I get that, but how does the new language change that or have anything to do with backfill numbers.. in other words, how does letting or not letting someone junior to the most junior person in base in that fleet/seat have any affect on the staffing numbers.. he said “they have been using that new language to shrink the base” but I am not seeing how it has any affect on the staffing levels.

 

assume the company wants to shrink the base and that the pilots know and coordinate to fight it

the company’s move is to not backfill vacancies. Every bid you put cle’s min at 5 less than current. That would let the base naturally wither over time.

but what if pilots had a way to leave Cleveland and MAKE the company replace them? They do… a base trade. In the old system anyone in the company, in particular new hires, could use this every month to access CLE. If you want to upgrade to cle Ca or sfo 777 fo or whatever, you base trade to EWR first and then make the move you want. That prevents the company from shrinking the base

but with the new system, the company has cut off the readiest supply of in-traders… new hires. So the no backfill strategy would gradually shrink the base and make it more senior, making the trade restrictions even more potent.

 

That still doesn’t have any effect on the min/max. It would require every pilot in the base be on board with not altering their own position during a vacancy bid. Meaning no upgrades, no bidding out for a WB FO or CA. I doubt that would ever work in practice.

 

ok, I can possibly see this but with the number of vacancies we we have I do see it making a difference. Anyone who is wanting to bid out of a base to a different fleet or seat is going to it via the most expeditious means possible for them. They would not really have a vested interest in making sure the base didn’t shrink.

For someone who wants to leave a base to change fleets/seats, why would they go through the extra step of base trading and then putting in a vacancy bid? Not to mention the number of people wanting to leave via a vacancy would most likely exceed the number of base traders anyway.

 

Before my time, but I’m told that’s one of the ways CLE has stayed open or at the very least stayed as large as it is. The pilot group trades out and then bids what they want.

 

Unified groups can do a lot

regardless, it cannot work in practice or theory after upa23