Southern Fried

Just to stir the pot a little:

XJT Pilot perspective of negotiations and management: Not taking anymore concessions. We like (most of) our current contract rules but expect more in our W2. The latest ASA contract was better for ASA pilots but is still concessionary compared to ours. Management is slowly(?) degrading our QOL and testing us with changes to policies to see if we fight. Communication from management seems okay but the fluffy feel good programs are a distraction and add costs that aren't necessary. We don't trust management.

XJT Pilot perspective of XJT MEC: Not sure if we can trust them yet after new officers installed. Won't know if they are listening until we see a TA/Road Show. Some/most committee members are truly doing a good job for us. Don't want our negotiators to agree to anything that is a concession from our current contract.

XJT Pilot perspective of ASA MEC: Management puppets with sweet pay deal. Not willing to upset the status quo. Thinks the XJT Pilots are unrealistic but they never worked under our contract. Believes or turns a blind eye to management propaganda.

XJT Pilot perspective of ASA Pilots: Good group of pilots who are enjoying the fruits of a better contract than the last one. Still don't know what is better about our contract that they should be fighting for and not against. Believes BH is a good guy and speaks the truth. Worried about asking for too much and becoming the next Comair. Not aware of or don't care about their MEC situation.

On a side note:
-Sked++ is okay, but needs to save our preferences.
-Crew Pay/Rainmaker is bad - requiring too much headwork from me (How much does the company owe me?).
-Company software/Website is too busy and hard to read.
-Line improvement window was a disaster - Sked++ hanging and needing to be refreshed multiple times. We don't need Septembers open time for the October ILIW (need ability to save/hold preferences). The servers obviously need to be upgraded to handle the load!

This is not just my perspective. I talk to all of the pilots I run into here and among the line dogs like me, it's unanimous so far. Granted, it's a small sampling...

FWIW...!

unit monster

random filler filler filler filler

TheBills

You dont know are current system, just like we dont know yours. So this thread will sound a lot like a ford vs. chevy thread. I am bottom 1/3 of the pack and got 19 days off with 79 hours, and that is a relief line. The thing i would like about PBS is less reserves, as we have a lot of people on reserve when compared to ASA. However our reserves are not as abused as yours. Airport standby is only 4 hours, and reserves are getting 12 days off half of the year (which is not enough).

newarkblows

The reason XJT people have such a bad taste in their mouths about PBS is that the entire system is based on negotiated parameters and contract language. The only problem with that is that our current contract which is 7+ yrs old is STILL being violated on a day to day basis by management. No one here at XJT is willing to believe anything management says anymore. Our insanely high line divisors, bare minimum days off for a majority of the lines, and insanely unproductive trips are all part of the problem. PBS could be a great idea but we cant afford to give anymore inches because they have shown that they will take the whole yard.

Rainmaker might be great for you guys because it was built for your contract but now they are ramming a square peg (our contractual parameters) into a round hole (rainmaker pay system) and it is a nightmare. Our old system was different in that it gave you a real time $ value for the month and a $ break down of everything. Block times are great but Rainmaker is not showing a lot of things like 150% / 200% flying you picked up, 10 hrs of pay for not restoring a day, or training pay. It is also taking 4-5 hrs to update rainmaker from Sked+ which is a huge PIA.

With rainmaker being so far behind the payclaims have piled up and are just flat out not being responded to. Might be a good system but it was implemented way to fast with little planning.

TopNotch

As an ASA FO, I am most concerned about QOL:

1: Heath Care: the HSA is affordable when your young. When you have a family, it's absurdly expensive when something goes wrong. PPO is getting outrageously expensive as well.
2: Reserve rules. They should not be able to convert you from Long Call to Short Call whenever they want! All days off should be guaranteed days off. They need to staff correctly. We should not suffer for their poor staffing model.
3. Grey Area. Get rid of all grey area in the contract. IE: Backloading 4 day trips is a grey area.
4. Min day credit. 4.5 or 5.0 hrs would be better

I know how attached XJT guys are to their line bidding. However, ASA PBS with Vacation Low feature is not awful. I think we need to pay more attention to how the pairings are built. And more importantly, who builds them. But it's hard to build good credit trips when all ASA's CR2 legs are 45min each.

xjtguy

XJT's scheduling section is way ahead of ASA, too much to list. You'll have to get copies of both and compare side by side. There's only a few things in the ASA that are better than XJT's, but I'd hardly say those are worth canning the XJT one over. Primarily, ASA unscheduled overnight in domicile is 9hrs, XJT is the FAR of 8. However, XJT is provided a hotel on a non scheduled overnight in domicile, not sure about ASA. ASA, a long call reserve pilot can't be converted to short call if IIRC, XJT can. But only a limited number of times. ASA has the 2:1 duty rig for scheduled days, XJT doesn't. XJT sick time accrual rate is better, as is the retirement.

One thing ASA pilots need to become educated on is the line bid/ILIW/SLIW system at XJT. It's NOT the ASA line bid system of yore, not even close.

Incorrect, we used the same thing that CAL used called CCS. SOME of Sked+ is a better interface, some of it isn't. CCS was way more user friendly when it comes to trip trading, etc

Just curios, what else have you seen? Rainmaker is omitting MASSIVE amounts of pay credit for XJT crew members.

xjtguy

Something I forgot to address;

The ONLY thing in our previous concessionary contract was pay, that's the ONLY thing that was given up from contract 04/LOA8 via LOA 9. However, since then we've seen multiple work rule gains via MOU/LOA's. Especially in the reserve section. As well as improved commuter policy, BD/WD trades, APW for reserves, etc.

If you were to combine the CBA, MOUs, and LOA's the pay would be off compared to the 04 numbers if you were to do the standard 4-6% per year for DOS/Longevity gains, etc. But the language/workrules has improved over the original Contract 04 document in a lot of areas.

Nevets

The XJT MEC caps the pilots share of premiums at 25%. Generally reserve rules at XJT are better. I know how attached ASA guys are to their PBS. However XJT line bidding system and vacation work rules is not awful. The XJT ALPA Scheduling Committee is involved in pairing construction.

Nevets

Ask DojetDriver. He is always volunteering to do this for people here. I think he has figured that there are only two parts of your contract which are better than ours but I can't remember what those were. Here is a thread with a lot of our contract provisions: http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/re...ns-please.html

As for the concession, we took a $10M/year hit which amounted to about a 7% cut for everyone. We did gain language that took away any time limits on recall rights, got language requiring the company to pay at least 25% of our health care plan premiums, and other items such as board book access, enhanced profit sharing, and snap back provisions.

The XJT MEC and Scheduling committee and PBS subcommittee have researched your PBS, other airlines PBS, other PBS vendors, compared them, talked to other MECs, and ran mock PBS solutions on multiple systems including yours with our actual pairings for a few months now. I'm pretty sure our MEC and those of us who take the time to watch the power point presentation and or go to the meetings or call and talk to their reps are well informed. Has your MEC done ANY of this for our line bidding system? Why is this a one way street only? I can say the same thing and tell you that you need to educate yourselves on our system because it works for everyone I talk to here as well. I'm sure there are many that can give you many anecdotal examples on how good their line was or how flexible our system is.

As for asking for too much? Let management do their job and our JNC do ours. Its up to management to try to convince us with leverage that we are asking for too much. Lets not enter negotiations anywhere near a concession for either group. Because I would guess that a TA that is at all concessionary to us will probably NOT pass.

Agreed 100% on rigs and min day credit.



I think he means that this Rainmaker doesn't break down pay like our old CCS did. It only shows hours and minutes and not actual pay.

It would be better for us if it actually was accurate. Right now it is not accurate if you have a trip that transitions, vacation, training, RA day, RX day, FBO, ASB, customs pay, 150%, 200% red flag, and I'm probably missing more stuff. When they get all that fixed, it will be superior to what we had.

xjtguy

I wouldn't say that the "Chevy vs. Ford" analogy is accurate. The reason I say this is, have you read the ASA CBA to include the PBS LOA? Start with the "Scheduling" section, then go to the "Hours of Service" section after that for starters. Although there is language in there that has good intent, there's ALSO A ALOT of "management discretion", "operational necessity", etc type language that creates holes for maximum management exploitation. Similar what the original Contract 2004 had until many of them got closed up via MOUs and LOAs. And lets face it, doesn't matter if it's XJT or ASA. It's safe to say the MORE pilots get their info here, FI, as well as the respective crackpipes than ACTUALLY contacting their reps. So putting out info here, or elsewhere can do NO harm what so ever. For those that are bothering to inform themselves as well as listen anyway.

Here, as well as other places. Strange, don't think I ever saw anybody take the offer.