1509v
 

New Vacancy Bid open today. Closes May 4th.

SFO 787 CA 10 SFO 787 FO 10
LAX 787 CA 5 LAX 787 FO 8
IAH 787 CA 5 IAH 787 FO 8

Saddest vascabcy bid ever.:(

Proof that the 25th airframe will be delivered by the end of the year :)

I was wondering about that. So does that mean the fences will drop this year?

Never mind, the other thread goes into great detail answering my question.

By the SLI award, the fence comes down the minute that the 25th airframe is delivered. That's currently scheduled for this November.

And L-UAL will be able to bid on #s 28 and above.

What happens between 25 and 28, as in who can bid it?

First, congrats to the Ex-Cons who will be able to move up to the 787. Sincerely. Upward movement is a great thing and we will all benefit from these vacancies.

I've been glad to see less internal fighting between former CAL and UAL and I'm hoping that it gets down to the point where it's only the rare outlier pilot who is unable to put the merger behind them by the time the fences come down.

These 787 vacancies will create vacancies in other fleets that will need to be backfilled. The 10 787 CA vacancies could trigger as many as 50 additional vacancies in other fleets/seats.

And 1509V so quickly after 1508v closed out is a darned good thing. That's the shortest time between vacancy bids I've seen.

Except for the L-UAL pilots who actually read the award (para. B-5). Those guys will be able to bid the 787 after the 25th airframe is delivered. Conversely, the L-CAL guys can bid the 747 at that time.

The 25th arrives and now L-UAL can bid. Bid comes out 1-2 months later, effective 3 months from the closing of the bid. 4-5 months after the arrival of #25 means L-UAL is effectively bidding for ~ no 28.

My hat's off to L-CAL(scabs excluded) for a highly effective fence.

As long as we're playing "guess the bid cycle", it could be 20 months, or possibly no bids ever again.

Contractually however, L-UAL pilots can bid the 787 after the 25th airframe is delivered. From a more practical perspective, with planned retirements of a few 747's and other possible regauging of the airline in Q4, the 787 becomes an option for bumps with the delivery of #25. As for the effectiveness, I suppose it depends on how you look at it. 5 years, or until #25 - it seems like 2 years early to me.

It's great to have options, but I don't want to fly it!

Uhh, thanks? Never knew I had a vote as a line pilot, but I'll take the congrats…I guess. I didn't know the L-CAL merger committee wanted that "highly effective" fence in the first place. Maybe I read and heard wrong from the SLI award. It wouldn't be the first time.

I love these completely broad brush posts that vilify or "congratulate" (which really isn't a congratulations as well all know but a subtle jab instead) an entire pilot group that had zero to do with the pre-merger Capt slots or this so-called "highly effective" fence. 99.99999999% of the L-CAL line pilots are just that…line pilots…and have zero to do with the internal politics.

But yeah…I guess thanks…for your congrats. :confused:

I agree with your post. And it was the LUAL side that pushed for the fences, not LCAL. In retrospect, it would have been more advantageous for LUAL to push for a better SLI without no fences.

Actually, it was very sincere without vilification. You greatly benefited from the fence. My congratulations to the fo's and non scab captains. If you still want to play us vs you, knock your socks off.

Yep, quite sincere. And thank you so much! :):):)

Anytime.......

Since you brought it up; when will they start retiring the 747?

They already are. I believe 2 have been parked in the last year and I believe it was 3 more in the next year. I heard the dates, but forgot them...

The earnings call covered future 747 retirements ---
2 are being retired in 2015 but the rest of the fleet is now planned to fly until 2020. When they get to 2020, they'll reevaluate, as heavy checks will be due at that time.
From the earnings call, it sounds like the 2 being retired had reliability issues.

From the call:
Jeffrey Dastin - Thomson Reuters
How does the 747 fits into United’s fleet --planned fleet, retirement plan in 2015 and how do you only considered retiring a significant portion of 747s going forward?
John Rainey - CFO
The 747 is something that we do intend to keep for a few more years we have a couple coming out of our fleet in the near future but some of these we’ve made some improvements to the operating reliability of the aircraft and we could expect to keep them for another few years. They have another sort of big maintenance events in the 2020 time frame that that will be another decision point for us whether we want to extend them further at that point or go ahead and retire them.


If you look at United's cargo revenue, it increased 15.8% year over year. A lot of that's probably due to the Long Beach dock workers' strike, but is probably a factor in deciding to extend the life of the 747. With fuel prices down (after hedge losses/writedowns) more than 30%, the profitability numbers on the 747 are probably looking pretty good.

I dont get the iah vacancies on the fo side. Planned 737 ca displacments and they are pushing for vacancies. Euther they are planning a large iah base Or its a push to bump jr fos.

I think his "a couple" and a "few more years" are intentionally vague, especially since the consensus during the 777-300ER rumor talks was they were 747 replacements. I bet you will see a trickle of 747's leave as the 777's come on line. Some left until 2020. Time will tell and the fleet plan will change 50 times between now and then

Maybe those hanging out on the 787 benefitted, but all in all the fences sucked for many on the CAL side. Instead of having a replacement for the LAX 747 pilots to fly out of LAX we saw a lot of those pilots go to other bases for an upgrade, or to be senior 777 FO's. Since most of the CA positions on the 787 are occupied by scabs, and even some of the FO positions, it seems we simply protected those who chose to cross a picket line. Bravo!!!

Because they need them sooner than the displaced pilots will be awarded them. They said the displacement won't be until after the summer. They probably need these guys before then.

The company has figured out the costs of not having pilots/too many pilots/retraining pilots and they just work to optimize that. We can rationalize it all we want because its disruptive to our lives.

We've been doing it that way here for the 19+ years I've been here. I've been displaced 7 times (All in my 1st 8 years) here. Three of them were being displaced as a Captain (727, Airbus, Guppy) so it happens.

I'm hoping the surplus is small and mostly volunteers. At least one friend of mine was saved on the last bump in IAH because someone senior volunteered. No one wants the disruption. None of the guys getting bumped deserves it either.

It a business decision by the company.

I'm hoping to be based in IAH as soon as possible. I know the quickest way is the 320. As a newhire, will I then be displaced out of IAH on the 320 after the 737 displacements begin or do there have to be 320 vacancies in order for the 737 guys to remain in IAH on the Bus?

Hope what I'm asking makes sense? Just hate to end up getting a crashpad/car/etc in IAH and then be displaced out of the base right away. I do understand seniority rules though and respect that.

Someone with more knowledge than me will chime in for you but I believe in a displacement, those folks getting displaced can bump into any category their seniority can hold.
So yes, they could take Airbus slots being senior to you

Yes they can bump to any category their seniority can hold. A more senior person can voluntarily bump but they use the seniority on a one for one basis of those being displaced.

So if I understand correctly, there doesn't have to be any vacancies? They can bump anyone junior to them out of the 320 in IAH if they want to stay in IAH?

I don't think those -400 pilots enjoyed being displaced. I honestly don't have a number of how many-400 displacements there were, but how does that compare with the vacancies created by the growing 787 fleet.

Yes, scabs should never have a refuge.

Yes but the company would try to minimize the 320 surpluses by not advertising a large 320 vacancy bid.

Thank you! Guess there probably isn't much point in bidding the 320 IAH for a new hire then only to be displaced out of IAH right after IOE.

That's not necessarily the case. Especially since the company is buying used Airbii and they are growing the 320 in Houston, there's a good chance you wouldn't be bumped. If that's what you want, bid it.

The end plan for IAH is supposedly 300 A320 crews and 350 737 crews. You never hear about the growing of the Airbus fleet from the CP office or the hysteria from C-171. If you want to fly The Bus there bid it.

What is the most jr iah 737 fo hire date?

Fall of 2013.

Thank you sir.

Oh, I'm not saying the -400 pilots enjoyed the bump, what I am saying is that by fencing the 787 all of the LUAL bumps had to look elsewhere. I think fences were a bad idea and driven by ego and emotion.

This and the same folks have been at the bottom since then.

Jimmie J.,

I agree. Hopefully time will solve a lot of the issues we face.

And I was one of them.

"You guys will be holding lines by Thanksgiving", they told us during training.

In fairness, they didn't mention that it would be Thanksgiving 2018.