Well, I mean they have the firm order for the jets. Are you implying they'll just cancel them because Philadelphia is a tough business market? (Which they’ve been operating out of for years now if you include TTN). Is there no other market they can serve?

I don’t understand your point.

They can park the new birds in Austin Texas

You guys don't understand how the contract works....


It is minimum protections. You are, under ALL situations, afforded the protection of the contract. If you want to waive that, that is your prerogative. Take your example of working yourself down to less than 11 days off (I assume that's what you're talking about here). You are totally allowed to do that. Your time is your time and what you do with it is your call. Have at it. But if you don't want to work more, and want your 11 days off, the company cannot make you work more. They cannot say that you will suffer consequences if you don't accept a day of triple premium that brings you down to 10 days off.

Yes, these FOs got paid premium for those days. Yes, most guys just want to go to class and get into that left seat. There is nothing wrong with them waiving their contractually guaranteed days off. The problem with this whole situation that you guys are failing to see, is that these FOs were essentially threatened into taking less than their contractually obligated 4 days off. The company threatened it and the union was not only complicit, but accomplices in the act.

Waive your four days off, get paid premium for them, go to upgrade. Feel free to say no, but you'll have a withdrawal from training on your record. This is an extremely important distinction.

That is not the story though. It was a misunderstanding as previously stated by someone in prior pages. Have you talked to any of the 4 FO’s to confirm this?

SWA was against a twice bankrupt restructured US Airways, which actually managed to have lower costs and stand their ground.
How many Piedmont pilots have recently been hired by Spirit or F9, or anyone else? Frontier almost has to poach regional pilots to staff their new Airbus arrivals. A lot of military guys won't go or won't be hired because they will move on to Legacies.

Yes, have you?


You think the union blasted out an email to the entire pilot group for an APC rumor with no teeth?? I don’t believe BF threatened but I believe he stated it as a matter of fact or said “they might count this as a withdrawal from training”, rather than having their back. That’s the way they operate here.

Yes I have.

Filler

Doesn’t change the fact that he was arguing that the unverified account was totally fine by him. The assertion that picking up open time is a contract violation is silly

The BF email said:
"I had made one reference during my talks with the first officers that I wished to research the contract to confirm how this could possibly be considered by the Company."
...
"Before I had an answer, all four had responded in the affirmative."
...
"In follow-up calls with the Company I did bring this up just for a general discussion and it was agreed that a pilot not accepting this offer would not have considered it a withdrawal"

Sounds to me like something got lost in translation, everyone jumped the gun, someone freaked out on APC, and now everyone is CYA.

Picking up open time isn’t a violation, but working below minimum days off is just as much of a “violation” as waiving 4 study days prior to class. However, I agree with you - The CBA provides minimum protections and it’s our prerogative to waive them. Some of these guys don’t have a choice but to work extra because of family issues, student loans, etc. and that’s fine. It’s nice we have the option when times get tough and the budget is tight...

In regards to the upgrade fiasco - the whole thing was completely voluntary and there was no threat of a training withdrawal. That claim was 100% false. We would’ve had a serious problem on our hands IF that had been the case, but it was simply not true. FWIW the company did end up providing the study days after it was all said and done...