Naturally I’m fairly bullish, which I think most pilots have that type of attitude, it’s in our DNA. You have one life, we should at least attempt to make the best of it, hence why we all shied away from the desk jobs.

That being said, I’m not feeling great about this quick recovery into the summer with the vaccine rollout anymore. It seems like everyone outside of aviation has adjusted, and as a country we’re just taking our sweet time on cruise control, well the airlines don’t have time.

I think we’re going to see bankruptcy’s and shakeups. It is what it is.

https://www.bostonherald.com/2021/02/13/cohan-massachusetts-coronavirus-vaccination-rollout-is-slow-and-confusing-and-we-deserve-better/

☝️ This type of BS is being washed out by the mainstream media, complaints are going “unnoticed”, which is just classic. With Trump, love or hate him, he was ALWAYS being called out for lack of progress if it existed. Right now under Biden, his failure to get this rollout moving faster is not being published by the media as aggressively, and that’s a sin because every single day matters, literally.

Yea, I don't know how its going to shake out over the next 6 months. I'm hoping it returns to something resembling 2019 summer. But I'm planning for the worst, hoping for the best. Amazing how many people are still afraid to leave their home over this thing.

The vaccine rollout started slow but it’s accelerating and on track to make a substantial difference within a few months at most.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/d...A&region=World

the subset of the population that commonly dies from covid is pretty small, maybe 50 million people in the US. Get them vaccinated and hospitals and funeral homes will quit being overrun.

The lag from people stop dying to people start flying? IDK. But the dying will largely be done soon

Someone dropped a 9.5 hour 4 day into open time during SAP this month, and yet the company keeps insisting that SAP is the problem and a depressing amount of pilots agree with them.

When surveyed the vast majority of the pilot group said they use SAP to drop low credit for high credit. So more efficient higher credit trips would lead to less need for SAP.

As for Covid the key is the vaccines are here and actually being distributed, and infections are down across the board. On top of that the low cost carriers are taking aircraft orders and hiring for growth. If the legacies are unable to adapt to the new environment of reduced business travel then it looks like the LCC's are ready to fill the void.

PSA will not see efficient pairings until they better pairings from the mothership and/or have an incentive to build more efficient pairings (trip and duty rigs)......

9.5hour 4 day?!?!?

Gotta love that min day language in the contract that let's it not apply on the first and last day.

If we want efficient trips we need trip and duty rigs. If we can make 4 days credit a minimum of 20 hours, then suddenly that 9.5 hour 4 day means that the company would be paying a pilot 10.5 hours to chill in the hotel. I'd bet you anything that that'd last for about a month before the company suddenly realizes efficient trips sound like a great idea.

Your statement is incorrect.

Here's the ACTUAL forecast, quoted from their own website today, February 16th:

• IATA’s baseline forecast for 2021 is for a 50.4% improvement on 2020 demand that would bring the industry to 50.6% of 2019 levels. While this view remains unchanged, there is a severe downside risk if more severe travel restrictions in response to new variants persist. Should such a scenario materialize, demand improvement could be limited to just 13% over 2020 levels, leaving the industry at 38% of 2019 levels.

Hold up, are you challenging Chris Ree Drules?

GTFO here with your facts. My cuzzin's sister's brother in law's grandmother's second child's nephew heard from a ramper's wife's stepsister's cousin that's an FA at Delta that SAP is undoubtedly 100% all of PSA's problems

Its like arguing which patient in the ICU is in better health. Either way you cut it, it’s really bad :rolleyes:

Are those ICU beds occupied by covid patients? In that case we should be extra cautious, can't afford to lose 1 more life!

The main issue with PSA is a simple one and easy to fix. It’s not the pairings they build or the mothership. It’s the pairings they destroy with vacation and training conflicts. They create their own problem that could be easily solved with a union agreement. Drop the entire pairing without pay protection instead of destroying it which you will drop anyways in SAP. Either leave you without the pairing and give you the days off or add a pairing that fits within the window of the original pairing from a pairing that dropped off someone else’s schedule. It’s not rocket science and would create more efficiency for the company and better pay/QOL for the pilot group.

No it’s not rocket science but the company wants all the efficiency gains and so does the union. So the status quo prevails

The 12 hour 4 day trip I have on my original round one line for April begs to differ. Vacations and training conflicts definitely cause issues, but they're not the whole problem.

Mark my words if we pass PBS without rock solid min day rules, and rigs then we'll have given up the best quality of life item in the regional industry for the same old scheduling bs.

Literally the only thing that will ever make PSA build efficient trips is if it costs them soft pay not to.

This.

(filler)

This is the only way the Union should even bother to bring it to the pilots. If we have strong min-day and rigs then I wouldn’t even care what kind of BS trips they build because they would pay a decent amount. The 12 hour 4-days that have been common from even before COVID were what would get dropped into open time. Combine that with the hacked-up trips from conflicts and you’ve got an open-time pot with nothing but crap. We have to carry so many reserves because of the crap that nobody wants needs to be covered.

Rigs are essentially useless for the type of flying we do, the min day would come into play 99% of the time before a trip/duty rig. Min day no carve outs, and don’t waste negotiation power on rigs.

what?

Standard 2:1 duty rig would pay 6 hrs (rare) for a 12 hr day (common). It would pay for maintenance and wx delays

4:1 trip rig would pay 18 hrs for 72 tafb

PSA management doesn’t control the flying it gets to do… Therefore trip and duty rigs and a good min day are viewed by management as potential “punishment” for things they have no real control over.

That being said I personally think a 4.25 min day with no carve outs would solve a lot of problems.

Yup exactly. Even a 4 hour min day would only be a 16 hour 4 day, which is still crap.

But with duty rigs, those long 12 hour duty days where you only operate 2 flights with 4 hours sitting at airports would pay 6 hours instead of the current 3.5. At least you’d be paid to sit around on fake hot reserve.

yes that is exactly the point. They have more control than the pilots

More control?

Psa is assigned flights. They build the pairings, they build the lines, they manage delays. Management has real ability to impact all of those things, pilots have essentially zero. So yeah when a pairing has a 3 hr sit in CLT that extends to 5 with maintenance... the pilots should get 2.5 hrs for that.

And they also really want SAP gone. I'm A OK with keeping SAP, and letting PBS die on the vine. If they want to trash SAP then they best be prepared to pay for it.

Before some ALPA kool-aid drinker jumps on me yes I'm sure we'll keep something called "SAP" after agreeing to PBS, but it'll be a hollow reminder of the qol we once had and nothing more.

We either get a major min day and rig win with the PBS vote, or PSA will be known as the pilot group who traded the best quality of life item in the regionals (arguably the industry as a whole) for nothing but hopeful words from the union, and bs from the company.

Right... I wonder if our negotiating committee and MEC have thought of that? Better send them an email...

oh hush. You said rigs weren’t fair to mgmt and I called BS. There’s lots of ways to skin this cat but the company doesn’t get to keep all
the bennies from PBS

Did you listen to the all call? Lots of good information in there, I’d suggest giving it a listen.

I was on the call and I’d agree that some very good info came out. Like the fact that industry standard is for the pilot group to get a percentage of the savings from the switch.

However, one thing did stick out to me that bothered me and I know it bothers me because I have absolutely no trust in management to “do the right thing”. The timeline we were given said that we would do shadow bidding for a few months. Then we’d go full on to PBS for a few months. THEN we would have the pilot vote. My concern is that at that point even if we vote NO that at that point management will say that the line bidding isn’t available anymore and the crap sandwich we were handed is here to stay.

That was addressed too. PBS would touch so many parts of the contract that it would be nearly impossible for it to just be given to us. With Rd1, sap, Rd 2, seniority based, fcfs, percentage of required opentime needed to be available. The ALPA lawyer on the call even said PBS isn’t a “similar” bidding software thats outlined in the contract.

edit: I get where you’re coming from and I agree. Trust has been broken, and they shouldn’t be trusted.

fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... well you ain’t go’n fool me again...

https://i.imgur.com/nB9wVsh.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/94NshZC.jpg

****ed off email to the MEC has been sent.

you didn't know about this?

I knew that he was being allowed to continue in the role, but I wasn’t aware that it was a decision made by the MEC. I assumed it was some BS nuance in ALPA bylaws that allowed him to remain in the role for the remainder of his time.

The part that I am ****ed of about the most is the sentence that says he spends the equivalent of his flight time duties performing as the MEC chair. He hasn’t had a medical in over a year, he is literally being paid by the pilot group, and yet we have had only one all pilot call in that time, and I can count on both hands the number of emails he has sent to the pilots in the past year (with 3 of those coming in one day to ***** about voluntary furloughs).

I don't think ALPA is paying him. I think PSA is paying him. I'm sure someone else can verify all of this.

Im not PSA but I know how ALPA works.

Officers are on a full time union leave from the company. ALPA (well, your MEC) pays PSA his flight pay loss. It usually includes a premium too for benefits, 20% or so. So yes, ALPA is paying him although indirectly.

His paycheck comes from PSA, but ALPA pays PSA back.

You're absolutely right that is how it is SUPPOSED to work. ALPA has a strong set of policies in place to handle this type of thing. However sadly in this case being mentioned that is NOT what is happening and is NOT being followed. All the reps are now aware and I personally am watching to see if they can finally be honest about this to us all and support the pilots OR their own personal elected positions.

No comment on that.
At my shop, we just increased the required flyback for officers to minimize the officers cost to our pilots.