anyone hear anything about comair/delta losing ASAP?

Crew room talk...

 

I heard about judges considering using ASAPs in court (KLEX litigation), and what a damper that would be for pilots. Dunno how the story ends. There's more?

 

I keep seeing memos in my email about the upcoming displacement bid... is the company and/or the union doing anything to mitigate the amount of involuntary furloughs that will take place? I have heard almost nothing as of yet pertaining to potential options, whether it be senior buy-outs, voluntary furloughs, reduced line values, short and long term COLA's, etc.

Does anybody know what they are planning??!!???!?!

 

Yes. That is all still being negotiated. It is coming, just try to be as patient as you can be in this trying time. Once everything is squared away with the union and the company, there will be plenty of communication from both sides.

Some things you can expect (I'm not privy to details, just basic ideas):
--Some sort of buyout for senior folks
--Reduce min line values
--COLAs
--Voluntary furlough packages
--Involuntary furloughs, displacements and downgrades will take place after all the above options have been fulfilled to the maximum extent possible.

For example, the company has used the number 300, which seems high to me, but let's use it anyway.
Let's say 15 senior guys take the buyout, and they get min line values down to a figure that would save 50 pilot jobs. They offer COLAs in monthly or 2 to 3 month blocks and another 50 pilots take those. For voluntary furloughs, let's say anoter 20 pilots take those. That's 135 positions they managed to mitigate. So, they would have to involuntarily furlough 165 pilots.

Again, that is nothing official! I was simply using arbitrary figures to show how it will basically work.

 

Seven-Day Notice of Displacement Bid

Check EPIC to see the memo from Scott Miller, director of Crewmember Services, regarding a seven-day notice of a displacement bid. The displacement bid will include specific information on the number of displaced pilots as well as an updated seniority list. Crew Forecasting and Planning will release the displacement bid no sooner than seven days from today. The bid will remain open for at least 10 days. Results will be released within 48 hours of the bid close.

Crewmembers are encouraged to review their standing bid and make sure all categories are listed in descending preference order.

 

Thanks for some insight.

What you describe sounds like it can take some time. After this displacement bid is published, is that when the senior buyouts, COLAs and voluntary stuff start to happen?

They say reductions will happen Sept 1st, seems like all that stuff can take longer than a month or so. I'm just trying to get a better idea if/when I will actually get the boot. The only thing I do know is that it will be 14 days after they tell me...

 

What I believe will happen is:
--They publish the displacement bid
--They simultaneously publish the bid for buyout packages, COLAs and Voluntary furloughs.
--They take all this into account when running the displacement bid. For example, if 15 senior pilots take the buyout, 15 more captains take voluntary furlough, then that is 30 less downgrades and 30 less furloughs. Those 30 captains/senior pilots just saved 30 jobs, 30 captain slots, and an untold number of training events.

The possibilites are endless on how this could turn out. One extreme is that they get zero buyouts, zero COLAs and zero voluntary furloughs, which would mean 300 involuntary furloughs. The other extreme is they get 300 buyouts, COLAs and voluntary furloughs and there are zero involuntary furloughs. What acually happens will be somewhere in between and it is impossible to know how it will turn out until the displacement bid award is published.

 

This is going to happen fairly quickly. September is not too far away. As far as the senior buyouts go, yeah... umm...I have a feeling the senior guys will be laughing at Comair once they make an offer like it happened at CAL (They offered like $50k). I just wouldn't count on too many senior buyouts.

 

EVERYONE MAKE 100% SURE YOUR STANDING BID IS UPDATED THE WAY YOU WANT IT!

There will be downgrades, bumping people from lineholders on the 70 to reserve on the 50, or lineholders on the 50 in CVG to reserve in JFK.

It could play out thousands of different ways, and the best way to protect yourself and what you want is by having an updated, accurate standing bid. There is going to be someone out there somewhere in the system with no updated standing bid that is going to end up somewhere they don't want to be when they could have held something else they otherwise wanted.

 

"We will work with you to make this transition as painless as possible."

Thanks Crewmember Services!!
Nice to see you are here to help!