Ever since I started, I’ve always been one to ignore a lot of the rumblings about Piedmont. I stay positive and that along with a lot of great coworkers is what makes this job great. With regard to the new reserve schedules though, enough is enough. I understand the desire to get as much as you can out of employees when they are getting paid 75 hours for reserve schedules, but to continue only giving 11 days off is a total D**k move. It costs the company nothing to give line holders or reserve line holders anywhere from 12-15 days off, but instead management chooses to stick it to their pilots yet again. Apparently they are either to stupid or too stubborn to see that it would help morale during these tough times and it would come at no extra cost. Hopefully everyone negotiating for us will remember this when they come asking for concessions down the road.

I never thought that I would be one on APC saying this, but if anybody eligible is considering Piedmont whenever hiring starts up again, DON’T DO IT!!!! Go somewhere else with the flow or without. Stay away from this place. The only thing it has going for it is the many people who are good and fun pilots and FA’s who happen to all make the same bad decision.

 

I talked to some piedmont ramp agents at DCA the other day. They're in the same boat. The bailout guarantees they get paid, so management is making everybody work their full schedule, despite only handling 0-2 flights per day with no flights in may/june since PSA parked their 200's.

They all just hang out in their break room at 35x. Handful of confirmed cases going around among them too.

Piedmont is making this as miserable as possible for all work groups, even though the gov. is footing our payroll.

 

Their archaic mentality must be “well we didn’t use you so you had the day off” and that’s how we are getting more than 11 days off. *face palm*

What is concerning to me is the fact that the union and NC are EXTREMELY quiet during these times. One email with the same information week after week, if that.

 

They have been releasing some people on the last day for a commute and occasionally some people are getting a standby day dropped. As for a whole month or a string of reserve days. Ha! You’re more likely to be put on reserve

 

Think about it from their perspective. Stick with building 11 day off lines and the pilot group will think it's business as usual, despite 90% of the flights canceled. Now consider what the pilot group's reaction would be if most of the reserve lines had 14-15 days off. Pilots would say, "wait, you could have been doing this all along?" That would give pilots leverage when this pandemic is over to get more days off each month.

This is just the way they think. They're not fooling anyone with those cute PR videos about how appreciative they are and how we're instrumental in keeping the airline up and running. We understand that airlines are in uncharted territory right now, but we'll keep doing our jobs as well as we always have. That said, commuting on reserve is pretty bad. Guys having to commute on what few flights are left and paying out of pocket for hotels during a pandemic is pretty rough.

 

11 day off RSV lines with no exceptions? That honestly is the company's way of sticking it to the pilot group for getting 75 hours of credit. Real great camaraderie and show of leadership from management right there. PDT always has had the worst RSV rules and treated their RSV pilots and FAs like trash. It looks like it is "business as usual" and that continues for the foreseeable future.

Crickets from the union as to why we could not get an LOA for long call RSV. Heaven forbid PDT management comes to their employees and shows that it cares about them and creates RSV lines with more than 11 days off.

They are really "caring for people on life's journey" here, aren't they?

 

this is just the start.

 

Stop excusing their behavior. You said it yourself: “this is uncharted territory”. We know this is not normal. They know it’s not normal. Less jets in the air means less people coming to work. More jets in the air means more people coming to work.

Piedmont pilots can walk and chew gum at the same time.

 

Not defending them at all. My post explained why they didn't want to offer any more days off than normal, despite the lack of flying. It's to show they do not care and do not want to lose leverage.

 

I believe they are so far removed from the mindset of working together and treating employees like humans that it didn’t even register as an option.

I get what you’re saying but the contract is the contract and they can enforce it. There’s no leverage in saying “we had more days off when we we’re operating 10% of our flights, now that we’re operating at 100% we need those same amount of days off”, that makes no sense. I guess that’s where I thought you were giving them a pass, because it just doesn’t jive. If anything, giving the employees the “gift” of treating them with humanity would give them brownie points and would benefit them in good faith negotiations.