I do not get the impression Lemonade was/is being a troll.....merely trying to learn the nuances of the CBA in an effort to duplicate your awesome 25 days off. Hell, I'd like to get 25 concurrent days off too......

Perhaps you shouldn't be so sensitive?

 

Jey here is why some of us get upset when guys from Delta (and it always seems to be one from Delta) talk down on us.

You need to stop comparing Delta with Spirit. You are a 10000+ pilot group with several hundreds of airplanes. You have a contract that was negotiated over and over many more times than ours was. Some negotiated during good times, some in bankruptcy.

Our last two was negotiated in bad times against a privately held company. There was a lot of guessing on ALPA's side. Not to mention our airline almost went out of business in 2008. When we voted on the TA in 2010, the economy was (and still is today) in the toilet. We now have 40 airplanes and 630 pilots. I think that is a new record here. We are tiny. Did Delta have an industry leading contract when you had 40 airplanes? I have no clue. You tell me.

It is very easy to say that your pay is higher if that is all you are looking at. You know nothing about our contract, and why would you. We have a lot of things that you don't. Your contract is most likely better all thing considered, but we are not as far behind as you may think and many of us would not trade with you. Matching numbers on APC is the worst light you can show us in.

But it looks like with your new TA you guys will not raise the bar either. May be among the legacy carrier you will look good but you will not beat SW in their category. That much is for sure. But why would I compare SW to DL? I am glad you guys will get a raise! It will help us next time around. This last time we have manged to break away from the bottom and got closer to the average. Next time we may have a 100 airplanes or more. May be the economy will be a bit better too. We are also public now. I think we will have a good chance to catch up and pass some airlines and be above average. I doubt we will raise the bar, but we will raise the average. And that is good news to all of us.

And as far as comparing soft time. Sure. But lets not compare 767 international layovers with 320 domestic layovers.

 

Norm,

I really wasn't trying to start a "my airline is better than yours" thing. I'm sure our contract is better than yours on the whole, because of the reasons you mentioned.

I just hate to see guys accepting management's squeezing more out of us. We know what "shiny jet syndrome" is, maybe this is "I'm lucky that airline x keeps me around syndrome." But to be happy about having to fly 90 or 95 hours to make what you need to make because of a low hourly rate, IMHO, is bad. To be happy about getting xx hours while having 11 days off, IMHO, is bad. I'd rather be beat with a bat than work 19 or 20 days a month. That's all.

On your points about our TA. I'm still a no, but many things are better than they first appeared. I think the pay rates are lower than we should agree too. However, according to some charts the union has put out, (and I have no idea how accurate their data is WRG to the SWA pay), when you add in the dc contribution, we will surpass their compensation by 2015. Again, I need to study it more, but it may well be raising everyones bar, and it begins now, not 2 years after the ammendable date.

Point is , alot is better than it first seemed. Food for thought.

Do I expect your next contract to surpass whatever we sign, or our current CBA? no. Spirit obviously doesn't generate the revenue or have the economies of scale to cover that kind of cost at this point. Just keep improving every time and don't be happy working like crazy if it's just to line BB's pockets.

 

No spin dude. You said you did nothing and got paid. In reality, you took your vacation. We all do it. Get over it.

 

Fair enough. But I am sure you understand it does seem like trolling if you drop two one liner posts with little content.

And for the record, I don't need to work that hard. All the bills were still paid on time when I made almost nothing on furlough. Actually I am looking at a 25 day long vacation (using two weeks only) that I could extend up to 32-35 or may be even a bit longer if I wanted to, and still collect my guarantee. All that while I am already set up for a transition conflict. It really does not suck working here.

Some people work 90h lines at top paid outfits as well. At Spirit there are plenty of guys who fly their line and float a trip for vacation every other month. Actually according to our CBT a pilot is free to drop everything month after month (no pay protection though) as long reserve coverage supports it. Also because of our new CBT, after some arbitration, it seems we have managed to force the company to hire more pilots than we have ever had per plane. I thought that was pretty cool.

Anyways. Good luck with that TA. The better you do, the better the chances for for the rest of us.

 

Point taken.

 

This is key. No matter how you slice it, no "big" airline has gotten anything significant done in the last, what, 10 years or so. We should be building on USAirs, CAL's, AMR's and UAL's contract. Instead we've done our own thing on the merger contract, the many improvements outside of section 6, and now it looks like a full on renegotiate (maybe) before our peers, and THEN be ready to negotiate again by the time (and maybe before) they wrap up their originals. I think the key is the ball keeps moving forward.

(although I still need a few tweeks before I'm a "yes")

 

Just one more note, and a change of gears, to the PBS thing.

The benefits that you describe are the BIG advantages of line bidding. No argument there. PBS also reduced staffing requirements. (this was my major heartburn when we went to PBS while I and my co-furloughees were still out).

Just to give you a glimpse of the positives. Before, on line bidding, let's say I wanted a few specific days off. Well, first I sorted through the bid pack to find the lines that met that. Let's say that leaves me with 15 available lines. Now maybe I'm a commuter. cut out the non-commutables, now maybe I'm down to 7 or so. Now are those desirable lines, i.e., can I hold them?

On PBS, I tell the thing what days I want off, and it gives them to me. Granted, my seniority allows that, but if you're willing to accept crappier trips, you can dictate days off down to a pretty low seniority. It's nice flexibility. And the more senior you are, it becomes HIGHLY customizable. [show times, credit times, release times, layovers, legs per day, credit per day, etc..etc..]

Anyway, in case you haven't thought of the other side of the coin.

 

I'm sure computer savvy trumps seniority at times too.
By the way I don't mean that in a bad way. As a point of comparison, there are still guys who can't do their bid without the paper bid package.

 

It absolutely does, sometimes.