Quote:
Originally Posted by Herkflyr
I understand all this stuff perfectly. I'm not as up to speed on "other" airlines as you might be, but here is the crux of this discussion.
1. The ADG is a vast improvement over what we used to have at DAL. We would all be flying at least 1-2 days a month more, with worse trips that paid far less, under rules that we used to have. In fact I would love to see the pilot reaction if the company proposed rule changes taking us back to just where we were in the early 2000s. Riots come to my mind.
2. Other airlines, whether regional or SWA, can easily accommodate a min day pay guarantee, because they have few--or even one--fleet type. Having such a fleet doesn't lend itself to 30 hour layovers. Our incredibly complex fleet, plus RJs mixed in, lends itself to 30 hour layovers, because our quite clever network guys know how to max the resources. If we only have one 717 a day to Evansville and all the rest are RJs, for example, and it is the last flight in at midnight and first flight out at 0600, guess what? 30 hour layover it is. That's not a plot to make our flying lives less than ideal (though sometimes I like the long layovers). It is network maximizing resources, revenue and eventually, lots of profit that you and I enjoy, especially every Feb 14.
3. I'm not saying the ADG is perfect. I have flown plenty of these ridiculous three leg 8+hour days, when what used to be a very nice 7+ hour one-day turn now has an ATL-TPA leg tagged on to a crappy short layover. I don't like that at all. I'm not saying we shouldn't advocate for a min pay per day provision. It may turn out to be everything we hoped and then some. However I will be curious to see how our bid packages look if we implemented them. For the most part there is no "min pay per day fairy" out there, where the trips all look the same but we get paid more. They WILL change. Whether it is for the better or not of course is the big unknown.
Spot on. I am in no way against a min day, but there are also a lot misconceptions of what it will and won’t do. I hear “this 4 day would be paying me 26 hours.” Well, odds are it would not because Carmen would have spit out a different solution that reduced credit and that trip would look nothing like it did.
And without some major contractual protections, you can bet it would reduce the amount commutable trips. It is going to build longer days to try and reduce the amount of credit vs block. SWA only has “AMs and PMs” and for the most part are only commutable on one end.
Again, I certainly am not against a min day, but just realize it will probably take a RCC with some major teeth to overcome the increase in credit balancing it would generate.