Forget the premium. It’s about the TFP!
 

Okay, don’t forget about chasing the premium and certainly let’s take advantage of it while we can but given the latest earnings call and the Kompany literally verbalizing that they want to staff enough pilots to where they don’t have to pay premium, it is ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE that we make a drastic gain in our TFP rates on this contract!

If you haven’t already done so, start fleshing out how much our purchasing power has eroded due to their blatant dragging out of negotiations. Two years to even respond to our proposal? Insulting!

How about the large inflation with no end in sight? If this keeps up (which it will for a while) we’re looking at at least a 40-50% hit to our purchasing power from when we passed the current contract.

I respectfully implore you to up your expectations in the pay rates part of our contract because we’re getting our collective asses handed to us by the Kompany’s stall tactics and past, present, and future inflation.

Given their recent statements to stomp out premium pay and overstaff the airline (like 2017) shouldn’t we be basing our pay expectations on 90-100 TFP/month? If so we need a very sizable bump in rates.

Yup, I picked up on those comments as well. What’ll be interesting to watch as these next few new hire classes start is whether the company can even hire as many as they want without raising our rates. If the trend from the last 2 classes continues, I don’t think we’ll need to worry about them over-hiring anytime soon.

100 isn’t too far off from 108. How about just the monthly min. 89 TFP

Exactly what I was thinking. They are delusional if they think they’ll be able to hire and retain enough pilots to not have to pay premium anytime soon. It’s not 2005 anymore. Everyone is hiring and they are all hiring from the same pool of pilots. There’s no magical beans that grow some mythical pilot pool out of thin air. The reality of the pilot labor market has clearly not him them yet up at the GO.

Quite possible and actually more than likely that the poor turn out of new-hires continues. However, them not being able to over-hire doesn’t negate the fact that we need a drastic increase in TFP rates.

Here’s another reason why. What if during the next contract cycle we are in an abysmal economic environment and they flat out refuse to agree to any significant increase in rates? What do we want our starting position to be? What we vote in now (whenever the hell “now” ends up being) is what we might have to live with for a long time to come. The country is being ran into the ground. We better make some large gains while we still have the leverage.

Absolutely agreed. You’re right.

Completely agree. Please everyone read and reread this.

Career earnings expectations need to be based on line guarantee, which is the obvious vision of management. Don't fool yourself with 787 hangars, Explosive Growth, and other chugs of Kool-Aide.

To your point, it's a widely held belief that JetBlue's attempt to acquire Spirit is largely about adding more pilots to property. Sure, there's probably some synergies with network and the NEO order book is worth something, but make no mistake, pilot retention is a huge issue at the low cost carriers. With the news today that the F9/NK deal is likely to prevail per Spirit's BOD, this paints JetBlue into a precarious situation. On the current trajectory, Southwest could find themselves in dire straits if they don't get a handle on the operation and pilot recruitment. Because SWA doesn't have quick upgrades, total benefits package, airframe diversity / 737s that millennials don't want to fly, widebody international flying, rapid seniority gain, retirements, etc., Southwest is going to need a sexy contract to attract people to being FOs on the guppy for 10-15 years. Southwest isn't bad, but just about everywhere else looks more attractive on paper.

He’s not wrong. FUPM

Looks like negotiations are going good ,the company is willing to give us about 38 million for sick time and LTD while taking almost 130 million from us. At this rate we’re looking at taking a 30 -40 percent pay cut by the time the company makes an offer .