At ASA we were getting trades/swaps denied this week for "inadequate staffing." That's with the 80 furloughees on the schedule ON TOP of the normal staffing...

Hope y'all don't get hit with the F bomb but it sounds like a familiar tune... TOWOPs/COMAs, then early outs, then voluntary furloughs, then... well.

 

I understand why we're not properly staffed. I was just commenting on your earlier post, in which you seemed to be of the opinion that we were not overall overstaffed, just because they were flying the heck out of you on the 900.

 

Back to the original post, any mention how long this deal is available at XJ?

Comair just extended our 55/EarlyOut window for another two weeks.

 

March 9th 2009 is the deadline, and pilots have 15 days to revoke their participation after the day when they say yes.

 

Thanks, Comair is until Feb 16th and we have 0 days to rescind our participation.

 

I agree 100% and Avroman is spot on in this issue. It is very unfortunate the management did not have the business sense to see this through. All this extra training cost caused by releasing Saab CA seats could have been avoided if Mesaba upgraded like we did before without releasing Saab CA seats.

 

Avroman is correct. Just look at how many reserve lines are available at each base for CRJ900. Another person has seen this and agrees with Avroman, CRJ900 crews are definitely not overstaffed.

 

The problem is that there were fewer eligible pilots to upgrade from the FO ranks. Plus, I'm sure the company would rather upgrade experienced saab CAs to the 900 than to have a wet behind the ear 1500 hour guy in command of the 900. Not to mention... how do you think all the seat-locked veterans on the saab would view new hires going to 900 CA? It only made sense to release saab seat-locks. This time it seems, the company saw the benefit in extra costs.

 

They had already upgraded "wet behind the ear" CAs as you call it from the ranks of junior Saab FOs before they started to unlock the Saab CA seats. Before they started to unlock Saab CA seat locks, the most junior DTW CRJ900 CA was a May 2007 newhire Saab FO.

There were plenty of guys below him including myself who came with prior experience with well over 3000 hours and this is with the ATP rating in hand. Plenty of Saab CAs at that time did not want to transition into CRJ900s for scheduling and QOL reasons. Besides in addition to extra training cost incurred, the company created this Saab CA overstaff situation along with it.

 

You're right... they did upgrade a few lucky junior folks before releasing the seatlocks. They probably saw a repeat of the avro scenario that transpired years ago with it going incredibly junior. Releasing seatlocks was the way to prevent a huge portion of the 900 fleet being captained by new hires. And that was happening by default, because of seatlocks imposed. Had there been no seatlocks, the 900 would have naturally gone senior.

Yes, many came to this company with prior airline experience, but the vast majority of new hires did not. And it was only until the second wave of hiring did our newhire spots get filled with furloughed folks from other airlines. Further, don't you think seniority matters? Does it make any kind of logical sense to have the highest paying fleet captained by many of the junior pilots, while experienced senior folks are trapped in a seatlock on the saab, some artificially? I know the junior folks were salivating at not having to do their time on the saab and some lucky ones got their wish. The rest however are now ticked off because seniority prevailed and the seatlocks were released.

I'm not arguing with you, I'm just approaching the situation from a different perspective. Once again... the company actually saw a benefit it spending more money and they did so. Unfortunately, they're in a pickle that they didn't predict.