Speedbird172

Nice to see some correspondence from the union about the furloughs 5 days after I get the call....

"We are continuing to try to convince management that they can take steps to minimize furloughs, and we will cooperate with them to do just that – without destroying our Working Agreement"

andy171773

HUZZAH..the union has acknowledged our existence.

Here's how i see it..

I'm always on ALPAs side, and i really think that they're right about management being full of it. Here's why.

"Management does not want to discuss voluntaries"

You can compare this to FAs all you want, but the bottom line is, the FAs don't require sims/downgrades/seat displacements.

A voluntary furlough, if you look at what our contract says can be bypassed INDEFINITELY. Leaving the company in the precarious position of not knowing how many people are going to come back and when (as the one bypass for the invol. at least gives them the ability to say for sure 50/50 he'll either be on the list or off).

I think management, while stupid, knows that they need the staffing on hand to pick up some flying at a moments notice. Having guys on voluntary (obv DONT want to be there), would make it far more difficult to recall and restaff quickly when Delta changes something. The same thing goes for part time work, they may need guys to instantly step up and go. If a guy that wants part time GETS it, why would he say "ok i'll go back to 90 credit hours so i never get to see my bed again."

Secondly, training costs.

Now i know the precedence is definitely against us on this one. But the costs associated with taking a captain, downgrading him..bringing him to the sims for training..doing OE and a line check..having him sit right seat..(granted at lesser pay),,but then RE upgrading him..another OE and another line check.

The sims aren't cheap, and to do this to 100 guys would cost comair a FORTUNE. NOT to mention the FO associated sim costs for currency if they lapse on 3 months. Why not have the staffing on hand so that the airline can actually have consistent 100% completion days (weather permitting), and not junior man anyone? Seems more cost effective to me..but i'm just a schmoe.

NO one would break guarantee, staffing wouldn't be an issue, Selvaggio can sleep soundly in his power ranger pajamas at night.

Thirdly..the new hires

Why bring them through IOE? Let's say these guys finish IOE with 40-50 hours (if that). They get furloughed october 5th. The majority of us get furloughed november 5th. Recalls start in mid december. These new guys are going to be very close, if not WELL outside their "100 hours in 120 days". Which means back to the sims, and more cash money. Comair finishing these guys is a flagrant waste of money and time if they expect furloughs to be prolonged. (Yes, even though they bought all the sim time anyways.)..It just really doesn't make sense...I think it's even outside of mgmts usual idiocy.

I'm not saying all the furloughs are a joke, it wouldn't surprise me to see 50 downgrades and 100 furloughs (newbies sorry).

But I'm sorry, the information isn't exactly crystal coming from the company either. It seems to me that they're purposely hazing their side up and then throwing ALPA in the dirt to get us ****ed off, ALPA just wasn't communicating as well as they should have been.

The block hour reductions and the companys CURRENT level of JM's Displacements (i know i know, IOEs..still) don't jive with this in my opinion.

theaviator

Ha! Who won that game anyway?

Diver Driver

Looks like the sims are still down... as with pretty much the rest of the city of Cincinnati.... no power and I am free from my MV today..

Speedbird172

Hah lucky, unfortunately I don't think the screens are down for the boring recurrent ground presentations....and this is after getting woken up at 2 this morning because apparently someone left a burner on in the kitchen at the Riverfront which required an evacuation for the better part of an hour, and the presence of Covington's finest to put out the fire...

Diver Driver

That was the last furlough notice... the one where mgt was bluffing. Recalls will not start in December. Talking to the union, they said if we do not get any additional flying, recalls will begin somewhere in the second quarter of 2009 to replace general attrition with about a total of 50 recalls for the year.... not looking so good for us... hope we get some more flying.

Diver Driver

Nice... at least it didnt catch the river on fire... I'd hate the see a repeat of Cleveland.... Cincinnati: The mistake on the river.

BlueMoon

41-37 Philly does what they do best....lose.

lancermf

Cincinnasty will always be the mistake on the river.

Boomer

The Vage finally gets Maestro fired up, glitches and all, because "it's so nifty we won't need as many schedulers".

Guess what. It's so not nifty we'd probably need double the reserves to cover its shortcomings.

Comair only has one management trick in its toolbox, and it's the old "spend a buck to save a dime"