04-24-2024The only pilots I've heard about working extended days are those who got after midnights. Things have been busier since the furlough for those still on property, but that is to be expected. I'm sure there are some tools who are not using the fatigue policy as they should, but the goal is obviously to get production from the pilots. The two or so years before the furlough were pretty easy and low time flying for the pilots. That is not the norm for this profession and I never expected it to be. I flew over 700 hours in 9 months of 2006. I probably fatigued out 8 or 10 times in that time period. That was excessive and only because the Excel was so short staffed, but normal flight time for the fractionals tends to be 400 to 450 hours a year per pilot. I'm sure Sokol would love us to all fly 1000 hours per year, but that just isn't really possible for this kind of flying and he will learn the hard way how much it costs for recovery flights and sell-offs if he cuts too deep. He is definitely a bottom line guy, but I believe he is beginning to understand what the bottom line is for pilot staffing levels since he just told the union there would be no more furloughs in the immediate future. He will continue to evaluate and if things really slow I would not want to be on the bottom of the seniority list.
As far as the current union members trying to get into management and the union not communicating, I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. The union warned us about possible furloughs way before they even did the furlough mitigation program last summer. They send out emails to the members every Friday. They monitor the message board and answer the questions that they can and shoot down as many rumors as possible. They have union meetings every week in Columbus for those at recurrent (I go to meeting when I'm there for airplane recurrent also). They will tell you what they know and most will tell you what they think. There is some info that they are not allowed to share, but that is relatively small and I don't expect to hear what they promise not to share. Maybe they aren't always correct, but they do their best and I highly doubt they told anyone that was furloughed that they for sure wouldn't be, even when the furlough mitigation program was deemed "successful" by Santulli.
As far as the union and company not communicating, I'm not sure where you get that info from. They have regular meetings and while the company won't tell the union everything in the 5 year plan, I can't say that I expect them to. That would be bad business since once the pilots all know, all the competitors will know also. Beyond that it isn't in any managements best interests to tell the union everything. Management gave more notice than required for the furlough and now that rumors were running rampant that another furlough was coming, they did meet with the union and refute it. They said all along that they would re-evaluate everything in their plan (including staffing levels) on a regular basis so I would guess we will have rumors running out of control again the next time they re-evaluate. In January they flat out told the pilots in recurrent that they would evaluate staffing levels at the end or March and I expect them to tell us again when they will be looking at it next. Of course I would like to know all the plans and how they will affect my career, but I doubt there is any pilot job that has management telling the pilots everything.
I'm sorry the old management screwed up so bad and way over hired, among other very poor choices. For me it is still a great job. I will probably see the top of the FO pay scales, but it is still better than almost anything else I could be doing right now. I would have been furloughed from most of the airlines that were hiring when I started here if I had gone that route instead. That isn't what I wanted so I came here. It isn't a legacy airline and it never will be. I'm sorry not everyone likes this kind of flying and I'm sorry a lot of pilots got furloughed, but nobody saw the massive recession hammering everything and even if Sokol was in charge before the recession, there would have still been lots of problems. I do think things could be better- scheduling especially sucks and costs the company a lot of money, but overall it is a great place to work. For all the pilots who were furloughed, I wish them luck moving on and if they wish to come back I hope it happens as soon as possible.
AIRLINEPILOT CENTRAL
