Awarding of Bases?
 

I'm hoping someone can answer a question about how bases are assigned after a system bid at CAL. On the last system bid, there were approximately 10 UAL furloughees awarded LAX 737 FO slots. I was recently looking at a list of people in that base and noticed that the bottom guy on the 737 there was NOT on the list of pilots awarded LAX during the bid. He is actually THE bottom guy on the list and lives in LA so I know he wanted the base.

So my question is, how is it possible to end up in a seat you were not awarded during the "regular system bid?" Does CAL just fill open slots with the "next in line" bidders?

Can anyone shed some light on this? Thanks.

SNA320

Base trade possibly?

He may have been awarded it on the system bid, but not staffed there yet. The system bids have 1 year until they are in full effect. Or as stated a base trade.

I was in the process of doing a base trade with another pilot and he took the base trade away from me, which at Continental, he is allowed to do during the 30 posting period. It was a pilot to pilot base trade which can happen at any time.

Speaking of system bids... August is right around the corner and I haven't heard a single rumor. Let's start some.

Ok, here we go (rumor). Classes are filled through the end of Oct with 100 (of the final 248) ual furloughees. Hiring to begin in September (off the street )with 48/month for the foreseeable future.

War E

Ok, thanks for the answers guys.

-Coto, sorry he sniped the slot from you, hope you get LAX sooner rather than later.

-SNA320

Weird things like that could be hardship

I was told last week that the system bid will come out between mid August and mid September and there will be LAX FO vacancies on it.

That is correct......
To add, the "pilot to pilot base trade" can also be 'voided' during that 30 day period if someone senior to you (someone outside the two parties trading) objects/shoots down the base-trade that you an another Pilot have proposed. That 'objection' thus voids the base trade, and this must happen within the 30 Day period of the two Pilots announcing/posting their intentions of the "pilot to pilot base trade".

As far as the OP's question, and what was mentioned above, I would also guess a possible "hardship" as well in that specific case. I've seen something like that very case on the B777-FO in IAH about 5-6 years back. You can also call the CAL-ALPA and clarify the true answer regarding the award is more questions linger.

Temporary Hardship.

Who's "he"?

So what happens if you are hired off the street in Sept/Oct, and a couple months later there is a contract and SLI. Would you be furloughed or just remain at the very bottom while a 1000+ guys come back?

I'm not 100% (rumor around the cooler) on this, however, from what I hear...there will be a "no flush or bump clause". Which basically means you hold your position and are not furloughed,however, when a position becomes available, that individual who is senior to you, moves into that position. You will be stagnate for quite sometime. (

If you were going to be stagnate for some time, 737 reserve is a good place to be stagnate.

"...while a 1000+ guys come back? "

Shoot the airline's over 1000 pilot short right now for the summer flying and this Dec. the retirements kick in so I would wager being furloughed is the least of the worries.

You make a funny joke..

Just my opinion..
At some point in the near future, hiring will HAVE to start. Question becomes, is it only on the CAL side or is it "United". That's up to the company. When they decide to offer us a real contract, we'll become a Unified, Real Airline.

That being said-
If "CAL" hires in the Fall due to retirements AND 73/78 aircraft deliveries (in 2013).. then a couple of things COULD happen in the future.
1) All those hired will have numbers that go after the UAL Furloughs. So, one day IF we ever truly merge, those new hires will be behind the UAL Furloughs (who return). It is the correct thing.
B) All those hired COULD potentially be furloughed in the next few years (depending on Scope and what's in a JCBA)

That being said, I would say that anyone hired here at sCAL in the Fall wouldn't be in that bad of a place. Yes, potentially you will still have a couple of hundred more pilots being placed in front of you someday after a JCBA and a Seniority List Integration.. But- you will have you number with the "combined" airline.
You can still apply to anyone and everyone in the next few years while things settle down over here. Worse case, you're stuck on the bottom of the list here vs. being at some regional or jobless after getting out of the military.

Looking down the road in 5-10 years.. if you're hired at the beginning of this wave, you'll be in a pretty decent place IF United is still around by that time. Me, it's 50-50 that we'll survive that long based on the current management team.

Again, this is just my opinion~

Motch

That's something they should think about before taking a job with UAL. With a new contract and the SLI you can bet that there will be lots of guys saying yes to the recall. The furloughed guys can come rolling in over the next 6 years as well. The 1st batch of UAL pilots to be furloughed on the second go around was in Septrmber 08. They have recall rights until Sept 2018.

FWIW, about 25% of the furloughed UAL pilots will have already returned to the property (via the S-CAL offer) or are scheduled to return by the Oct 30th class.

With probably only another 25% ever returning (wild guess based on the last cycle) between now and 2019 and around 500 retirements per year indefinitely, I'd suggest that any perceived "stagnation" will be mild unless UAL shrinks in size.

In an interesting twist, the L-UAL side is reactivating the new-hire department in DEN and also hiring A320 instructors; at L-LUAL all instructors must be sourced from active pilots on the seniority list per the current pilot contract.

Either UCH is hedging their bets on separate ops or perhaps they anticipate new hires at both training centers in the not too distant future?

I am not saying this isn't true, Do you have a source/proof? The manpower planing guy on the UAL side now reports to the CAL manpower planning guy (CB). The CAL guy is notorious for running extremely thin pilot staffing.

Does anybody know if the new-hire/recruitment departments have been combined?

liquid

Any word of them sending any more 737s to ORD and 320s to IAH? Any info on the August bid reflecting this?

[QUOTE=El Gwopo;1232816]Any word of them sending any more 737s to ORD and 320s to IAH? Any info on the August bid reflecting this?[/

Rumor: possible SFO base and increase in ORD, LAX and DEN

Might as well open that IAD base, too. Seems they've opened a base wherever UAL had a guppy base.

I do, but since it was posted over on the private UAL forum I won't copy it here. In short, it was an email from one of folks tasked with restarting the new-hire department and sent to a colleague detailing his new position.

I would like to think that the departments in IAH and DEN are fully coordinated which makes me suspect that UCH is hedging its bets on the absence of JCBA and/or preparing to hire(recall) into the junior aircraft of both former subsidiaries. The A320 instructor position openings have been posted.

August Manpower Planning update
 

AUGUST 2012

General

The “right gauging” of the airline continues, and has made its way to the wide
body fleets.
We continue to adjust the sit times in an attempt ensure safety, and maintain
productivity. The problem is much like the child’s game “Whack a Mole.” If we
squeeze the sit times down, then something else pops up. This something else
might be total sit time, loss of productivity, etc. In other words, more time in the
hotel, or more time in the food court (but more days at home).
Projections:

NOTE: Much of what you see here is based on projections from Network Planning.

Especially when making bidding decisions, keep firmly in mind that EVERYTHING is in
a state of flux right now. The only constant is change, or as we call it on the PC, the
“New Normal!”
We still expect a system bid in the August time frame. ORD, DEN, and EWR
will see increases in B737 crews, while CLE will be allowed to shrink without
involuntary displacements.

IAH B756 will probably keep EZE and GRU through Dec.
IAH is slated to lose all of the B764 departures in the near future, perhaps by the
end of this year. For now, expect that IAH B756 pilots will continue to be
qualified on the B764. In other words, with the stroke of a pen, Network Planning
could bring them back. In related moves, expect to see increased B757 flying in
IAH, decreased B757 flying in EWR, increased FOs (IROs) in EWR, and reduced
FOs (IROs) in IAH.
In the near term, IAH B756 crews will probably see some MUC flying; however,
this will mostly be done from the EWR base.

L-UAL B763s will take over much of the deep SA flying. Expect a IAH base in
Sept with about 70 crews.

Between the CBA issues, ISL issues, and equipment differences, it is possible that
L-CAL B756 bases will NOT mix with L-UAL B756 bases anytime in the
immediate future. Once we have a CBA and ISL, this might not preclude pilots
from either subsidiary bidding onto either fleet, it would simply mean separate
BES for each. At this point, nothing is certain.

B787
Mid-sept delivery
Initial training of B777 Captains (28) and FOs (34)
Later training of Captains and FOs from other fleets
There will be a couple of weeks that it will be down for MX
training
Validations and proving runs will follow.
Domestic until sometime in the first quarter, hub to hub.
Total of 6 by end of first quarter
Total of 7 by the end of the third quarter
Expect to see DEN->NRT, IAH-LAX-NRT-LAX-IAH, and maybe
a European Destination on a temporary basis.

B777
IAH will probably drop from 4 departures a day to 3. This is still under
review, and either way, we don’t expect any involuntary displacements.
DEN and ORD
In September, expect to see 25 Captains and 25 FOs advanced to each
base most of these from IAH base.

PBS
As you already know, thanks to your PBS Committee and their work with
the company, the problem of double pumping in PBS was restricted in the
domestic B737 bases beginning in August. The PBS Committee continues
to work with the company to develop an intelligent waive statement so
that this feature can migrate to other fleets. As with many things in
computers, the more “intelligent” the waive statement, the more difficult
to use, the easier for the users (pilots) to misapply, and the more difficult
to develop and support.

RED-EYE Flying
As everyone knows, this Summer we saw a dramatic increase in B737 ANF (All
Night Flying, the new term for red-eye). As the table shows below, with the end
of the Summer schedule, the ANFs are returning to a more normal level.
However, we should probably expect a similar ramp up next Summer.

This is the unimatic emote from Bill.


DSPNOT TITLE:/ SPECIAL ASSIGN /LET TYPE/ / EFFDTE:/ 071312
AUTHOR: /KENNEDY,BILL /ADDRS /DENFO /EXPDTE:/ 072712
ON MONDAY I WILL BEGIN A SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT AT DENTK, WORKING
WITH A TEAM OF INDIVIDUALS TO DESIGN AND BUILD THE NEW PILOT
HIRING AND PILOT DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION FOR UNITED AIRLINES.
THIS SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT WILL LIKELY GO THRU THE END OF THE YEAR.
SUE BENKER WILL BE FILLING IN FOR ME WHILE I'M GONE. SUE CAN BE
REACHED ON xxx- xxx-xxxx OR AT: [email protected]

REGARDS,

ON MONDAY I WILL BEGIN A SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT AT DENTK, WORKING
WITH A TEAM OF INDIVIDUALS TO DESIGN AND BUILD THE NEW PILOT
HIRING AND PILOT DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION FOR UNITED AIRLINES.
THIS SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT WILL LIKELY GO THRU THE END OF THE YEAR.
SUE BENKER WILL BE FILLING IN FOR ME WHILE I'M GONE. SUE CAN BE
REACHED ON xxx- xxx-xxxx OR AT: [email protected]

REGARDS,[/QUOTE]

Don't sUAL recalls need to happen before new hires start??

Don't sUAL recalls need to happen before new hires start??[/QUOTE]

Maybe they will be looking for replacement workers, I think they realize that it will be impossible to find any through recalls;)

So out of curiosity, in general for the UA pilots that have taken the CAL offer, where are they based right out of training? I imagine EWR would be the must JR. If that is the case how long has it taken to get based in IAH or to any points west of there (LAX/DEN)?

The new hire bases are typically EWR, IAH or GUM. There's are now UA pilots in LAX but they had to wait for a system bid to get there. I don't think UA pilots have gotten to the other domiciles yet.

Thanks for the response Coto. So EWR is not a given prison sentence for guys that commute form parts out West then? I know its hard to predict, but is this trend rather consistent when it comes time for new hires once all the UA guys have been given a shot?

Getting guam is probably less then 5% and if you dodge that its 50/50 ewr iah. If you got one you didn't want it would take one bid to get the other one.

Thanks for the reply. Just to clarify, if it would take one bid to get from EWR to IAH, how often do those bids occur? Is this referring to the system bid that seems to run every few months? Are you guys thinking if SFO opened up for the 737, would that have a potential of making a base like LAX or SFO even more obtainable within a year or so? Again I understand this is all best guesses here and anything can change in a second, but the general rule of thumbs are helpful none the less.

Usually every six months. Contract is more specific but six months is usual.

Not entirely true. The last system bid had a couple of United pilots holding CLE with some vacancies still remaining in CLE at that time. Someone asked where United pilots were being based so I did a tabulation of the bid results with the various vacancies still remaining and posted the results on here for those interested to see. Was a bit surprised myself to see CLE have any vacancies let alone that much movement. But appears the opening of ORD caused quite a bit of movement in the CLE base.

Why would anyone want to bid into a shrinking base?

If you lived in said shrinking base and were willing to deal with all that comes with downsizing, wouldn't you?

I would say just one bid to get from ewr to iah on the 737. If you get the 757/767 then no. Any other base will take longer, not sure how long. LAX or SFO, if its created, I would think is too hard to predict, but if I were to bet I would say more then a year. I know UAL guys have gotten LAX in less then a year, but I wouldn't use past results in predicting futures results in this case, LAX hasn't been around long enough.

Very helpful info from you all. Is it permitted over there to drop out of a trip in IAH for example to pick up an uncovered LAX trip over the same time frame, or is that frowned upon?

good luck with that. My understanding is that lax reserves are routinely deheaded to iah and ewr to cover trips. Is it possible yes, is it likely no. Like 1 in a million.