Naka,

I would most certainly help out but only if the union steps in to help strengthen the process. I feel sorry for the guys that try and dispute pairings that are unsafe or those that kill our quality of life. Then people jump on these trips like crack *****s. I'm sorry, but if they don't do what little they can do (send them an email when they initially pick up the pairing is disputed so they can't use ignorance as an excuse, then publish DP flyers on emails on and on union boards so that we can treat these guys like the lepers they are), I couldn't do the job. I appreciate those that can continually get slapped in the face and still do work for us.

We could stop these pairings now. I can't tell you about other aircraft/positions, but on the MD-11 FO MEM, they only have 62 reserve lines next month (28 A, 25 B,the rest A+ or R24). Should this bother you? I think so, last year they had about 70 more. These 70 guys that are now flying lines take up about 4200 of flying time. This adds up to about 6 hours for each of us. OPTIMIZATION!!!!!! Why can they do this? Guys are picking up any open trip or DISPUTED PAIRING like they can't live without it. We need less reserves now, because they know we are greedy. These DPs will absolutely wreck their reserve manning due to crew rest requirements. I'll bet if no one flew them that they would stop these 8/24 pairings before September. The other solution would be to put more people on reserve and that would bump up our BLG. Either way it hurts their wallet. That gets their attention.

Onetime... Dude wake up! This is more than an "inconvenience." Stop and ask yourself why you have a union. There are many reasons, but a few of them are safety, pay, job protection and quality of life. These pairings impact our quality of life big time. This isn't a seniority issue. Once these pairings become a mainstay and may turn into junior lines, what's next? Which pairing is next? Do you want to fly 4 flights/night even if it meets the hard parameters? This can get bad quickly. This is a huge step in pairing optimization which leads to needing less pilots. Be careful what you ask for, you might get it.


As you can tell, I am pretty serious about anyone messing with my quality of life. These DP flyers need to feel the brunt of our anger. All we can do is humiliate these guys and let them eat and drink with themselves. They obviously don't care about anyone but themselves..... It isn't like these are incredibly lucrative trips either, 8 hours each or something.... Come on!!!

We're up to 4 pages of arguing with each other about the DP process and yet the union and many pilots don't seem to think that its broke. It is broke because we can not rely on our membership to do the right thing. The company has got to be absolutely loving reading us bash each other while the DP fliers feed at the trough.

I humbly suggest that the union punt and put the SIG guys back to work. Remember, we had no problem building the lines below the contractual minimums when the company was buying them up. Once they invoked 4.A.2b our union decided that they would not build lines below the mins anymore and thus were removed from the process.

We cut off our nose to spite our own face. I never understood the logic of taking this stand, we are only hurting ourselves, and the company isn't going to start buying the lines up until we win the grievance and they are forced to. We in effect voluntarily locked ourselves out of the process trying to stand on principle, but in doing so we diminished the effectiveness of the SIG even more.

Lets save our bullets for the grievance and get the SIG back full time working on our behalf.

We should also spend every effort to come up with a process that doesn't rely on our weakest links to to protect our quality of life and pay.

FXDX,

I agree!


My only thing to add to your input: If we are going to dispute a pairing, let's publish names of those guys that try to profit while the rest of us want to enjoy a good quality of life. If they don't mind being lepers, so be it. Just like nonmembers, we will all know who they are. I do think some guys will "do the right thing" if they think they will be shunned. It is a weak response, but really all that can be done....

Off the DP topic, the lack of reserve coverage can be thrown back in the Company's face if we attack the reserve lines with vacation bidding. If you have vacation, eliminating R lines is both fun and helpful to your vacation plans! Have at it, please.

I have vacation next month, 9 days worth. How will bidding an R line wipe out the whole month? I know that I get the 48 hour buffer on either side, which would be 13 days. But the R lines on the Bus are more than 13 days. If I am awarded an R line that has one continuous stretch of days, will the 9 days wipe out the whole month? I only have 52 hours in my vacation bank.

52 divided by 4( or less) = 13

sounds like a very sound plan...

I did that this month, knocked out all 18 or whatever R24 days and built myself a nice line with CIA time! It made me smile to think that there was one less dude on reserve those days...

Go for it. However we've done that before, a little over a year ago with little success. Every month the union posts a list of non-members, which is arguably a bigger offense, and it does not change the mind of that group of people. It sucks big time, but that's where we are right now. And to top it off, in about a week we will be starting a new thread on August DPs.

These nonmembers are beyond shame. There are others that don't care if they are called out as long as they get what they want. But the vast majority don't want to be seen as a loser and by posting their names, it might just stop some of these guys. Sending them an email when they initially pick up the trip will take away the "I didn't know it was disputed" story.

I don't have a better idea. But when I fly with these toads they get to spend the trip eating by themselves, as I consider them in the same class as a nonmember or scab...