The obvious answer here is that you'll get your chance.

Great answer, geez. I am not worried about getting my chance as I have been trying to get answers for a month now in ord as opposed to waiting for a fuel class without much in the answer department. But hey glad you liked what they told you.

syd,

I appreciate that you have maintained character (or the lack of) with your typically snarky remark. I wouldn't think it was actually you if you weren't being defensive and caustic.

Pretty much everybody just wanted the he!! out of there as quickly as possible. Do you honestly think that jabbing at the facilitator(s) is going to change anything? Of course you are welcome to give it a shot. All you are doing is holding up the guys trying to make the 15:45 bus. How is your current quest for answers going BTW? :rolleyes:

I said they made some positive and needed changes to the format and addressed some material that needed addressing. Stuff that wasn't addressed in the FET back in the day.

For some mental midgets this isn't enough Hoss. They feel they've been wronged, they want to sue, and fortunately they're a small, vocal minority. Let em waste their money I say.

The sooner we all get on the same page the better. They'll always be the detractors but they're irrelevant. Even on the internet.

I thought my original question was as simple as it could get since you mention something about during the class they talked about how they are bringing and explaining to the rest of the employees about fuel issues.

I thought your response was lame. But thats okay hoss most are used to that at this point. If you want to question my character feel free.

When they are beating up certain work broups, ramp or whoever I find it hard to believe that group would be too worried about fuel savings. Another example would be some of the station for ex, OGG, where they tried to replace them all. Theya can say what they want in a class but actions some of the actions show differently. JMO

And my answer was as simple as it could get. You will have your chance to bring this up when you go through OET. I'm not going to go through again and ask them for you. Pretty simple doncha think?

Yes Hoss that was quite simple.

I'm not offering anything qualitative or any sort of opinion on this training, but this is from the other forum and needs more dissemination.

If you can bid for and attend OET2 in a month when you have a line vice reserve you could possibly get 5 hours add-pay. Sec 9-J-2 is relevant.

• Login to CCS
• Select Trading>Realtime Trip Trades
• Select a date or date range
• Select a base
• Select the blank field above “1-A320” in the Equipment Dropdown box
• Select the blank field above “CA” in the Position Dropdown box
• De-Select “Advert Pickup”, “Advert Mutual”, and “Open Time” in the “Display Options field
• Select “Training” in the “Display Options field
• Click on the “Display Pairings” button and the list of available positions for the date(s) you selected will be displayed. If the date range selected needs more than one page to display all of the available selections, there are page selection tabs at the bottom of the page.
• Check the box to the left of the pairing number for the available position on the date you would like to attend
• Click on the “Pickup” button just above the list of the available pairings dialog box and the “Pickup” page will open and indicate the pairing you are about to schedule
• Click the “Pickup” button and wait for confirmation of the transaction
• If, for any reason, you are unable to attend the selected day, the Crew Desk can remove the training date from your line.

Check your pay register after you see it in your Master schedule; my add pay was already there.

Cheers

That ^^^ is the only reason I took the course this month. I have a line this month I do not have a line next month. As mentioned in my OP. If I am going to have to do this I might as well get paid for it.

Thanks syd, you win. Now go away feeling proud of yet another internet forum battle victory.

That's a great point. However, I wasn't thinking to do the training in a RSV month because I thought the pay would be "ADD PAY"...i.e. Above our min guarantee. Is this not true?

Good point, I'm not sure either. The contract doesn't explicitly say add pay, so guess how they will interpret that.


9-J-2-c-(3) A Lineholder who attends training that does not require a schedule repair shall receive five (5) hours of Add Pay per day (including days consisting only of travel in accordance with Section 9-J-3-a). If he calls in sick for training he shall not be paid and shall not be charged sick leave.


9-J-2-d-(2) Reserves who attend training shall receive five (5) hours of pay per day.

I picked up the training for next Tuesday in SFO. No info on where to go for the training. Anyone have the info?

Nope it is not add pay on reserve. It is time credit. That was made clear in the original CCS message and in class the question was asked. So you are getting rooked on reserve as usual.

Is it possible to do the class the same day you arrive from an all night flight?? I get in from São Paulo and would rather do it then vs commuting another day.

SFO
• Class Location - CPO
• Class Address - SFOFO Terminal #3 San Francisco Int'l Airport, SF, CA 94128
• Transportation - N/A
• Notes - Term #3 Concourse E ramp level under gate 61. Classroom across from Support Rep Desk

Sure,

If you coffee up or discretely zonk out in the back. It's 6 hours of boredom.

My take:

15 minutes of info crammed into 6 frickin hours.

Paid me 5 hrs for the hassle.

MGMT spending $17M on this program

Class info points:

1. Save fuel when u can. ACF 90 days. Try to policy plan and have
REMF 60-75 mins

2. Single eng taxi when u can

3. Wait to start APU until needed



No Sh!t. We have the brains to figure this out, just not the motivation from this Golden Shower mgmt team.

Quote from management "We hope to save $15M in fuel costs over the lifetime of this program."

Total cost to employ program $17M

Total aggregate loss $2M

Spending 6 hours trapped in a room for 5 hours pay: Priceless

I think we have too much redundant and overlapping management.

We could probably lay off 30 director level positions and senior director level positions and save 12 million to 14 million a year. And, as a bonus we may get more clear and unambiguous policies. How about our 4th memo on non revving jump seat flight attendants? I am tired of confusing and contradictory memo's (pilot bulletins).

This management by memo is getting out of hand. Too many cooks in the kitchen.

Thanks Hoss!

I guess you can be forgiven the error for believing the propaganda at the time, since you weren't actually at CAL.

CAl was hiring in 97. CAL was in contract then and pilots got a 35% raise, increase of vacation, A-Plan funding increase. New aircraft on order and being delivered to replace DC-10 and B747's. Second JD Power award in a row. RASM was highest in the industry. Air Transport magazine "Airline of the Year"

With the stock options I received starting then, I funded my kids college accounts and bought myself a Mooney.



Bethune's book Worst to First was published the following year describing the turnaround.

Koolaid was strong at UALALPA

OK this thread started in the positive and has degraded into the chest thumping I'm better phase.

I attended OET yesterday and here are the cliff notes that apply to pilots:

1. Minimize APU use, except wide bodies because of special needs.
2. Lot's of time explaining SABRE flight planning. Seems that ACF numbers are new to some at UAL, so time is spent how to use this number domestically for fuel planning. Different game/isues for international again.
3. SCAL Dispatchers are understaffed by a large amount and have to do lots of mandatory overtime (Dispatcher facilitator was from SCAL side and he talked a lot about being short staffed).
4. There is a new Policy Flight plan coming soon.
5. Attempt to not add fuel above Flight Plan Policy.
6. A section was given that good flight planning, based on CRM and TEM, starts by having the whole crew meet in the FPA, Flight Planning Area, before the flight. It was pointed out the FOM said "should" but emphasis is given to it being a very good idea, think CRM/TEM.
7.There is new guidance coming about CI numbers by fleet for early or late arrivals.
8. Definition of on time is two fold, D0:00 and A0:00 no longer A0:14. Need to be both on time in departures and arrivals to meet the business customer's expectations.

Go enjoy the 5 hours pay (line holders and reserves who have exceed min pay).

Fight on!

Not worth the trouble and not going to get sucked in again.

Congrats on your Mooney BMEP. I had a Cessna 180 back in the day.

And.....average cost of a divert.... $9000.
number of diverts last year.... 1300
cost.............$11.7M
1 year cost to add 15 min of gas to all flights (to perhaps cut down the number of diverts)...$45M

To expand on that math, if you look at the gas REMF from now and several years ago, we now carry around 15-20 min more gas than we used to, but the divert rate is exactly the same. They posed the question at the standards meeting: "How many of you have diverted in the past year?" Some hands go up. Then they asked "How many of those diverts would have been saved by carrying 15 min more gas?" About 2/3 of the hands went down.

Not saying that it's right or wrong to carry more gas, just that its something we need to think about. It's certainly not a cut and dry issue. The telling number is how much REMF we carry compared to our peers at DAL, SWA and AA. We are hauling WAYYY more gas than they are.

"Gas, grass, or a**...... Nobody rides for free."

I did the math with a guy who claimed that he added 1k on every flight to potentially save a divert because diverts "cost the company money". We calculated that he diverted once in every 200 flights, based on the last few years of flying. So he was carrying 200,000 extra pounds to save maybe 8k pounds which is what a divert costs.

Did they break those numbers down or just through them out there?

Damned ain't that the truth!!!!!!!

mostly just threw them out there. BUT. If you agree that it costs 100 lbs of gas to carry an extra 1000 lbs of gas, and everybody threw on 1000 lbs for the wife and kids, that's 100 lbs per flight x 3000 flights per day x 365 days per year: 109.5M lbs of gas. Divide by 6.7 lbs per gallon. 16.3M gallons. x $3 per gallon is $49M. Just a wag.

$9000 (average) per divert seems reasonable to me (fuel, misconnects, overtime). 1300 diverts last year x $9000 is $11.7M.

Thanks jsled.

49, 11.7, 9000, 1000, 365, 6.7, omaha...can't sweat the figures on the nutritional (sugars and carbs) food they feed us.

I submit to you that it is not us (pilots) carrying the gas. With the advent of Sabre, I carry 2-3000 lbs more gas than I used to under Unimatic. It used to be easy for dispatchers to adjust the fuel under Unimatic, now many dispatchers don't even look at the FP and whine when you do want to change it. It's more work! "Oh...I'll have to generate a new release." Ok, you do that.

UAL is doing it to themselves. Once again, welcome back to the IT company with wings. It's not us. When management gets serious about running an airline and not wasting money every time I turn around, I'll get serious about helping the company.....or whatever. (I think I'm pretty safe for a while.)

Have not seen this with the dispatchers I have worked with at all. Don't get me wrong I am not saying it doesn't happen but when I ask for a new fuel load fp release or whatever it never seems to be much of a big deal.

TOTALLY agree, and by "we" I meant United... not the pilots. The message to management at the standards meeting was loud and clear that the "policy plan" of 60 min REMF (assuming no ALT/CF) would be much easier to achieve if it started out from dispatch as a policy FP rather than expecting pilots to call and ask to lower the fuel. We were told that they too would be attending the OET class, which should help. All in all, I personally think that Sabre is a much better product than what we used to have. But this is one area where it is weak... having to run a whole new plan to add gas. I believe we were told there is a fix coming for that, but I could have been spacing out.

Finally, in no way shape or form do I advocate saving gas for management. Don't care a lick about them. There are many reasons I advocate being efficient; environmental, less powerful Middle Eastern nations, professional pride, profit sharing, leaving a more viable airline for those coming behind, wasting a finite resource, establishing a baseline of how we CAN run an airline so that in the future if we need to show how much we can effect efficiency we can and our value is more noticeable (wink wink C2017), proving to the bean counters the A320 IS efficient and should be kept around (already working and instead of a 2015 retirement the fleet is now looking at 2028), helping the bean counters see the mainline fleet can be efficient enough to warrant used narrow bodies instead of RJ's. None of those reasons involve me caring about helping Jeff look good. That's just collateral damage :)

Also, apparently it's okay for a dispatcher to pad, but if you want to pad, then you are not seeing the big picture,

Also, apparently certain dispatchers/dispatcher are monitoring the fuel habits of commuters and reporting this to FODMs/Chief Pilots,

Also, don't expect LAX to grow if not shrink as it is a "fragmented" market,

2028 is a good number if you believe what came out of the standards meeting that just took place.

There ARE no LUAL 73's. Unless CAL bought some when we retired them 10 or so years ago.

There are over 40 737s flying now that were purchased for LUAL to replace LUAL 757s. But nothing that existed pre-merger.