^^^^^^^ This! Much better said!

 

Looks like the Capt upgrade time is at about 5 years now. It is about to get a whole lot longer too. We will be at the half way mark to 144 planes in two months. Then technically there are no captain seats available for new hires. I would suspect that the company will eventually announce another order. Hope you made it on in time. Not to mention that our pay is way behind industry average. I am sure if things do not go well in August, pilots will be leaving in droves. At least that's what most guys have told me they are waiting to see. Some have already started to leave.

 

Haha, come on man, thats using the most basic of basic of calculations here. I agree that those hired today are looking at 5 years and you'll need to get hired this year to see an upgrade within the current orders.

But airlines will staff more CAs than FOs and there will be attrition over the next 5 years for pilots who would be able to hold a CA spot in the next 5 years, so it is not as simple as saying "half way"

But I do agree that someone hired today wont see an upgrade in this decade unless more planes are announced.

 

That is a fare assessment. We do not have very many guys retiring though. The days of a fast upgrade are coming to an end. Our upgrade time will be comparable to the legacy airlines before you know it.

 

cue Gringo in 3...2...

 

Friend at Delta is a 7.5 year guy, says he could upgrade in a few months. Delta just announced 190 CA slots. That time will drop, too as they are hiring 100 a month. Soon the Legacys will be at our timeline for upgrades.

 

No argument here. Both Dems and Repubs are guilty as sin.


In my seemingly continued efforts to keep our MEC power structure unhappy with me…………WRONG. The assertion that our work rules are the result of a strike is just plain WRONG!

"5 days off in a row to the max extent possible, no less than 4" was an existing work rule before we had a CBA.

Transition conflict existed from the first CBA, negotiated in 1998 and ratified early in 1999. (BTW, we had pure conflict bidding in C1999, which was given up in C2003) The "max six days" conflict we have now is better than the C2003 version but still not the original pure conflict.

"No JA" was in the original, C1999, CBA.

The "no jeopardy" commute clause was gained in 2007, outside of contract negotiations, as part of the base closure mitigation negotiations when Spirit announced that they were closing DTW.

Red/Green is a part of the automation section of the scheduling section. As such, it isn't a work rule. The current ability to drop a trip isn't the result of a red/green work rule, it is the result of an overstaffed airline. The actual language regarding "required daily minimum reserve coverage" is found only in the Float Vacation section. And, Section 25.R.4.a.1, allows the company to establish said min coverage based on the companies "experience". This is still a work in progress *

In general, the vast majority of our work rules, QOL, etc were either part of the existing work rules from pre 1999, or were implemented in C1999, or were the result of LOA's made outside of Section 6.

For a bit of trivia, how many of you know why the Spirit pilot group organized in the first place?



*The last I saw from the union, and I may have missed something, …..the arbitrator sent both parties back to the table to decide on some agreeable language that would reflect both parties understanding of this section. This was published in the arbitors opinion of the latest red/green ruling.



Answer to trivia: According one of the guys who was here when I was a new hire, and retired soon after, they organized for merger protection - not because they desired to fight with Ned. This explains why so much of C1999 was simply a formalization of the then existing work rules package.

 

On a completely different note:
http://www.smartcockpit.com/download...18_to_A321.pdf

Here's the book Airbus expects you to have when you learn the bus. Good info, but not official because it's not kept current.

 

Now that's strange because Matyas told me that he got all that stuff with his 357 Magnum in contract 2010

 

The latest vacancy bid result that posted this week showed the most junior captain as a 9/2012 hire making his time from new hire to award 2.5 years. I'm not saying that it's going to stay that way going forward, it's just that the upgrade is currently not 5 years at present.