Aw, Gator, you're going to hurt my feelings.

All I've done is point out the failings of the 2010 TA/ now CBA. Unfortunately, not unlike at the road shows, any dissent is met by a shout down from the ALPA lap dogs. Particularly touchy for the ALPA apologists is the hypocrisy of agreeing to MASSIVE utilization concessions, while still wanting to beat up on the OT/JA crowd; one of which happens to be an MEC member. This is great! You can't make this stuff up!

Feel free to point out where I'm wrong.

OK, we all recognize that the TA and now ratified Contract is not optimal. Well maybe ARM thinks so, but he's always been that way.

Anyway, it seems to me that we need to pull together to advance our overall position. We need to find a way to manuever the company into a place where they are staffed well enough for the QOL focused pilot to live a comfortable life; but are not so overstaffed that those who want to earn extra money can do so. Personally, I am a QOL seeker. I LOVE guys like JCdC because he works and I don't get the JA phone call. But I realize that an excessive amount of OT flying results in the company's refusal to staff well enough to allow my continued QOL. IOW, OT is good, up to the point that my vacation gets cancelled because we are short staffed.

Where does that leave us? For now (leaving room for further thought and reconsideration), I will propose a block hour cap. I believe that a pilot should be capped at 90 hours (prelim number, needs refinement) BLOCK. I don't really care if some smart pilot finds a way to credit 120 hours if he only flies 90. I choose the 90 hour block limit because it is the number that our nego team picked to be our line build cap. If we didn't already have the 90 hour number, I would have picked 85 as per C2003.

Management really hates to pay for more hours than are flown, but they are the ones making deals to pay double, not the pilot so I don't feel one bit sorry for them. From a staffing perspective, it doesn't matter how much the company paid to get the trip covered, and I believe that we (union members) should focus on coverage. If we fix coverage/staffing, and we ensure that premium pay goes out according to seniority, it really won't matter how much the "other" guy get's paid.

What say you?

well...

just reading through the new FTDT NPRM, and if it goes through, it wont be 10 seconds before Spirit is begging to re-negotiate sec 25.

Sky:

I don't understand why I am paying 2% of my gross to an organization that wants to LIMIT my income. We already have a block hour cap at 100/mo. I can fly 1000 hours per year. If I fly 100 hours in January and 70 hours in February to get there, I don't see why it is anybody's business but mine.

ALPA had a tool in c2003 to require adequate staffing, (adequate as defined in 1999, I think it was in the original cba). I don't remember a grievance regarding the company falling below the 12% reserve coverage requirement on a rolling 12 month basis, so I assume ALPA and the company agreed 12% was adequate, and the company met that metric.

Also, I don't remember a grievance when scheduling started using the 'net reserve' number created by Sabre and not defined in the cba, to test the 10% coverage threshold for float, maybe you have more data on that than I do.

At any rate the 10% will go away once the red/green system is in place, giving the company COMPLETE DISCRETION over such transactions. I don't have the cba in front of me now, but does the 12% requirement still hold after red/green? I don't remember.

I would bet the avg line holder would work somewhere around 850 hours a year based on twelve 78 hour lines/yr minus 84 hours vacation. So your talking about a max of 150 hours/OTpilot/year. A drop in the bucket compared to what this CBA affords the company. This MEC/NC got caught up in a personal vendetta against a small percentage, and we are all paying for it. Again, please tell me where I am wrong.

Don't have the contract with me, why do you think that?

ANY excuse to pressure for concessions.

yes, rumor is they will be pulling the 4 day off between pairings...yikes!!!

Alpa and the NKS MEC have lost their way. It is very sad. FO and CA pay is less than jblues e-190 rates. We went on strike for that. As far as work rules, that is ridiculous. The quality of life is ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENT between them and us. You can spin it anyway you want, but in the end we lost. I heard, "Jetblue pilots can have their work rules changed anytime". Guess what, we got our work rules changed in the first month after ratifying a new contract, ala transition rules. And I have to give 2 percent of my pay for this BS.

The reason for the current transition conflict snafu is simple, they have no respect for us, thanks to the 74 percent ratification of this abysmal contract. Expect to see more treading on us in the future. Nobody respects someone with no guts.

I don't think you are wrong at all, but I do think that being right doesn't necessarily equate to winning. I'm looking for a way to regain something. At the moment, SPA ALPA is riding herd on the pilot group in an attempt to force some sort of staffing formula onto the company. I'm only looking for some way to accomplish that goal without penalizing individual pilots in the current manner. If you've got a better idea, I'm all ears.

No argument here either. But realistically, 74% voted for the contract and a large majority of that 74% are probably mostly happy with their vote. In order to change things, that 74% will have to believe in the change. It is, and was, purely political. This will only be changed with political change, but the majority voted for the current regime and also voted for the contract. These people need to think that their decision was correct. If they continue to feel slighted because of their vote, they will just go and vote for the same old same old. Whoever runs, and whoever wins will need to be able to speak to all of the pilots or we will just return to the days when HL ran against C2003. No one want's that do they?