SPA union doesn’t care about seniority
 

Some of you are aware that in DFW junior Check Airmen and Check Airmen in general are allowed to “Cherry Pick” their trips. I’m sure it’s going on at all other bases

For September 33 out 39 turns were assigned to Check Airmen.

Yesterday’s “secret” ALPA meeting basically concluded that our MEC CHAIRMAN S.M. doesnt see anything wrong with what’s going on.

This is exactly why ALPA members being in the training department is a bad idea. Asking our MEC to fix this is like asking them to “Shoot themselves in the foot” so to speak.

Why would any ALPA member do that?? Let along fix the corruption.

Anybody else ready for a change with our SPIRIT ALPA reps??

This has been going on for sometime now. Guys tell the training department schedulers they want day turns only. They get what they ask for every month. I know for a fact FLL is doing this today. Training is pulling all the day turns for training purposes. :confused:

Always DFW......and no....

By Contract they are only allowed to request days off, a violation that OUR MEC CHAIR doesn’t care about!!

I saw the check airmen schedules for September and yes all have turns except one commuter

CA Rep in 77 is fighting this hard and has been taking arrows from many in the MEC over this, but he doesn’t care. He knows is not right and is speaking out.

The entire balance is all screwed up with Check Airman cherry picking trips while having 2 of their own, instructors, serving as status reps for other councils.

Stuart loves this because he is able to consolidate power by having his support in multiple positions. Why else is the check airman group CA rep also the MEC vice chair. Reminds me of having our MEC Chair also serve on the NC. Wait....that happened.

I’ll be flying in to the 77 meeting next week to support the motion for recall of the FO Rep, because he didn’t have the ethics to do so.

Time to change the direction of this rudderless MEC.

I agree the LEC 77 CA REP is fighting hard to change it

(Delete)

Filler

If that is true that check airmen are only allowed to ask for days off and not specific pairings then I am filing a NCC for not getting thoses turns and everyone else should too!

I am going to come up with a cool Rebel tag we can all put on our bags to show our support for this.

https://www.shutterstock.com/search/rebel+logo

Read section 9.G.2.a-k. Read it carefully

Are these pairings not already held out of the main pairing packet? This is how it’s always been and the pairings weren’t built onto the regular lines. Are they now in the PBS bid and you don’t get them because they were awarded to training in your results?

You don’t understand, the trips are being Cherry Picked from Check Airmen, they are building themselves their own schedules.

Back in the day, Jyri was about to get a lot of check airmen resigning because the trips were “horrable”.

So Jyri, told the training scheduler to let the “Check Airmen pick their own schedules”. So now you have junior guys giving themselves senior schedules that they wouldn’t be able to hold.

Ask the LEC 77 CA REP, he can confirm it and give more info.

1) Airing this laundry in a public forum shows a lack of dignity and character.

2) As a former training department member, I can say first-hand that this is NOT how the change in schedule builds went about in 2013.

1. It may, however the practices in play now show the same thing, lack of dignity and character!!

2. Whatever change was put forth reverts back to my first statement!!

So maybe you should consider not speaking about things you know nothing about? Just a thought.

At least your base still has turns. MCO and FLL farmed out most of the turns to crews from other domiciles. Makes zero sense.

Why don't you run for MEC again then? Do us another bang up job like you did before.

The company can withhold an additional 3% of scheduled flying for IOE/OE 25.B.1. It doesn’t say what type of trips.

So I’ll ask again. Is the flying not being withheld before the navblue pbs bid and your trips are being denied in your bid because they are going to training, or do the trips not exist in the navblue pairing packet because they were withheld for training?

If they were withheld prior to navblue it’s completely legal per the contract and is not new. The company can withhold whatever 5% and another 3% of flying for IOE/OE that they want. This is so that the check airman don’t bid regular lines and then the company has to buy the FO off everyone of their trips. Sure would be nice but that is something we never had here at Spirit at least since I’ve been here.

If you want to stipulate what type of flying the company can withhold in their 5+3% withholding then we need to negotiate that because it’s certainly not in the language now.

I feel the pain and I’ve always thought check airmen should bid in the regular bid and FOs get bought off to add the pilot doing IOE/OE. Put that in the bucket of priorities that’s filling up quick. I’m all for complaining but you sound like you are complaining about something happening that isn’t legal which to my knowledge isn’t the case but I could be wrong.

Check airman should bid like all other captains. The trips that they can hold by regular seniority get pulled from the FO trip pool like they do for the no-fly list trips.
Yeah, getting the trips bought from the FO would be great, but this at least solves the seniority bypass on the captain side, without messing up the FO side extra.
Yes, I know, it's not in the contract, but I can dream can't I?

MEC will meet with the training department management to find a solution to help respect seniority while getting their trips covered. So it’s being followed up with; MEC passed a resolution on it. No reason to just wait until next go around

Not a Spirit guy and reading the thread you seem to have a valid gripe. My question is if you ban ALPA members from the training department, who are you going to get to do it? Contractors?

It seems (and I don't know your contract) that if your MEC would just enforce the language you wouldn't have or need to make such a draconian suggestion. By the way, using IPs and Management pilots as "super reserves" isn't right either.

Working training is a two edged sword. It has its benefits but it also keeps you away from what you dreamed of as a kid...flying the jet.

I think he means MEC officers and LEC status reps and not ALPA members at large because we are obviously all ALPA members. I read it the same why as you though. Folks like this forget WE ARE ALPA and refer to “the union” when WE ARE THE UNION.

I think a poor choice of wording was used by Freight Cowboy; “ALPA Members as instructors.” Every pilot on the seniority list is a member of ALPA, even our scab. The idea we should outsource training to non seniority list pilots is probably the worst idea around and already tried by our old Swedish buddy, who wanted to have non seniority list pilots able to give all training and checking. So unless we want a Riddle kid giving you your next line check or PC, it’s a stupid stupid idea that we have contractual language to protect.

If he is referring to having ALPA volunteers serving as instructors, thats another thing. Any rule which would limit/prohibit a good volunteer from joining an ALPA committee, to serve pilots on their off time, just because they were an instructor, is silly. The inverse is true as well; ALPA volunteers are pro pilot; having a motivated pro pilot guy in training is a great thing.

The solution to this isn’t complex and it appears already to be in the works. It’s clear the training department was pulling trips for training that the check airman wanted to be pulled. Having management pull the trips the guys wanted isn’t a bad thing, it’s a good thing they work with the instructors, lets just call it misguided.

All sides seem to be open to finding a solution that’s, “fair,” and respects line seniority. So I’m willing to wait and see what they come up with. But let’s not get it confused, having ALPA volunteers in our training department is a great thing and only helps the influence this pilot group can have in our training and checking

Yes poor wording on my part, MEC and LEC members being in the training department is a bad idea!!

Have you read the section I pointed out earlier??? Yes I understand up to 8 percent total trips, after talking to the 77 CA REP, he has in writing about check airmen basically telling the training scheduler what trips they want to work.. I will say it again the check airmen are telling the training scheduler what trips they want to work.

The company isn’t randomly pulling the trips, they wait for the check airmen to tell them and that has been verified by again our 77 CA REP

I speak of things that have been verified by our CA REP maybe you were left out in the wind??

Not a bad idea, only problem is I have never ran for a union position here

Somebody will always complain no matter the mix of trips. For those doing OE though, considering the override is so small and their schedule gets locked, I really have no problem with them cherry picking too much.

That said, all turns for a new student is a waste of time. They really should see a variety and experience as much of the operation as possible.

This is true. I’d be pretty frustrated if I just had to do a handful of day trips.

How can they (check airmen) be telling the training scheduler which trips to pull when they have no access to the pairings and pairing numbers. Only the company and the scheduling committee has access to the pairings before the company pulls the trips it wants as part of their 8%. The optimizer does it’s magic with all the flying. Then the company pulls its up to 8% if the choose to do so, and builds the training lines, and the rest gets loaded to navblue. A check airman cannot say please pull pairings D1234 and F1234 and put those on my training line because they have no idea what the pairings are. If they are selecting individual trips it must be after the company has already pulled that flying from the pairing packet.

Well looking at the IOT in the bases, the grey instructor pairings, what a shock 99% high credit day trips...again.

It does not take a genius to smell foul on this.

Easy:

Give me those Bogota turns on weekdays only, maybe one 4 day if it's high paying and some 2 days.




You don't have to have the pairing number

Exactly

“It's like Lenin said, you look for the person who will benefit... And, uh... You know, you'll, uh... You know what I mean...”

Bottom line is the Checkairman should be bidding with every other pilot. If they need to buy an FO or a CA off a trip, that’s the company’s problem.

Ok I can see that but the OP said specific trips. Also the pairings are pulled before the check airmen submit their requests I’m pretty sure. Now I can see training scheduling starting to kind of know what the check airmen would probably want through past experience so they pull those type of pairings. Point being the check airmen can only get what has already been pulled.

I agree but why all of a sudden the outcry? This has been the way since forever an no one said anything.

"It's always been done this way."

I think I found the problem.

Plane Coffee

The training pairings are almost always high Block. The training department wants to get the student out in as few days as possible. To that end, they schedule the students with the high-value trips. They may get their training done in six days versus eight. That’s 25% faster.

Ahhhh, effective training at work.

Why give the student 3-4 “up and downs” a day to get repetition down? Nah, let’s put him on a 7.5 LGA block so we can sit in cruise for 3 hours each way and work that folder and talk about their old regional. Super effective!

Starting to make sense why a basic visual approach seems to be difficult for guys out of IOE, probably because they have done only a few.