What does the forfeit of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of sick time from every pilot get then? The company considers sick time to have a monetary value and 95hr+ drop no pay for sick calls scheme is ALPA endorsed wage theft.

1 Every pilot? I would suggest it's a minority of pilots. I don't know average SL balance at retirement, but I'd wager the average is below 100hrs.
2 You're changing the discussion.
3 With LTD kicking in at 60 days with the new TA, one can lower their emergency LTD sick bank down to 184 hrs (95hrs x 2 minus 6hrs accrued for one month). I've always tried to have 275hrs (95x3 minus 5x2) as my target sick bank.
4 We are now able to use half of our annual SL for kin care no matter where you're based.
5 We all know that we won't get anything for unused SL when we retire. If one chooses not to use SL when they should (flying sick), that's on them.

The union doesn’t view sick leave as a “screw your fellow pilots” bank, which is what some pilots, unfortunately, use it for. They view it as an insurance policy. If you can make it through your career without a devastating injury or illness, consider yourself lucky/blessed.

Pro and Con letters are out.

Why did only the IAH reps and the DEN Fo rep sign the con letter? Didn’t GUM vote no too?

🤣🤣🤣 Nailed it!

If it's not a concession, then why did the MEC Chair just say in the Town Hall that this single issue was argued from February all the way to the last meeting in July? Kirby has all but said unfilled EWR CA vacancies were the reason he opened MCO. That's a powerful "tool" that we are giving up - so it's a concession.

How would you feel if someone told YOU that "anyone voting YES for this thing has lost their damn mind?" A little professionalism please.

what’s your bet on what bases shrink as a result of this forced captain provision? IAH seems to be on that list.

Maybe... but by giving up forced upgrades it hamstrings us on the next contract. So, they gave a bunch of "gives" this time in order to "get" forced upgrades playing the long game that the next contract they won't be forced into so many gives.

Who knows, with no forced upgrades maybe PHX and SEA or ??? would open up and drastically change the lives of hundreds of pilots.

If Kirby's growth projection is correct, then not likely. If it's incorrect then they may certainly let it shrink through attrition or expensive displacements. Who knows.

You're smoking something powerful if you think unfilled Captain vacancies will be an issue in our next section 6 negotiation. There's a better than 50/50 chance that out next negotiation will be with the proverbial gun to our head. Even if not, we won't see a serious push for an AIP inside of 7 years. Either through growth or contraction, we will have no trouble filling Captain vacancies at that time.

Assuming this TA gets ratified, the next contract won’t be for six years or so. The hiring wave to staff the United Next expansion will be complete, the seniority list will be what ever size it turns out to be, and hiring will continue only to cover attrition. Seniority progression and captain vacancies will go back to normal levels and unfilled slots will be a thing of the past.

if Kirby can’t fill the vacancies he will be forced to come to the table with a LOA or something to get that addressed. He’s not going to be like “oh well” let’s cancel airplanes deliveries. we giving all that leverage away.

Have you even bothered to look at how many unfilled CA seats there are on the current vacancy bid?

35…for anybody who is too lazy to check. Seems much lower than recent past. And we don’t even have a TA voted in yet.

Interestingly enough there are also quite a few WB FOs taking the upgrade to NB CA… at least more than I’ve seen in recent pre-TA vacancies

OH NO! More newhires will be forced into WB FO. That sounds unsafe. /s

You're making some huge assumptions here.

For anyone who didn’t watch the live broadcast it’s available on the website. I appreciated GT speaking candidly about how this policy developed over time. It started at management’s request for direct “street to seat” NH captains & worked its way down to what it is today. From his telling, it certainly seemed this was the company’s primary driver to get a deal done.

GT said something to the effect of “People have said if the improvements are sufficient why the need for forcing upgrades, which, exactly.” I wasn’t sure whether that meant he shared frustration over the company’s insistence, or if he thought the proposed improvements were sufficient to render it a non-issue; but I got the sense that it was an 11th hour “make or break” demand by the company. Like, “Okay we gave you something but we’re gonna need an insurance policy.”

So it’s undeniable that this is a powerful motivator & a huge bargaining chip that was pushing the company to get a deal. Did we get fair value for it, or could we have smoked the company out? It’s as much a matter of opinion as whether we could get a better offer by voting no, or what the 10-year impact of this decision are actually going to be.

well of course…. But allowing forced captn eliminates any leverage. At least we would have a chance at good leverage if the United “next” pans out.

When the captain bids started being unfilled, they started moving the vacancies to where pilots actuallly want to be based. That will never, ever, ever, ever happen again. Humongous concession, the effect of which we will never even really be able to measure. Everyone has gotten "retro fever" and is turning blind eyes to huge red flags. You think this wont effect you because you are already in the seat/base you want to be in but it will undoubtedly stunt the growth below you.

Its also selling short the future pilots in a huge way, pilots who are forced to upgrade will inevitably be forced into bases they dont want to be in, transferring out to the base where they want to be as a captain will take years instead of the months that it does for their classmates.

A yes vote is selling out yourselves and future pilots. Full stop.

it will all be ok in a few weeks… take some deep cleansing breaths. 🙄

Newhires will be forced into bases they don't want? Oh the horror! They are newhires. They get the bids that go unfilled. See Section 8 of the contract.... for the last 25 years at least. I voted yes, and it wasn't even close.

Guppie (the sellout)

Guess you quickly scanned my post, looked for what you were looking for and completely missed the point on that one. Just like you did with the TA apparently. They wont be able to transfer as easy as every other pilot has for the last 30 years.

They’ll also be making easily double what new hires have for the last 30 years even adjusted for inflation. A year of positive space commuting and enough pay that buying tickets to work for the rest of their seat lock is a rounding error. That’s a far cry from the days of sleeping in crew rooms or commuting to some dump crashpad for years.

Fair points

Come on guys, let's keep some perspective. We went for YEARS ( yes, years) with maybe 2 vacancy bids per YEAR. Other than our current growth spurt, the easiest movement we've had was during displacements. I've been with UAL for 26 years and I've seen jumpseats limited to cockpit only, massive cuts in flights, low pay, massive pay cuts, terminated pension, extremely limited upgrade/lateral opportunities, no base trade mechanism, and on and on. I'm all for making things better, and reject the idea that everyone should 'suffer' as a right of passage.... But I also do some serious eye rolling at the hyperbolic doomsaying and projected horrors some of you post here

You’re kind of missing the point. By forcing more new hires into EWR/SFO, the company reduces the long-term need in other bases. So those seats in IAH, MCO, etc, that would otherwise be going to more senior pilots dry up in favor of more coastal positions getting assigned in BI. This would be a long-lasting shift, as allows the company to optimize its preferred staffing balance.

So no, it’s not just, oh no, the NHs won’t get their base preferences, it’s that fewer of us will get our base preferences because the NHs will do our current flying out of the bases we don’t like for cheaper.

Do you really expect our pilot base structure to be status quo for the rest of your career? I'll just break your heart now.... The company will grow, shrink, open, and even close categories regardless of this super leverage you think we have. Based on your posts on other subjects I know you are a thoughtful, rational person. My suggestion is that you find a way to get past the obsession you have regarding this issue. You'll be chasing shadows for years if you don't.

Patently false. I was hired in 2000. By 2014, I was ~95% on the seniority list. Moving between bases has never been easier than the present. Where do you people come up with this absurdity?

This is a really stupid post.
You're fairly new to the industry. Stop pretending you're an expert. Times have never been better as far as getting your base of choice. And even if the company sends more pilots to SFO/EWR, it will still be easy to get to your desired base.

Andy you are spot on. The "Mitigator" and "Hummingbird" are clueless and naive. It took sometimes a year or two to get transferred. And if you wanted to get to IAD or DEN, that didn't happen for 5 years for some guys because how senior those bases were. SEA was the same. LAX wasn't too far behind as well. These new-hires have it made. I have to remind some of them that their 2nd year pay was higher than our 12 year pay. I'm happy for the new bunch in almost every way, except for the whining crap I'm hearing about how they have to work weekends, and holidays, and so on. It's like the entitled folks that don't want to go back to working in an office for two days a week, thinking they are remote-only folks. Be happy you got the job, and only have it tough for maybe a year or two at most, with every option available. Heck, many past new-hires didn't even know what reserve was, and i have to explain to them the importance of ensuring we have improved reserve work rules. Oh well, history repeats. Good deeds get forgotten, and folks, especially the younger ones, only vote only for themselves. I've accepted that reality.

Reserve today seems like a cake walk compared to what many of us went through. Being continuously in a state of rest during a 6 day reserve block until the phone rings at 8:00 PM on day 4 to start your 16 hour duty day. Then came protective rest times and we thought that was a game changer. Current 117 limitations seemed like a fantasy back then. One of the dirt bag freight outfits even determined that your 8 hours rest in a 24 hr period didn’t have to be continuous, just a look back to make sure that pilots were released for a total of 8. Fly it or you’re fired. I sure don’t miss those days.

If you think you hear "whining crap" from the new bunch now, can you imagine what their perspective will be when things slow down and it goes back to historical norms? Then their complaint will be the same as now, "You sold us down the river".

"It was the best of times, it was the the worst of times", but the "aggrieved party" will chant the same mantra. The only difference is, the "new bunch" of today will be the "old heads"(5 years on property) of the future.

PS. Recently, it's been like warp speed . Pilots with 5 years at UAL(almost half of that Covid era) consider themselves "old heads" due to insane hiring(they are currently at 60%). Typically that took about half a career(15ish years). Percentage on seniority list is not synonymous with experience, wisdom, and "living the life". One minute in the ring with Mike Tyson typically isn't synonymous with 15 rounds of getting pummeled. BTW, I hope nobody gets "pummeled". The relative new hires have collected their guaranteed purse, I hope they don't have to step into the ring to learn 15 rounds of lessons the painful way.

Newer than some, older than many. I’m not sure how you calculated my time in the industry but I’ve never claimed to be anything other than a jack@$$ on the internet with a bunch of opinions. You are clearly a true expert, or you would not have been able to so quickly determine how stupid I am. I yield to your superior credentials, sir.

Thank you, zen master for the lessons in tranquility, but this is the period for discourse, & one need not be “obsessed” to engage in an active debate on the merits of the TA. I suppose I could criticize everyone promoting it by saying, “you know it’s gonna pass so just be quiet & let it happen”; but I’m in favor of a robust dialogue. When the voting concludes, it will be time to move forward- so let’s keep the horse & cart in that order.

& I didn’t say the status quo for pilot staffing would never change (though that’s an imaginative extreme to take it to) or that no one will ever get a base transfer again. I was specifically addressing the straw man comment that this whole thing was about preserving QOL for new hires, & simply pointing out how it affects other seniority ranges as well. I guess I don’t see why that is so incendiary to some here.

Them carry on. I hope you achieve everything you're hoping for.

You will have total consciousness on your deathbed. So you have that going for you.

Judging by the amount of very new first officers (just off probation) taking the upgrades on the bid award today, the likelihood of anyone ever being “forced” into an upgrade is slim. A lot of these guys and girls seem to be chewing at the bit to go to the left seat. Plus the regional captains will probably trip over themselves to get straight into the left seat out of the gate. No one will be forced, a lot of hysteria over something that won’t happen

Again, you are both completely missing the point. I guess I am not skilled enough in communicating to get you to understand that this isn't about comparing how hard the olden days were to today. I am fully aware of how long transfers/upgrades used to take. Enjoy your big fat signing bonus and the ignorance of not being able to comprehend what you gave up for it.

Bravo! I applaud your internet manners and love your willingness to continue to engage those who disagree with you but find a need to go personal rather than stick to the issue. Bravo!!

Sadly, not so true here :( Also, just because someone looks at an issue and sees it from a different view point does not make their view ignorant. It makes them opposed to your view.