stevenscreek

Why is your union pushing for OAL priority on American Airlines... according to APA your Union is negotiating directly with AA management.....didn’t you guys try this at United a year or so ago? Your Union is putting your J/S reciprocal agreements in jeopardy. Not to mention how many of you guys we have hired... (btw without acceptation solid pilots and good people on layovers) why make these kinds of waves?


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DocMcFly

From our union to our pilot group and now to you:

We want to take this opportunity to first articulate to you what specifically we are asking for; and second, to provide some rebuttals to the most common talking points you may hear from their other pilots if you are engaged about this.

Firstly, the existing priority on AA/wholly-owned flights is, for all intents and purposes:

1. Own-metal;
2. Other AAG pilots;
3. Offline jumpseaters. <= Republic Pilots Are Here.

On AA-marketed Republic flights, the existing priority is:

1. Own-metal;
2. AAG pilots; <= AA Pilots Are Here
3. Offline jumpseaters.

This is not reciprocal, but there are two ways to make it reciprocal. Option #1, and the vastly preferred option by all parties except the APA, is to add a tier between 2) and 3) on their priority order for us and other non-wholly owned AA regionals (but still below AAG pilots on AAG metal). Option #2 is to lower them to the group with offline jumpseaters, the same way we are currently treated on their metal. We would prefer Option #1 over Option #2 because it is beneficial to all parties involved.

MYTH: This change creates some sort of “super priority,” where Republic and other contract regionals get a priority bump for the jumpseat on the three major airlines, and that is not fair to AAG or offline pilots.

TRUTH: We have a lower non-rev priority on all carriers. As such, we rely more on the jumpseat because of this lower priority. Additionally, it is standard in the industry that those that fly those colors gets priority on that carrier.

MYTH: AAG Pilots will receive a lower priority on other carriers as retaliation for this change.

TRUTH: Of the airlines they named, the ones that have a regional network already have this structure in place, and for the ones that do not, namely Southwest, there is no incentive for any changes.

FWIW: I have not heard any person or read in any RPA forum any comments of ill will toward the AAG pilot group (you’ll just have to take me at my word).

I cannot understand nor can my pilot group understand the opposition to our request to have an industry standard reciprocal agreement.

Random Task

Anyone in opposition has a fundamental misunderstanding of the current system and what it is we are actually asking for, as evidenced by OP alluding to the past United issue.

Apples and oranges.

DC10Phlyer

Still didnt answer why your union felt no need to consult with the APA.

Duchess

Good morning Steven,

Thanks for taking some time to have dialog about our jumpseat issue. First I want to start by saying that industry standard is to offer elevated priority to those flying under the Eagle, Express, and Connection name. For instance, Delta gives us priority on on their flights, after them, then Endeavor, then it's Skywest/Republic toc (since we support the Delta Connection system).

I posted this is the major forum but I will post it here for you to understand our side of things. The following is a true story:
I was working a go-home leg on our Eagle brand. Flight was full with 2 jumpseaters listed, an oal and AA pilot. AA pilots and wo pilots are given priority on our Eagle flights (as you should be in my opinion). So, the AA pilot got the jumpseat and come to find out he was working the flight I was trying to commute home on. We land with a few hours and still plenty of seats on my commute home. I list for AAC non-rev, for a seat in the back. This is important because most AA pilots don't understand we have a decision to make, AAC non-rev or D6 js listing. A couple hours later, that flight goes to oversold, so it's at this point where I need to cancel my AAC non rev listing, then make a D6 listing for the jumpseat, then check in at the gate. Well, in the meantime an Endeavor pilot made a D6 listing and checked in at the gate. Because AA treats Republic pilots on the same level as another pilot not contributing to the American system, he was offered the jumpseat because even though I checked in AAC non-rev well before his D6 listing, by the time I made a D6 listing and check in after him, he got the jumpseat. So the pilot that I just gave priority to heading to work, will not give me priority on my flight home.

And there's the rub. If you could, even just for a minute, put yourself in my shoes that day and try to understand the frustration of giving your pilot group something we don't receive in return. I'm not sure what AA hiring our pilots has anything to do with this whatsoever, can you expand on that?

LAXtoDEN

At OO we don’t mix trips. For obvious reasons tbh. Let’s say we have a United leg delayed. If our next flight was a Delta quick turn, that Delta operated flight would be delayed due to a United flight.

Apparently way back in the day we flew mixed trips, but was canned for the reason above.

Gone Flying

how many republic pilots has AA actually hired in the past 2-3 years. The last stats I saw was they hired something like 50 civilian pilots of all backgrounds in each ‘18 and ‘19 that were not flow throughs. I can’t imagine a huge % of those are specifically republic pilots.

DocMcFly

A 4-day trip pairing would be carrier specific. However, I’ve have flown for all 3 codeshares on 3 trips in the span of 3 weeks. This is routinely done. Easily provable if that’s AAGs issue. No pilot at Republic flies 99% (as suggested by another post) for 1 codeshare. If you read our forums, Republic likes to play games with line and reserve assignments. They will have ORD at 50% reserves and DH the massively overstaffed LGA based pilots to cover the flying. So while an LGA based pilot would normally only fly AA and DL, now we’ve added UA into the mix by either covering lines or their other favorite scheme- out of base reserves.

That doesn’t seem to be the issue in another thread though. It’s that our union didn’t consult APA on the jumpseat issue. I’m actually about to contact our union for clarification on this. However I’m not sure if that’s a valid argument since the company writes the FOM and software for jumpseat listings.

We get priority above OAL pilots on DL and UA because we fly their colors. Is it really that egregious to you that we would like above OAL priority for AA jumpseats? Seriously? We aren’t asking to bump anyone either on their own metal or an AAG pilot or a WO pilot (based on time of check-in). This is literally about being placed above only OAL!!!

stevenscreek

Thanks for spelling it out from your perspective. I can certainly see your side of the issue. Good enough to fly your passengers but not good enough to get a priority in commuting home. Some of those issues also appear to be systematic in nature (non rev vs J/S and listing issues) and correcting those might go along way to improving everyone’s life....
I am not an AA pilot but OAL so I am also competing for those Jumpseat’s on my commute and have run into difficulties at times due to priorities. If you are given
Priority on AA and you are flying AA branded flights I can see your point. Although it does makes my life harder at times...
My questioning had to do with more of the process of going direct to management as opposed to working through APA.... Plus my understanding was that there was a threat towards AA pilots of putting them at the bottom of the list if AA didn’t agree to the change. Those were the “waves” I was referring to...
Finally I mentioned hiring only to emphasise the fact that I have flown with a lot of Republic pilots that we have hired in the last couple of years. That you guys (and girls) have a good group and I thought perhaps the waves generated by your Union’s methods might be counterproductive....

stevenscreek

I do not fly for AA, FedEx has hired a lot of Republic pilots over the last couple of years. We are not usually the first choice of many at Republic but I think most that have come to FedEx are happy with their choice. I was jumping on an AA flight recently and this topic was raised during the flight....


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