Happy SAPping!

[USstew23]

sky high states: That F/A's in the East are on Reserve for 20 years is due to several variables. What I was saying is...........IMPROVE the Reserve system! All I'm hearing from you is......put the blockholders on Reserve, take away their flexibility, blah, blah, blah.

Play Mr Flores for a minute and let me hear how you would resolve this issue. K?

only stating opinions

Well I was a blockholder for a few months and I thought oh my god!! this is a whole lot of flexibility at the expense of other peoples lives. When you have a RSV system like we have and for as long, there needs to be a balance. I always dropped to 40 just because of the commute and the expense of hotels and crashpads (I would've rather taken the opportunity to actually fly and make some money but when you balance it out it's a wash). ALL of the trips that I put on the ETB were picked up by blockholders and I think alot of it was because it's almost impossible for a RSV to pick up anything on the ETB.

 

[USCREW]

No ETB for December....Merry Christmas everyone.....Aaaaaaaahahahahaha! ! Count me in on NOT doing it either.

ETB is no problem for any month. I already have six reserves waiting for their schedules so I can feed my one-days directly to them on the board. I haven't had to post most of my trips for a while. I just flew with a reserve who wanted me to call her first!

 

[FlightChic]

I for one don't mind flying during Thanksgiving. I'll do anything to save me from my mother-in-law's cooking.

LOL!

 

[FlightChic]

QUOTE(SKY HIGH @ Nov 4 2007, 09:49 AM)
sky high states: That F/A's in the East are on Reserve for 20 years is due to several variables. What I was saying is...........IMPROVE the Reserve system! All I'm hearing from you is......put the blockholders on Reserve, take away their flexibility, blah, blah, blah.

Play Mr Flores for a minute and let me hear how you would resolve this issue. K?

only stating opinions

Well I was a blockholder for a few months and I thought oh my god!! this is a whole lot of flexibility at the expense of other peoples lives. When you have a RSV system like we have and for as long, there needs to be a balance. I always dropped to 40 just because of the commute and the expense of hotels and crashpads (I would've rather taken the opportunity to actually fly and make some money but when you balance it out it's a wash). ALL of the trips that I put on the ETB were picked up by blockholders and I think alot of it was because it's almost impossible for a RSV to pick up anything on the ETB.

There does need to be a balance. I don't want to put blockholders on reserve! I want a fair and equitable blockholder and reserve system that we can all live with without sacrificing the quality of life for any particular group. I would love to see a rotating reserve system. We could arrange it so we would have partial blocks where we are on reserve one week out of the month but the top blockholders would be exempt. We could also do it by monthly rotations. Again, top BHs would be exempt. If we eliminated the open time and only utilized reserves for sick calls, irregular ops, illegal crews, etc. then we wouldn't need that many in the first place, so we wouldn't be on reserve very often. They should also build reserve blocks with days off where they can never assign you into your off days and with OPR built into the blocks. I would gladly play MF and resolve this issue and come up with a system that works for everybody.

 

[N109UW]

We wouldn't be sacraficing anything, had our union implemented what we voted on and agrred to. How come our union was so against Pref Bid, but didn't argue one thing about LTO back in 2003? That is a very interesting item to discuss.. LTO was shoved in our face within a few weeks, while Pref Bid never saw the light of day. How come LTO was sold to us, in conjunction with Pref Bid? LTO was never designed to work with a bid sheet. It was intended to complement a Pref Bid system. Did we get any credit or anything for not getting Pref Bid? I'm sure it was worth something.

 

[FlightChic]

We wouldn't be sacraficing anything, had our union implemented what we voted on and agrred to. How come our union was so against Pref Bid, but didn't argue one thing about LTO back in 2003? That is a very interesting item to discuss.. LTO was shoved in our face within a few weeks, while Pref Bid never saw the light of day. How come LTO was sold to us, in conjunction with Pref Bid? LTO was never designed to work with a bid sheet. It was intended to complement a Pref Bid system. Did we get any credit or anything for not getting Pref Bid? I'm sure it was worth something.

Speaking of preferential bidding, did anybody fill out the online survey AFA sent out? It had a question about preferential bidding. Why would they even bring it up again if they couldn't even implement it the first time? I was quite perplexed and asked them that. How do we know anything we vote on will be implemented for that matter.

 

[flybynite]

We wouldn't be sacraficing anything, had our union implemented what we voted on and agrred to. How come our union was so against Pref Bid, but didn't argue one thing about LTO back in 2003? That is a very interesting item to discuss.. LTO was shoved in our face within a few weeks, while Pref Bid never saw the light of day. How come LTO was sold to us, in conjunction with Pref Bid? LTO was never designed to work with a bid sheet. It was intended to complement a Pref Bid system. Did we get any credit or anything for not getting Pref Bid? I'm sure it was worth something.

As I recall we were voting on a contract in BK. Someone refresh my memory. Or better yet...we were having a contract rammed down our throats.

LTO was never sold to us. I have the original TA to prove it. It states very clearly that the reserve sections are very different than anything than we have had in the past. And to read them carefully.

I was a Primary Blockholder at the time.....flipped to the back of the TA so I could read the details on reserve.........knew LTO sucked and voted NO!

I do not know where you got it in your head that PFS was somehow a complement with the LTO reserve system. Read the TA again and learn. I'm sure it's online somewhere.
Try the AFA web site.

Pref Bidding is for blockholders only. Not reserves. It doesn't help the reserves in any manner. It doesn't create more lines.

 

[USstew23]

As I recall we were voting on a contract in BK. Someone refresh my memory. Or better yet...we were having a contract rammed down our throats.

LTO was never sold to us. I have the original TA to prove it. It states very clearly that the reserve sections are very different than anything than we have had in the past. And to read them carefully.

I was a Primary Blockholder at the time.....flipped to the back of the TA so I could read the details on reserve.........knew LTO sucked and voted NO!

I do not know where you got it in your head that PFS was somehow a complement with the LTO reserve system. Read the TA again and learn. I'm sure it's online somewhere.
Try the AFA web site.

Pref Bidding is for blockholders only. Not reserves. It doesn't help the reserves in any manner. It doesn't create more lines.

I could be wrong here but pref. bid doesn't have set lines anyway, you bid on certain trips, days, commutable trips, parameters (like on the ETB), stuff like that. BH or RSV. I have some pilot and flight attendant friends at Chautauqua and Shuttle America and they have pref. bidding and that is kind of how they explain it to me. They love it and basically it is a matter of how you utilize it.

 

[N109UW]

LTO was never sold to us. I have the original TA to prove it. It states very clearly that the reserve sections are very different than anything than we have had in the past. And to read them carefully.

I do not know where you got it in your head that PFS was somehow a complement with the LTO reserve system. Read the TA again and learn. I'm sure it's online somewhere.
Try the AFA web site.

Pref Bidding is for blockholders only. Not reserves. It doesn't help the reserves in any manner. It doesn't create more lines.

Actually, I got the idea from going to all the union meetings in CLT and asking a hell of alot of questions. This is what we were told. Pref Bid would create more blocks, meaning more rsv's holding those blocks. They said it was a good thing for the senior rsv's. We were led to believe that they were tied together. As you were a primary BH at the time, it wouldn't have concerned you, but to the rsv's, this meant something.

 

[N109UW]

I could be wrong here but pref. bid doesn't have set lines anyway, you bid on certain trips, days, commutable trips, parameters (like on the ETB), stuff like that. BH or RSV. I have some pilot and flight attendant friends at Chautauqua and Shuttle America and they have pref. bidding and that is kind of how they explain it to me. They love it and basically it is a matter of how you utilize it.

Correct, senior bh would be able to bid trips, but more junior bh's would end up bidding parameters. They could also just bid 40 blocks. All that open time would be made into more blocks. But doing that would mean the end of the bidsheet, at least most of it. There would still be a few trips that couldn't be put into a block.

 

[EMBFA]

Here's what amazes me about PBS. First, that it was voted in but never implemented. Adds to my view on the union's integrity. Secondly, when it's brought up, F/As seem to have no idea what it actually is, or just make up something to sound like they do. PBS is a great cost savings to the company (and the forests- I can't believe we still print those pairing sheets and people actually sit and go through them). In return for getting a system that is better and easier for the F/As, it takes cost out of our contract we can put back in as compensation or what have you.

Here's a wikipedia article about preferntial bidding that might be useful to those who don't really understand the difference with the way we do it now.

Pref Bid would result in more blocks. Almost any other system in the world would result in more bl- I'm sorry, they are LINES, why do we call them blocks? Any other system, including America West's, run on a large set of lineholders and small reserve group. Our contract and staffing model, like I said, are very unique.

That said, the reserve system, the current one and even more so the previous one, is really unique too. Picking, passing, ROC-ing, choosing- there's none of that at most carriers. You get called and they tell you what your doing. Tough cookies if you don't like 737s or don't like international. We were lucky to have that huge benefit as reserves (and still have it to some extent)- there's a lot wrong with the system but some good things. My opinion though? That drama costs money. I'm willing to go to a more standard reserve system (with no choices of trips) in return for PAY. Pay me, create more lines, and have being on reserve a job you do for part of the day like any other job in the world.

I could go on and on. For some reason I doubt Corpse Austin and friends are discussing all this as much as we are.

 

[beachboy]

Pref Bid is sort of like buying a car. You can buy a BMW or a Yugo. Both a "PREF BID" aka (a car) but one does a lot more than the other. The way AFA explains it is there was a major dispute over the vendor of the system. The company wanted the cheap verson that would limit most everything and the one AFA wanted which did what everyone wanted. So, a stalemate broke out and AFA refused to impliment the system saying it was not what was negotiated.
Can anyone add more details to that?

 

[N109UW]

Pref Bid is sort of like buying a car. You can buy a BMW or a Yugo. Both a "PREF BID" aka (a car) but one does a lot more than the other. The way AFA explains it is there was a major dispute over the vendor of the system. The company wanted the cheap verson that would limit most everything and the one AFA wanted which did what everyone wanted. So, a stalemate broke out and AFA refused to impliment the system saying it was not what was negotiated.
Can anyone add more details to that?

And does everyone realize by doing that, the union sacrificed all of our rsv's and left them out to dry. You would have thought that afa would have anticipated this problem and had a contingency plan, because by saying no, this screwed every rsv on the property. I honestly don't think they ever really wanted to agree.

 

[700UW]

Did your fellow FAs not ratify three rounds of concessions while US was in two bankruptcies?

Look in the mirror, look at your coworkers that is your union.

I was at CCY in a conference room a few rooms away from your NC, and TX did the best she could dealing with Glass, but bottom line is you all ratified it.

 

[SKY HIGH]

The company wanted the cheap verson that would limit most everything and the one AFA wanted which did what everyone wanted.

sky high states: Keep the bidsheet or implement a CHEAP product? Sound familiar?

Thank you---AFA.

only stating opinions