SKMarz

In the town hall last month, they said they were going to discuss future bids. Last night, several people asked on the chat and no one responded in any way, all they talked about was Aviate. The screen has been open for weeks. Anyone have any idea what the heck is going on? I know it was likely just going to be a clean up bid, but why the radio silence?

KnightNight

Probably trying to figure out how the Ukraine conflict will affect Europe travel this summer and how the 777 coming back affects things. Think next Friday is the latest of the last vacancy will expire…

horrido27

Considering how training is a joke right now, I agree that they are probably trying to un**** the mess they have made before offering another vacancy bid.
When you consider-
Unfilled Capt slots
Open ended LCA/TI positions on all fleets
Numerous Pilots Pay Protected on other equipment
Pilots at home waiting for training.. and
Pilots being sent back to training due to exceeding their time between LOE and IOE

We're in for a long long bumpy ride.

Yes, we ALL want our company to do well. But the reality is, we have now been dragged into a hole where it will take a while to get out. Just as we thought/hoped CoVid might be in the rear view mirror, the world got stupid again last Fall into this Winter. Now, as we thought THAT might be coming to an end.. Russia decides to have a dick measuring contest (where thousands of innocent people will die/lose everything).
We can only hope that this is a short term event but if this last longer and Europe/America tries to punish them.. I expect our Summer flying will go to **** and any Russia Overflight might be out of the question with regards to some of our longhaul stuff.

Bid?! Company doesn't like bad news so they will probably keep their heads in the sand until they have to.
Someone mentioned a Contractual reason to have a bid based on unfilled positions. Maybe that person can put the contract language up with a date.

Till then-
FS, FP & FtC
Motch

horrido27

Looking at the list of Aircraft parked, I see all but one of the triples with the engine issue still parked?! If they are/were supposed to come out starting Feb.. um, .. what happened?
Sometimes the silence is deafening
Motch

PS) Hope that they do start coming back on line. Yet strange that we have not made the announcement of which tails are coming back and when. While we might not need them to fly longhaul yet, they could be a great tool to use during irregular ops or transcons thereby free up some other equipment for domestic flying.

PPS) Notice the CCS msg last night about COLA's and empty lines.. hmm.

GoCats67

Here is the contractual reference.

8-C-8 Bulletined but unfilled First Officer vacancies and secondary vacancies may be used by the Company for the assignment of new hire pilots. This Section 8-C-8 shall not be applicable while any furloughed Pilot has not been offered recall.

8-F-3-d In the event a vacancy is not filled within ninety-two (92) days of the date the award bulletin was issued, the vacancy shall be cancelled.

Since the last Vacancy award (2204V2) was issued on December 15th, that would mean that the unfilled vacancies expire on Mar 17th. So, the class that starts the week of Mar 21 would not have any assignments available to give to new hires.

Then you have to figure out when to issue a Vacancy bid to award it on time for that class.

8-C-2 Subject to the provisions of Section 8-D, pilots shall be eligible to be awarded vacancies. Vacancy bulletins shall state the number and Category of primary vacancies to be filled; the effective date of the award; the anticipated dates training is to start; and the current minimum and maximum number of positions, as determined by the Company, for all Categories. All vacancies listed on the same bulletin shall share a common closing date and a common effective date. Vacancy bulletins shall be posted not later than noon local time on the date the bulletin is issued and shall close not sooner than noon local time on the tenth (10th) day following the date of issuance.

Vacncies have to be open for ten days. So that means that if you wanted the final vacancy award to be published by Mar 18th, you would have to publish the vacancy bulletin by March 7th or 8th

So if we don't have a vacancy bid out by March 7th/8th, then we have a problem for the new hire class the week of Mar 21st.

jdavk

They’re on the schedule for March.

horrido27

I have heard they are on the schedule for March.. maybe someone who is a triple pilot and has a trip awarded with a tail number associated with it a grounded aircraft can post the tail number and also what SSD Aircraft tracking shows for that tail.. that is what I was implying.

Thanks
Motch

horrido27

Thank You!
So we have 10 days(ish) till we know for sure.
That being written.. wonder if they can still run classes without a vacancy bid beforehand. Have they not done that before? Did we have the required time when we started to hire again last year?

Crazy F'ing times..
Always
FS, FP & FtC
Motch

GoCats67

Never done that in the past. I have only been here 24 years though.

I would argue that they can have a new hire class, but that they couldn't give out aircraft/base assignments until a vacancy bid was posted and awarded. As new hires, those pilots would be eligible to bid on that vacancy bid and whatever they got would become their "new hire" assignment.

Hopefully somebody will point out to the new guy that he "has" to have a vacancy bid so he doesn't run into this problem.

But not to worry because if that is not what the company interpretation is, we could just do an LOA to cover the situation.

GoCats67

According to the bid packages they start on the 4th ish of Mar. SSD doesn't show the aircraft type being updated yet, but that should be happening soon. They currently show as 777 C models in employee res, but they have seats blocked like they are going to be 777 A models. Look at 632 IAD-LAX on 4 March in employee res and you can see they have blocked 24 of the 50 first class seats. I think that is the first flight in the schedule with a PW 777.

Looks like Island flying starts on the 27th of March, but figure that is predicated on everything going well for the three weeks of lower 48 flying prior to that.

Hopefully they will update SSD sometime next week for the transcons, but I am not sure when that trigger will get pulled