My gusss is FOs that came here maybe 1.5 years ago with 1500-2000TT had their 3000 to upgrade, when guys that were hired 3 years ago with 300-500 hours were still time building and ineligible for upgrade as of two days ago, and are now suddenly eligible to upgrade now. So now that FO that was slated for upgrade class in the next month or two and getting bypass pay, is now going to upgrade a year from now and is back to normal FO pay rates. Meanwhile new hire CQFOs with lowef time are making twice as much ,money.

 

A year from now? Really? How did you do that math? This has been out for one day and not an official notification. Let's all take a deep breath and see what happens. I find it hard to believe this announcement will push upgrades a year into the future.

Also, as of this announcement, they can't take away bypass pay. If you had your bid in and a CQFO was hired into a spot you could have upgraded, you should still get bypass pay until you upgrade as your upgrade was bypassed.

 

Amen to that sir.

 

Actually, you can lose your bypass pay as it is on a one for one basis. So if more guys senior to you now qualify for upgrade, they are now considered the ones bypassed and you could lose the pay.

 

It all depends on how well this place is organized and how strict the contract is.

In past experience, and how it should be done is a vacancy notice should be posted with X amount of captain positions to fill. Then an award comes out with those that can hold it with the upgrade hour requirements. Then next to their name it should say “bypassed” and then have the person that they are linked to who is causing them to receive bypass pay.

Once you hold a captain position, you should not be able to to be bumped out of that position unless a displacement notice is posted, and obviously we shouldn't get one of those unless we’re in trouble.

Now with the new minimums posted, when a new vacancy is announced, those who were unable to hold captain due to hour requirements should now be able to hold a newly announced captain position, NOT displace someone else who has been awarded a captain position.

But considering we still submit our standing bid via a piece of paper, and not by an online form, I dont expect this process to be done in a correct manner.

 

This whole deal gets messy now matter how they do it. It's almost cleaner for the company to just lower new hire CQFO mins and that's it. That'll tick off a lot of folks but it's less messy. This is also the only announcement made so far. Nowhere has lower upgrade mins been announced... Interesting times

 

Problem is that they are not awarding bypass pay on a vacancy. They are hiring the CQFOs and just figuring out who has their bid in and the ability to hold captain. The last vacancy only awarded 6 captain spots when several more people had their bid in and there were already ~60 CQFOs in training. I have a feeling this will get very messy. It is very different from Pinnacolaba.

 

I have a feeling that anyone who thinks this isn't being thoroughly tracked hasn't talked to their union rep and doesn't have any clue what the company and union are doing. So, maybe instead of making poor assumptions, you can send an email to your elected representative. Just a thought.

 

One elected representative was standing in class yesterday saying "until they upgrade the guys on the bypass list now, they wont lower minimums." This aint my first rodeo. Ive been on committees. The MEC might get a little info from the company, but not much. Especially when negotiations are about to start.

Theres no meat in the vacancy section of the contract. They can pretty much do as they please.

At the same time though, they need FOs just as much as Captains. So they better tread lightly with how they treat people on property.

 

I think it's funny that people may be moved back on the standing bid list by 20 guys with 45 airplanes coming online over the next year and they think it's the end of the world. "I'll never upgrade!"

People need to step back and relax for one second. The fact that they are lowering minimums is a good thing for most. CQFO's on property are still going to be flying in the left seat. Nothing has changed on the aircraft delivery schedule.