Fellow United pilots,

Yesterday, ALPA and the Company initiated a process which will allow us to open full Section 6 negotiations early. This will accelerate the current UPA timeline with the goal of having a new agreement in place prior to the UPA amendable date, January 31, 2019.

New senior leadership has brought many welcome changes to United, and this is another example of how we are reinventing the company from the ground up. Opening full Section 6 negotiations early is unprecedented at United, and both ALPA and the Company believe this is mutually beneficial. This further shows that the UAL MEC and the Company can overcome outdated and ineffective cultural barriers and move forward together in a positive new direction.

As part of these discussions, we agreed to begin by promptly addressing outstanding UPA implementation and grievance issues. This will speed up the traditional Section 6 process and allow the negotiators to focus on new items. These first steps, by the Grievance and Contract Interpretation/Administration committees, have already begun and will continue over the next few months.

In parallel to those efforts, the UAL MEC will finalize targeted negotiating goals based on pilot input gathered via the contract surveys, polling, LEC resolutions, and PDR system. The efforts you took to make sure the MEC knows your goals will now be put to use in guiding the direction for these negotiations.

After pushing relentlessly toward this goal for the last year, yesterday's meetings were an encouraging first step, and I look forward to working with senior leadership to conclude this process expeditiously. As we have shown in the past year by working together, ALPA and the Company can make United the best airline in the world for both employees and customers.


Captain Todd Insler
Master Chairman
United MEC

 

Let the unfiltered, out-of-context public negotiations begin!

Go APC, do your thing!

 

Not this guy but yeah let the tea leaf reading prognosticators begin

 

I think its promising that this news has been up for several hours and no one has posted a wishlist yet.

 

I fear the early offering comes at some type of scope relaxing / pending order etc . I pray I am wrong.

 

Seems like a good thing - negotiating in a stable time like this rather than after some significant unforeseen event, with this management team and coming from a good (or at least widely accepted by the pilot group) contract. They want growth and have at least some kind of plan. Taking out this variable earlier for the company makes it easier to get a longer term growth plan in motion. “Hats off!” to those that worked to set this up. Pun intended.

 

Nothing to fear there, the answer is NO. Next section.

 

The only way to have a deal in place at the amendable date is to start early. Seems logical.

 

They want something. Management spread the sales pitch at the domicile town halls and standards meetings knowing the lca's and standards capts will do their bidding. This has to set in to the point that pilots have mental sightings of the aircraft in United colors on the ramps of Toulouse, Everett, or third party vendors. Refurbished and ready to go. The carrot

Now comes early section 6 coinciding with a couple references to a reduction in mainline flying if their demands aren't met.
The stick.

They'll have grand plans for which RJ's are essential. Updated mainline/rj ratios will be proposed. You'll be told how much you'll benefit from approving these new ratios, and the dire outlook if you don't. They'll tell you how we can't afford to fly those planes at mainline. Really? How many of those rj flights connect passengers to high dollar international flights?

How many of you new hires were frustrated being stuck at the regionals/military for ten years or longer during the great regional experiment? How many of you are tired of seeing substandard service at the regionals? How many of you are tired of getting kicked off a jumpseat on OUR routes? Lower boarding priority on a regional flight on OUR routes? GMAB

If management does not possess the skills to operate those planes as mainline, then I guess we should shrink. It doesn't look good on their resume though. It's time to leave this profession in a better position then many of us found it.

 

What. The. (Coagulted fibrogen). Are. You. Talking. About?