Thanks. I have no desire to go back to working full time, flying 80+ hours per month, so I guess I won't be looking much further into this. It kind of sucks, because companies are desperate for pilots these days, and I'd be willing to bring 30 years of airline experience back to the table if I could do it part time. Then again if companies would open their eyes to this, and kept pilots around with more schedule flexibility and not beating us to death, it might have kept a slew of us from retiring early. If I could have gone part time at the major where I worked, I'd still be there.

 

Do you think the current reflow policy of CS alerting you through any means necessary is any better? I’ve called up ops before asking why we had no ramp crew at our gate, was alerted of a reflow from the gal working the frequency. Think about that, they delayed a passenger flight intentionally to alert our crew of a reflow. Some shady stuff man.

Btw, let me know when you’ve ever gotten yourself out of a reflow. PM please because I’d love to know how you did it. Hilariously I think this policy has more to do with crew support spending a half an hour on the phone with a livid Captain taking his/her stress out on some kid working the phone lines in SGU. This new policy probably has nothing to do with pilot usage, but directed towards the CS staffing issues. But how would we ever know, SAPA doesn’t know how to communicate worth a damn.

A few years ago when I was an FO I sat next to a Captain go unglued for over an hour with CS. F bombs were thrown out and then some. We worked the reflow flight (lmao). The flight was delayed an extra hour, and our layover went from 15 to 14 hours. TFAYD.

 

So basically if you’re already contributing the max that the company will match (4% for years 1-4 for example) the direct contribution is completely negated and you’re really not getting anything extra in this new TA?

Disclaimer: I already bounced, and it seems I made a good move. But I’m still heavily rooting/empathizing for those I left behind.

 

Well, can I use the EFB to send a quick message to crew support explaining that we will not be arriving at our original show time because the hotel van never showed up and we won't be able to legally make our show time? That would actually be easier than spending 30 minutes trying to explain why we needed our show time adjusted by an hour, hanging up on them and spending another half hour talking to the chief when they tell on me for not showing up on time exactly like I told them we couldn't do. Haha

 

It’s amazing the amount of concessions we had to make in order to get this TA. This company thinks their in a position to take things away from us?? Wow. Loss of bonuses, per diem under adjusted for inflation/prices, notifiable via iPad…

 

 

Yeah, the recurrent training cost would be offset by the lack of benefits for part-timers... the vast majority of folks interested in part-time have bennies from retirement at another airline, mil, etc.

 

Exactly. Yes there would be an additional training cycle for 2 part-timers sharing a single line, but most likely part-timers like me wouldn't be building time ASAP to jump ship and head for the majors. So is the additional training cost worth keeping guys around who have no desire to jump ship as soon as any 737/A320 operator calls them? I would think not losing hundreds of pilots every year, not needing desperately to keep up with that attrition, would be a positive thing.

 

*Beware* the unintended consequences of EFB notification. I don’t have a good enough imagination to speculate, but I’ll guarantee that TT, AS and S-O either do or will come up with creative ways to abuse it. This one thing and the fact that TT has been begging for it for years, would mean a hard no for me.

That, and throw the FOs a little more jingle.

Not horrible other than that.

My $.02

 

That’s correct. There is no change in the 401k matching/contributions for people with less than 5 years other than 3% of the “match” is now a non-elective contribution.