Interview group yesterday was 8 FWIW

Approx 8 weeks.

Buddy of mine interviewed mid June, just started Indoc last week.

got an email saying 600-800 new hires, didnt have a time line associated by it. I'd like to think it's by the end of the year and including those hired already this year, but that seems a bit ambitious this late in the year.

Wouldn’t that be like 350-550 new hires in the next 4 months to have that this year?

Yep, according to the August seniority list we’re at about 250 so far this year so it will have to crank up fast to meet those alleged numbers.


GP

I don’t think that’s the strategy... I believe the idea is to have us concentrate/distracted with work rules during negotiations. We tighten the rules up, which makes our lives better. However, we use leverage to do so, which leaves less capitol to negotiate other sections. When the company compares our staffing levels/efficiency for the new contract to 2016-2017 levels, it’s going to similar. This is a section that will be cost neutral, which Ed will be proud of....he knows the operation is stretched thin but just needs to hold out for the new contract.

This is no different than the deadhead issues. They’ve gone to crap because they are going to require us to pay for it. This leaves less negotiation leverage for other sections. Deadhead rules are a distraction.

I don’t believe a trade for one item in order to benefit another is required in the current state of the industry but a lot of guys in Atlanta and other bases do.

I get your point, and maybe that's what they think too. But when this general type of stratedgy is used, it often unifies the pilot group far more than they would otherwise be. Had they not trashed all domestic flying for any and all on paper credit reductions, far fewer pilots would want better work rules. Had they not implemented massive degradations to DH and boarding to intentionally harass us, fewer pilots would care about that. All we would care about is maybe a small COLA+ raise and we'd sign onto current book for 3-4 more years.

Sudden hits to DH especially was a poor move by them. Arbitrators LOVE easy low to no cost things major peer set competitors already have in old book. If they try to go hard to the mat with that, they will look very, very unreasonable.

So the fulcrum here is really the raise (in pay and maybe retirement although that seems to have gone into the weeds straight from the hangar but we'll see) but either way this looks to be a poor negotiating stratedgy on their end IMO because we were never about to get some massive 30% raise and a restored FAE based retirement to any significant extent regardless, even if we ignored the work rule and DH abuses. Likewise, even with focus on those, we're still not signing anything without a raise above COLA to some extent, and I believe what is TA-able and ratifiable in those areas in either case are pretty similar. And as a result of the sudden onset degradations by design in other areas, we will be more involved and less likely to fall for a sub par TA.

I hope you are correct but ultimately this is all to distract from what I consider to be the biggest issue in our contract, JVs.

We made a lot of gains in TA2 but JV issues weren’t one. They tossed a lot of gains our way, which I think was to distract/placate us enough that it would pass.

There was no doubt in my mind the 48.5 (maybe it was 47.5) percent Atlantic JV language was put there for a reason. As long as they complied with that metric, the worldwide block requirement of 650,000 hours wouldn’t be applicable. It was obvious they were going to cozy up with Korean but for our pilot group was worth the trade off.

How many flights do we service daily to Inchon, compared with Koreans to the United States. We got played.

We will never get into arbitration. DALPA would never accept it after the rape of Alaska.

Go on......

Unfamiliar