How will this go down? Excerpts from our contract on Excessing

6. Excess Crew Positions

a. Pilots shall be excessed from crew positions in seniority order from among those pilots who bid to relieve that excess. If an insufficient number of pilots bid to relieve a crew position posted as excess, pilots shall be excessed from that crew position in reverse seniority order. Except as provided in Section 24.C.6.b., a pilot who has been excessed, or who has bid to relieve an excess, shall be awarded another permanent crew position in accordance with his seniority and standing bid; provided, however, no pilot may be awarded or assigned a crew position at an FDA base that would cause an excess at that base.

b. If an excessed pilot cannot be awarded a crew position due to insufficient preferences on his standing bid, the Company shall assign him to a permanent crew position with a base in the United States with the highest pay rate to which he is entitled by his seniority

c. If an excessed pilot is awarded or assigned a crew position that is also in excess, the number of pilots to be excessed from that crew position may be increased accordingly; provided, however, no pilot may be awarded or assigned a crew position at an FDA base that would cause an excess at that base.

d. If an excessed pilot is denied an award to an FDA crew position, pursuant to Section 24.C.6.a. or C.6.c., (above), and he has insufficient seniority to be awarded or assigned another crew position with the same or higher rate of pay, he shall be entitled to passover pay

When I read this I get the idea we could have a cascade effect. But not necessarily.

An excess bid for 727 FO could cause Airbus guys to get bumped back down to the Boeing. That is why, IMHO, Cassel said we could have an excess bid in the Airbus. It depends on how many relatively senior 727 FO's bid up and where they bid to. If they bid to the MD11 the Airbus may not get an excess bid.

when is the 777 big going to be released.. that may minimize a lot of the accordian effect in the wide body seats.

gotta love more uncertainty.

If we are going to excess, why are they checking out 63 year olds? CW turned 63 last month and has a training date coming up soon. The most they can get out of him is 1 year and 8 months. All to bump someone off a seat? YGTBSM! And...he has 30+ years with the company. Some things just don't make sense. Time to write your block rep and tell him it's time to defy Webb (for a change).

Sounds like you fellas are going through the exact same thing we are. UPS, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to train anyone who has not reached their 64th birthday by the bid closing date. Some of these guys will be in the seat for less than one year by the time they are released to the line. You just can't spell stupid without UPS.

I think I know why.

The company doesn't want to pay passover or offer an early retirement package. They would rather pay for training, not now but in a couple of months, and then pay a higher hourly rate later for a year or less. Don't forget to add passover pay in the equation. If the company is going to give this guy CA pay anyway, why not make him earn it? Someone decided it was cheaper to do it this way. Heard some may not make it thru training.

Still cheaper than this guy retiring now. He is working for half pay as it is. Hence no early retirement package.

Right now there are lots of SOs on reserve that never fly. Is it cheaper to take an essentially non-productive SO, put him in training and get some actual work for a year or let him sit where he is solely to inflate the SO reserve rolls?

Oh really? Doesn't seem to be the case in practice lately, now does it?

With the recent CDG cancellation and upcoming excess bid it appears that the company is desperately trying to pressure folks into HKG while our Union stays quiet on the sidelines (reminds me of the old military training adage of using fear, intimidation and ridicule...)

If they really wanted to balance the crew force all they would have to do is make the LOA equitable and they will never have a problem filling it (just like Subic was never a problem). However, instead they turn to scare tactics. If we really wanted to force this, all we have to do is to continue to boycott HKG and encourage those that already have the award, not sign the letter.

In the meantime, to mitigate the amount of excessed pilots and thereby saving training costs, our Union could demand the elimination of all carryover thereby creating more lines. They could also encourage the company to be more liberal with their leave of absence policy so folks can pursue outside opportunities such as military stuff, contract flying, barista at starbucks, etc. (I know OR recently changed this policy, and as usual, our Union did nothing).

SG

During the Tiger merger, the then management decided it would be better to offer early retirements to some age groups than to look at the retraining costs from the excess bids they were posting. It worked. Wouldn't surprise me to see something similar pop up once they have some number with the the bids.

look..we all know webb caused this...that retro clause is killing us!...the co. is on our side on this issue....all retreads who tried to scam the system with faking shoulder injuries..."special" projects etc, are being forced to complete dc-10 so school(if they make it) and then are being forced to complete captain school(if they make it)...a lot of these older guys were hoping to get passover and sit at home....we will see!