Crew Planning thinks the only metric that matters for staffing is RONs and that has proven time and again to be woefully inadequate. Crew Planning leadership is demonstrating year after year that they are out of their depth with actual network planning. Then they wind up throwing money at everyone to fix the short term problem caused by their inability to think long term and then blame the pilot group.

 

I don't understand your question. It's more than a few people being displaced and otherwise jerked around right now. Desirable bases? When has the company ever cared about that? Are they currently adding a bunch of desirable bases? Of all our bases, maybe two are in cities I would consider living near, which is a big reason I have been a commuter for over a decade.
Making mid sized seasonal adjustments with no hiring and not setting expectations correctly has resulted in what we have now. Denver was supposed to be done drawing down and then got the axe again and is forecast to for next quarter. Atlanta was all tears and coddling for what ended up being a fairly small number of people affected. People are displaced all over the system with no end in sight. Those people have long memories and will carry this with them for the next 20-40 years of their careers. Yeah, it sucks to be junior, but this isn't a short term thing. I have flown with folks that have been displaced multiple times over a year.

 

That is the short term thinking in a nutshell that has been the hallmark of HQ here. I agree we need to make money, but not at the expense of our people being jerked around from now until the foreseeable future.

 

They haven't. That is the subject of my sarcasm. Like you say, they seem to make decisions that don't make a lot of sense and also make a lot of employees bitter. I'm just saying they could/should do better in that department. It will probably take a fire hose in Dallas to clear out the antiquated thinkers.

Along with all of this vacancy stupidity, they're building low paying garbage lines. Month after month. Remember the days of 3 days that pay 25? Now we get 90% min pay trips. Kinda goes hand in hand with the vacancy number games. And exactly why somewhere crappy like STL will be the next base. It's like the decisions are made out of spite.

 

Ah. Totally agree.

 

I think it's a contractual problem. Monthly vacancies are great until they're not. During full bore hiring and upgrades it allows people to quickly move around, up and downgrade for vacation bidding, snowbird, etc...

When the music stops only the company benefits because they can run displacement bids frequently as long as they're willing to pay hotel/moving expenses.

in a perfect world we would only have monthly bids when all numbers are positive, but if there's any shrinkage then maybe we throttle back to vacancies every 6 months.

In any event the company is taking advantage of our contract when it benefits them to do so. I would expect no less. It's up to SWAPA to try and correct that omission the next time they have a little leverage burning a hole in their pocket with nothing better to spend it on.

 

There are definitely some aspects of your post that are spot on even with the sarcasm. Personally for me I Iove my rig trips. Maybe I’m just too old but anyone who flys a hard 25TFP three day or 33TFP four day is crazy. But I get that fact it pay’s well and are productive. Some trips still pay that but the majority don’t anymore because the type of flying SWA does and the CBA has more restrictions then it did before. The video did say they are bringing back more shoulder flying which should help with more productive pairings but we’ll see. The more pure AM/PM trips SWA has, the more productive they are in the busy seasons. As always with this place, they bring in a new type of flying like red eyes, it has consequences on other flying and pairings. Throw in the fact they want to add more banks of flying but yet keep the core network of p2p will create unproductive pairings. Why do you think most network carriers on the domestic side have crappy paying trips. Banking flights is a very unproductive way through an efficiency point of view but is a great way to create connections for the customer. It’s a trade off. The duty day of the airplane is not consistent anymore. It truly is a 24hr operation now. The pairings now reflect it.

I have never seen as many displacements as we have had over the last few months. It’s a sucker punch for those guys. Most of the time when you’re hiring, those are filled partially by them. Most of airlines don’t have this problem because of the single fleet type issue. Flexing bases every month is unique here especially when you compare it to a large network carriers with multiple fleet types. That’s not going to change anytime soon. At least through 27-28 time frame.

By the way my favorite or attractive base is the one I commute out of. I vote for that one.

 

Agreed. My first suggestion would be adding something to this effect: "No voluntary vacancy shall be filled with a voluntary award while any eligible pilot has a pending Right of Return after displacement." Many of us are still commuting to a displacement while other pilots are bidding in and out of our home. Our ROR language isn't nearly as useful as I thought it was.

 

hotels(no limit on cost) and positive space and 10 tfp extra per.month the whole time youre displaced.
Or no displacements at all. Figure it out with a DH etc
Part of me feel the companybis doing this on purpose to create a problem for us to negotiate since they need a few things right now.

 

preach!!!! Wish others had a little more solidarity not to bid into bases many of us actually live in and were displaced from 3 times zones away…