaks at lunch, well I’m still on duty for the rest of the day. How does that work for you? Are you released from duty in the middle of the day and maybe only worked 4 hrs that particular day?

jbeauv

It is rare that we are released, but it has happened on occasion. Example lets say I am sent to the hotel at 17L and we receive 0000z duty off, so we are still on duty until 20:00L, by company policy you can’t even have a beer with dinner unless you wait to eat until duty off time. There are good days here, the ones that don’t like it are usually gone by the first summer, it can be brutal in the summer the duty days can be more like 13.5/14 with min rest, do that for 8 straight days and it can be a butt kicker. We do not make overtime unless there is a call for volunteer overtime, it is paid at a daily rate sometimes as high as 1500.00 a day and they usually want at least 2 days from you. I through the hourly rate in there just others could compare what they make, say vs a regional Captain or FO. We have lost some good people here to NJ and FJ because of how the pay is spelled out at those companies. I would like to see improvements to the QOL here, especially since the pilots are the “wheels” in WUP but it seems we are the ones being asked to give the most.

aharrin1

this is all interesting conversation especially considering I’m at the TMC side of things. It would be a pretty cruddy move to send me out on the road 33% less and I get paid 33% less while GAMA guys are sitting at home getting paid the same. Maybe I should give up the jet and go fly the King Air ;-) in any case, in the conference call, the point that was made very clear was that this was an across the board joint sacrifice to protect people’s jobs from furlough. Hopefully in 120 days this will all be behind us.