Ummmmm........it should be pretty obvious to you why you aren’t working on reserve at present. Just wait, though...after thousands of lambs go to slaughter toward the end of the year you will enjoy pleeeeeenty of quality time as the crew desk biotch.

 

This 1000%

 

It is absolutely obvious and I think it will be quite some time, even with furloughs before anyone becomes a "biotch".

 

It's almost like it's too good to be true! Cheer the shiny object! Cheer the shiny object!

Have you ever wondered why management never changes their playbook? It's because the same plays keep working.

 

It sounds a little too good to be true when you summarize the AIP like you did. I feel like a healthy amount of skepticism is good in this situation. Similar to that of a seasoned gambler who is skeptical of the “free” drinks and comped rooms.

 

I’m going out on a limb here, but I bet those items had already been agreed too in the ongoing negotiations. They’ve just been re-wrapped to buy the votes.

 

You'd think so but I'm already on SC #3 for the month with no flying.

 

Someone has to eat that sandwich for those of us who’ve turned into pumpkins.

 

The contract also says we can pick up premium pay trips, whether or not pilots are on furlough. That’s what my contract says. You may not have been displaced to a lower pay category, but some of us have, and we have already taken pay cuts.

 

Just curious how you fared during the merger being out on furlough? Do you think you would have done better on the property, even at a lower MPG with 10 years of longevity instead of the 3-4 you probably had? I bet if you were 2,000 numbers more senior, you’d have a lot more choices than you do now.

I believe that this environment will trigger more consolidation and the only airlines we are likely to acquire are JB, AS, F9, or Spirit. If so, those airlines are unlikely to have large numbers of pilots on furlough, if any. The short term pain would be nothing compared to finding out that you are being merged in with a 2015 JB/AS/F9/Spirit hire because our 3,000 furloughs are being jammed in at the bottom. Most of those airlines have a MUCH younger pilot group. I personally, don’t want to end up in a merger where the pilot right ahead of me was hired years after me at another airline, and is 7 years younger than me, and then multiply that by 1,500 or more pilots.

I’d also like to be at an airline that if things change quickly, we can respond quickly, or we can let the other airlines just take that market share permanently possibly. Southwest has come out publicly saying they want to do just this.

I’m not saying I’m voting yes, because I haven’t seen it. But I don’t believe this is a B scale TA because air travel is about 1/3 of what it was 8 month ago, in case you didn’t know. We have less flying and we need to understand that. I respect your wanting to defend the contract, but its the ability to adapt that is going to be required to still be working at the same airline in 5 years.

We have two choices...maintain the status quo, which was a contract not designed for a worldwide travel stopping pandemic, or negotiate some things that benefit us in the long-term. I am willing to see what the details are, and if we all vote no, that’s fine, but we have to understand that it may give us a few more dollars now, but a few years from now it may cost us a lot more.