I’m all for them having an industry leading contract. They certainly deserve it.

The problem is that a lot of them don’t really know what’s going on. I asked what they wanted and a lot of them didn’t know what the group wanted, but most of them wanted more money. The older ones didn’t want PBS and the young ones were just along for the ride and happy to be there.

It’s a weird paradigm. I just nod and smile when their contract stuff is brought up.

 

Same with our FAs. With such a large fraction of folks hired in the last five years it’s hard to get a really solid group on the same page between the seniors and juniors…it’s a first time gig for many of them.

 

The older ones don’t understand PBS, don’t want to learn it . The younger ones don’t care . They just want to post stupid sh!t online in their uniform and travel and aren’t really concerned with it .
It’s a diverse spectrum.

 

Sadly, we have our fair share of “look at me, I’m really cool” types on our side of the door who love to post content online as well.

 

Not many of you were around for Paper hard line bidding. It got a lot better with trip trading--which was rolled out very slowly. The company was worried they couldn't fill trips when someone traded out of it. They quickly figured out that they can just restrict the trip trading--to the point many people find it next to useless.

Anyway, the real reason the company is pushing hard, was mentioned earlier. It's hugely manpower negative. At the time, I think the bankruptcy contract, ALPA put PBS as 20-22% manpower negative. Hard to compare because so many other variables changed with it. Meaning, it will require a lot fewer employees to cover the same flying. From a union stand point, fewer members, less dues, less money.

Bottom line is, with PBS you will work more days. Paper bidding you got more days off with conflict drops, but we didn't have the trip trading system then or what the FA's have now. I'm guessing it will be even more manpower negative for the FA's, and make min time workers QOL less.

Can't really compare pilots schedules to FA's. We have FAR and contractual time limits, they, largely do not. Most of the FA's I have talked to about it, do not understand PBS, but I think AFA leadership hasn't done a very good job explaining it either. They DO understand it will mean more work, for the same pay--meaning essentially a pay cut/hour.

 

can you explain “conflict drops?”

 

You got one week of vacation. Bid a line with 4 days touching first and last day. Boom you are off paid for 15 days.

 

I’ve always referred to it as “intentional disruptions” but same idea. Let’s say you have a vacation that’s starts on the 6th of the month and ends in the 13th. A good strategy is to get a line that has a four day trip which starts on the 3rd. It ends on the 6th, so it is awarded then dropped.
Four day trip that’s starts on the 8th, it is awarded then dropped.
Then bid for another four day trip that’s starts on the 13th, it is awarded then dropped.

So that’s 12 days of work that vanishes from 7 days of vacation.

I’m not here to debate what is better: linear or preferential……but “conflict drops” or whatever you want to call it is largely seen as beneficial to labour and a wise strategy unless you hold like 25 hour 3 day trips to Narita.

 

That’s a contractual not PBS thing.

 

Do you have a source for the 22 to 23% number? At Delta it was projected to be 3 to 4% and turned out to be less as pilots quickly learned to use PBS to their advantage. Delta currently has 29,000 flight attendants with PBS in use. If the 22% number is correct United should have around 37,000 flight attendants. I am sure someone can post the actual number.