US Pilots Labor Discussion 5/13- STAY ON TOPIC AND OBSERVE THE RULES

[Phoenix]

Nic,

Thats what I was unsuccessfully trying to explain. Yours is much more on point. BS will contend with you that the e-175 was on the certificate though. But as you can see it does not matter. Between this and the fact that MDA pilots could not bid to and fly a Mainline jet until recall. One can see that on the certificate or off, it makes no difference.

In order for BS to be correct that the MDA pilots were "active", he would have to convince the Arbitrator that those pilots on the AAA list not flying for AAA or MDA (and possibly not anywhere else) that came back to work for LCC, were Active. How is he gonna explain that the Furloughed AAA pilot who might not even have gone near an airport for a year or more is an ACTIVE non Furloughed AAA pilot. Unless of he is wishing to re-order the AAA list and have the most Junior AAA pilot that participated in MDA jump ahead of pilots who did not.


Flip

Flip, Dude I'm losing confidence in you brother.

Swan was talking about MDA pilots, now you are trying to argue the status of MDA pilots by introducing the status of pilots that were not at MDA (maybe not even flying anywhere). You are making a habit of arguing backwards and introducing facts that are irrelevant to the status of MDA pilots.

Your point though is not completely irrelevant to the whole mess, as it does point out the abortion of seniority that ALPA allowed under their watch ( and thats before we even mention the integration).

 

[Pi brat]

I don't know if you were addressing me, I come back to this board from time to time but I don't read everything because it is too repetitive. In my opinion, in a status and category integration, a 70 seat captain at a regional airline would end up below mainline first officers, all of them. The pay, work rules, and career expectations are just too low to justify anything else.

At Delta we had a division called Song. It was flown by mainline pilots including me. We would not only go in and out of Song trips on a weekly basis but sometimes in the middle of a day we would go between mainline and Song. I don't think any MDA pilots had that same privilege. There was a bright line between MDA and mainline and pilots could not transition the two without furlough and recall. Therefore, the MDA pilots would be considered the same as any other regional carrier in terms of their career path. That puts them below all mainline pilots. I doubt an arbitrator would see it differently.

Yes it was for you, I figured you might have missed the post, it was quite a while ago. Our west friends, except for nic4us, have missed the point and instead have taken to beating the same old drums-furloughed, furloughed, furloughed and that we are all nuts. My main point, that I think I pretty much stated in my post yesterday, was that none of our opinions matter. Nic made the list and it's his to keep as is or change IF (there's that word again west boys) he deems necessary. The legality of what USAPA has tried to do will be determined by the legal system and again our opinions mean squat.

But, since we throw around so many what ifs and could of beens around here, I'm asking why you think like you do. Your statement seems a little arrogant, but maybe you didn't mean it to be. I said take away the furloughed part(flip in his 4 part essay made the first 3 on furloughed even after I said IF) and look at the positions, pay and lifestyle on 5/19/05 of the bottom AWA reserve 737 F/O and tell me that anyone of those was better than the top line holder E170 captain. It wasn't. Even if you take away the fact that the capt. had around 16 years invested in the company and the F/O had a few months, most guys would agree that the capt. job was more valued than the F/Os in pay, status, comfort(vs a 737 anyway and I fly it so I have that right ) and lifestyle. What does the fact of it's size have anything to do with it? The E170 has about 50 or 40% less seats than an A319. An A319 has about 160 or about 55% less seats than an A330. Did all A319 capt. and F/Os get slotted behind all A330 capts and F/Os? No, they did not.

Let's go back that happy mental land of the west pilot where all is good and right with the world and run a little scenario. It's early 2007. The company never sold MDA and admits they never did it correctly and decides it's just a division of the mainline, like MJ. The Nic award comes out, the east accepts it, we get that wonderful contract that the west guys say was just around the corner and despite rising fuel costs, dropping revenues we didn't furlough, just kept everybody where they were. The first combined bid comes out and the west has no movement, but due to early 10 retirements there are 10 vacancies on the east A330. We bid, and the upward progression leaves 5 E170 capt positions open when it comes to the bottom five guys on the AWA list. Don't you think at least a few of them would trade bottom reserve 2 year F/O pay and lifestyle for the number 1 170 capt position? The pay wasn't great but I believe it was based on Eagle rates so I would guess that it would be a raise from 2nd yer F/O. The lifestyle would be much better, even if you had to commute. I think they would. But that's just my opinion and it's worth what you paid for it.

 

[Pi brat]

Here is why it makes no difference if MDA is considered furloughed or not as it pertains to the Nic.

AWA was not added to the east list.

A false assumption being made is that Nic matched up the bottom guys and based his ratio on getting Monda and Odell matched. Consider the MDA pilots active ( five years after the fact BTW) and you have a new bottom, so Swan et.al. are wrongly assuming it would follow that Odell would have to be matched with some MDA pilot possibly 1000 numbers junior to Monda. This is not the case and not how the list was constructed.

In the award Nicolau showed both the number of aircraft broken down by type and further divided by east and west fleet. He also showed how many pilots flew those aircraft again by east and West. He then did his ratio. 9 A330 east=517 pilots, 0 A330 West=0 pilots, top 517 names are east. (I do not have the exact numbers in front of me so I have to make them up for now, also for easy math) 15 757/767 east=120 capts, 12 757 West=90 capts, the next 210 pilots ratioed at 120/90. 200 737 A320 east=1000 capts, 130 737 A320 West=880 capts, next 1880 pilots ratioed at 1000/880. Then on to the FOs seats in the same fashion.

Now I might get this wrong, but there were no E175 on the certificate when the list was constructed, so there is no 20 E175 east=200 capts, 0 E175 West=0 capts to insert after the other types, before the FO ratioing begins. Even if there were it would move Odell down 200 not 400. Nic did not find the bottom, match those pilots and work his way up, he started at the top and worked his way down, and the last two names are obviously going to be the last two names on the respective list.

To sum, AWA was not added to the east list, matching pilot totals to determine a ratio, to fill us into your list. The West list and east list merged based on the aircraft being flown by each and their respective staffing models to create ratioed slots. Those slots were then filled by names from our respective list in seniority order. So even if an MDA pilot is considered non-furoughed, s/he does not have the seniority on the east list to hold a slot above one reserved for the last West pilot.

A much better argument than the "we didn't have any stinkin RJs', or 'RJ jobs had lesser value than mainline aircraft jobs" arguments and given Nicolau's screwed up logic(like giving 517 east pilots super seniority on PHX), I can see him doing it just as your said.

 

[Pi brat]

Science Dictionary
psychosis (sī-kō'sĭs) Pronunciation Key
Plural psychoses (sī-kō'sēz)

A mental state caused by psychiatric or organic illness, characterized by a loss of contact with reality and an inability to think rationally. A psychotic person often behaves inappropriately and is incapable of normal social functioning.

That's more like it, when you can't argue the point go after the person. Keep believing we are all nuts. Go back to my post that you quoted, take the blinders off, and really read it.

 

[Flippin43]

You're kidding right?

You are arguing that what the company and ALPA agreed to DO is the important evidence and it doesn't matter what they were lawfully and contractually ALLOWED to do. With that reasoning it not possible to find that anyone ever did anything wrong. Bye Bye DFR.

I believe they (AAA mgt) are allowed to Furlough pilots, this is correct right. They did 1700+ of them. None of these pilots could fly a mainline Jet. This is correct right. Whether they worked for MDA or not does not change that fact , This is correct right. What part of that is up to the local elected reps to decide. There is evidently no evidence they contested this at the time and only when a merger was on the horizon. If there, is why has it not been posted here at least. . These guys were restricted from flying a Mainline jet, you, BS and others just refuse to reconcile this.

If USAPA and the company agreed to sell 30% of the West A320s and replaced them with a bunch of Beech 1900s, flying the same routes and passengers with newly "furloughed" West pilots making half the pay, operating on the same certificate, the same company ID, the same paycheck, etc. etc., (AND USAPA allowed the "furloughed" pilots to be elected BPR members)... then you would get it.

And I did, I was involved with the Dash-8 division of AWA in 91-92 and I had all those things but I also had a restriction, just like your MDA pilots, working or not. I could not fly a Mainline jet until recalled. Why is this so hard to understand.


Flip

 

[Phoenix]

Flip, MDA was mainline. Its obvious to anyone who is paying attention, and your repeated presentations of the abuses that were caused (with impacts to all pilots) by the company and ALPA serve to illuminate the buffoonery that ALPA acquiesced to as it tried to protect its dues at all cost.

An alter figment airline was "established" while pilots were offered the opportunity to work for it in reverse seniority. Senior pilots were denied the right to bid to work there or to take voluntary furloughs. ALPA's buffoonery has caused a nearly limitless list of abuses, infractions, and contradictions that you say "aren't resolved". Please feel free to continue enumerating them.

 

[Pi brat]

Nic,

Thats what I was unsuccessfully trying to explain. Yours is much more on point. BS will contend with you that the e-175 was on the certificate though. But as you can see it does not matter. Between this and the fact that MDA pilots could not bid to and fly a Mainline jet until recall. One can see that on the certificate or off, it makes no difference.

In order for BS to be correct that the MDA pilots were "active", he would have to convince the Arbitrator that those pilots on the AAA list not flying for AAA or MDA (and possibly not anywhere else) that came back to work for LCC, were Active. How is he gonna explain that the Furloughed AAA pilot who might not even have gone near an airport for a year or more is an ACTIVE non Furloughed AAA pilot. Unless of he is wishing to re-order the AAA list and have the most Junior AAA pilot that participated in MDA jump ahead of pilots who did not.


Flip

Flip,

You may have gotten that understanding from this board, but from what I have heard from my F/Os that were actually part of this mess, that is not what they are trying to say. This the way I understand their position, but I could be wrong. I'm sure I will be corrected either way.

The original intent of the company was all mixed up. One day MDA was going to be a division, next day GE wanted the aircraft away from the mainline so they could get their hands on them if the mainline went down. They come up plan to make it a separate company like PSA, staffed by furloughed pilots from the mainline. That's the road they started down. Along the way issues popped up, like not being able to get the planes on the line if they had to get a new certificate, and there were a lot of what the company considered bigger issues, so they kind of didn't worry about the new company thing and just made it kind of a hybrid-a division of the mainline. But they never really did it properly and ALPA allowed them to get away with some provisions of the original intent, like much worse contract and staffed by furloughed pilots, while not taking them to task on the other things related to still being a mainline aircraft. That's the basis of the DFR(again as I understand it). ALPA allowed the company to back track and not form the new company and they just let it be part of the mainline, but they did not represent the interests of the pilots by letting them have mainline provisions, such as bidding rights back and forth etc.

So, let's just say they win or settle a DFR. They can then go back to Mr. Nicolau and argue that they were indeed not furloughed, and at least the captain jobs had a higher value than a bottom level AWA F/O. Nicolau might not buy it, but even if he did I don't think it would be a major reshuffle, he might just say, okay the top 100-200 guys did have a higher position, so I will slot them in a little higher. I don't think anyone is saying that under a Nic type situation that everyone on the east list would move ahead. You mention the guy that had not been to the airport. I believe if his number was in that area that could have gone to MDA then he could be moved ahead. It wouldn't matter if he went to an airport or not. If ALPA had forced the company to do MDA correctly he may have decided to take the job instead of going to drive a truck. Again, I don't think it would be individual pilots and their positions, but rather the number of pilots relative to the aircraft, kind of like his reasoning for the top 517 going to the east guys. Not all of them actually flew the 330, it's just he number he came up with that had the expectation.

Again, worth what you paid for it.

 

[Phoenix]

..

 

[767jetz]

... look at the positions, pay and lifestyle on 5/19/05 of the bottom AWA reserve 737 F/O and tell me that anyone of those was better than the top line holder E170 captain. It wasn't. Even if you take away the fact that the capt. had around 16 years invested in the company and the F/O had a few months, most guys would agree that the capt. job was more valued than the F/Os in pay, status, comfort

The problem with this logic is that no where does a merger policy talk about "lifestyle expectations." It only talks about career expectations, which is much more definable than lifestyle which is infinitely subjective. The difference in your example is that the 170 captain has no where to go. (Unless he was recalled to mainline.) The 737/A320 f/o can only go up. The other direction is furloughed.

Those of us who came up from commuters generally left our former employers somewhere near the top, with schedule, equipment, even pay, to take jobs on reserve at the bottom with less pay at our current employer. If lifestyle was such a factor, why on earth would we do that?

A mainline job is a mainline job no matter how you slice it. And at US the only way to get that back was/is a recall letter.

Let me ask you this? Did MDA pilots work under the same contract as mainline? Of course not. There goes that quality of life thing again. Hours or service, guarantees, vacation days, call out time, duty rigs, monthly caps, etc. etc.etc. Since when is flying for a commuter, even as a captain considered a quality of life improvement? ANd the separate contract is another factor that works against you, pointing once again to the fact that MDA was seperate from mainline. At UA with Ted (and DL with Song) pilots worked under the same contract regardless and could bid on or off without restriction. Same contract, same work rules, same quality of life.

 

[Flippin43]

Yes it was for you, I figured you might have missed the post, it was quite a while ago. Our west friends, except for nic4us, have missed the point and instead have taken to beating the same old drums-furloughed, furloughed, furloughed and that we are all nuts. My main point, that I think I pretty much stated in my post yesterday, was that none of our opinions matter. Nic made the list and it's his to keep as is or change IF (there's that word again west boys) he deems necessary. The legality of what USAPA has tried to do will be determined by the legal system and again our opinions mean squat.

The main contributing factor to this possible conclusion is that no one has proven that there was not a fence restricting MDA pilots from bidding mainline and mainline pilots being able to bid for the Posh senior MDA Captain job you allude to below. Fence, Restriction or Furlough Status, call it what you want to, but you or anyone else have not proven this did not exist. Same certificate or not. By the way I'm currently on your certificate but restricted from flying your jets. I'm not furloughed but I cannot exercise any ability of bidding on anything on the east list. This same type restriction existed for MDA pilots.

But, since we throw around so many what ifs and could of beens around here, I'm asking why you think like you do. Your statement seems a little arrogant, but maybe you didn't mean it to be. I said take away the furloughed part(flip in his 4 part essay made the first 3 on furloughed even after I said IF) and look at the positions, pay and lifestyle on 5/19/05 of the bottom AWA reserve 737 F/O and tell me that anyone of those was better than the top line holder E170 captain. It wasn't. Even if you take away the fact that the capt. had around 16 years invested in the company and the F/O had a few months, most guys would agree that the capt. job was more valued than the F/Os in pay, status, comfort(vs a 737 anyway and I fly it so I have that right ) and lifestyle. What does the fact of it's size have anything to do with it? The E170 has about 50 or 40% less seats than an A319. An A319 has about 160 or about 55% less seats than an A330. Did all A319 capt. and F/Os get slotted behind all A330 capts and F/Os? No, they did not.

With this logic, the senior guy at Piedmont has a better Catagory and Status job than the Junior F/O on the east list...........don't think so, some might though. It doesn't hold up in the big picture. Why would the guys who held these "better" jobs be trying so hard to get to or be declared Mainline.

You are correct that all F/O's were not merged directly with F/O's, the slots created by ratio were created first and the names filled it. As you know some do this for the lifestyle and so you will have pilots that could be Capts that are flying as F/O's. As you know the top 517 slots were given to AAA pilots and the AWA #1 pilot was put in below that number......Why was that, its because we didn't have widebodies. The same applies to the other end of the list. And sorry in the scheme of things the smaller the jet the lesser desired. This is the usual metric when determining pay. But the same being on the bottom of the list is why this whole on the certificate, off the certificate, furloughed, not furloughed doesn't have much bearing.

Let's go back that happy mental land of the west pilot where all is good and right with the world and run a little scenario. It's early 2007. The company never sold MDA and admits they never did it correctly and decides it's just a division of the mainline, like MJ. The Nic award comes out, the east accepts it, we get that wonderful contract that the west guys say was just around the corner and despite rising fuel costs, dropping revenues we didn't furlough, just kept everybody where they were. The first combined bid comes out and the west has no movement, but due to early 10 retirements there are 10 vacancies on the east A330. We bid, and the upward progression leaves 5 E170 capt positions open when it comes to the bottom five guys on the AWA list. Don't you think at least a few of them would trade bottom reserve 2 year F/O pay and lifestyle for the number 1 170 capt position? The pay wasn't great but I believe it was based on Eagle rates so I would guess that it would be a raise from 2nd yer F/O. The lifestyle would be much better, even if you had to commute. I think they would. But that's just my opinion and it's worth what you paid for it.

Its this very thing that illuminates the restriction that was placed on the MDA pilots that you or anyone else fails to acknowledge. The bottom AAA guy could not go and fly as Capt on the MDA operation. If this did not exist no one has proved it.


Flip

 

[Pi brat]

The problem with this logic is that no where does a merger policy talk about "lifestyle expectations." It only talks about career expectations, which is much more definable than lifestyle which is infinitely subjective. The difference in your example is that the 170 captain has no where to go. (Unless he was recalled to mainline.) The 737/A320 f/o can only go up. The other direction is furloughed.

Those of us who came up from commuters generally left our former employers somewhere near the top, with schedule, equipment, even pay, to take jobs on reserve at the bottom with less pay at our current employer. If lifestyle was such a factor, why on earth would we do that?

A mainline job is a mainline job no matter how you slice it. And at US the only way to get that back was/is a recall letter.

Let me ask you this? Did MDA pilots work under the same contract as mainline? Of course not. There goes that quality of life thing again. Hours or service, guarantees, vacation days, call out time, duty rigs, monthly caps, etc. etc.etc. Since when is flying for a commuter, even as a captain considered a quality of life improvement?

Look at this from US history prospective. We had 65/73 seat F-28 on the mainline ( that btw paid more in the 90s than an E190 pays now). Again, MDA positions were in reality mainline jobs, just like Metro Jet was, operating under a side letter. Here's you big statement and you are absolutely correct: "The difference in your example is that the 170 captain has no where to go. (Unless he was recalled to mainline.)" Well yeah, that's the same as the bottom 737 F/O, and when the slot came open, they would move up, furloughed or not.

And here is the most arrogant statement: 'Since when is flying for a commuter, even as a captain considered a quality of life improvement?" What do you know about their quality of life? Do you have the contract in front of you? I guess it's all personal preference, but I would take an E170 #1 captain over a bottom 737 F/O any day, IF it paid at least 50 cents more an hour. And again, if ALPA had properly represented the MDA pilots, they may have had better contract terms than they did.

 

[Flippin43]

Flip,

You may have gotten that understanding from this board, but from what I have heard from my F/Os that were actually part of this mess, that is not what they are trying to say. This the way I understand their position, but I could be wrong. I'm sure I will be corrected either way.

The original intent of the company was all mixed up. One day MDA was going to be a division, next day GE wanted the aircraft away from the mainline so they could get their hands on them if the mainline went down. They come up plan to make it a separate company like PSA, staffed by furloughed pilots from the mainline. That's the road they started down. Along the way issues popped up, like not being able to get the planes on the line if they had to get a new certificate, and there were a lot of what the company considered bigger issues, so they kind of didn't worry about the new company thing and just made it kind of a hybrid-a division of the mainline. But they never really did it properly and ALPA allowed them to get away with some provisions of the original intent, like much worse contract and staffed by furloughed pilots, while not taking them to task on the other things related to still being a mainline aircraft. That's the basis of the DFR(again as I understand it). ALPA allowed the company to back track and not form the new company and they just let it be part of the mainline, but they did not represent the interests of the pilots by letting them have mainline provisions, such as bidding rights back and forth etc.

So, let's just say they win or settle a DFR. They can then go back to Mr. Nicolau and argue that they were indeed not furloughed, and at least the captain jobs had a higher value than a bottom level AWA F/O. Nicolau might not buy it, but even if he did I don't think it would be a major reshuffle, he might just say, okay the top 100-200 guys did have a higher position, so I will slot them in a little higher. I don't think anyone is saying that under a Nic type situation that everyone on the east list would move ahead. You mention the guy that had not been to the airport. I believe if his number was in that area that could have gone to MDA then he could be moved ahead. It wouldn't matter if he went to an airport or not. If ALPA had forced the company to do MDA correctly he may have decided to take the job instead of going to drive a truck. Again, I don't think it would be individual pilots and their positions, but rather the number of pilots relative to the aircraft, kind of like his reasoning for the top 517 going to the east guys. Not all of them actually flew the 330, it's just he number he came up with that had the expectation.

Again, worth what you paid for it.

PI,

Would you rather these guys not have the option to bypass the MDA operation. ie the first 400 or so "furloughed" AAA pilots instead of given the option to bypass they would have had to quit. If it were to have been treated as just another Mainline A/C thats what would have happened as we see now with guys being forced back to the 190. As you know when a guy gets bumped off the 757 to the 737 he doesn't get a choice to go on furlough instead.

Still the restriction of what a guy could bid to while at MDA, What bearing do you think it had on this.

Flip

 

[767jetz]

while not taking them to task on the other things related to still being a mainline aircraft.

ALPA allowed the company to back track and not form the new company and they just let it be part of the mainline,

... and at least the captain jobs had a higher value than a bottom level AWA F/O.

This is the big 2 assumptions people have a problem with. You are stating as a fact that they are "mainline aircraft" just because they used the US certificate. This is certainly not a hard and fast fact. It is opinion and can be argued either way. In fact It should have been argued by your union, but wasn't.

And the idea that an MDA captain position if worth more than a mainline f/o position is a far reach. I doubt you will find many that really agree with that, given the nature of the separate contracts.

 

[Pi brat]

My God, tunnel vision. There absolutely was a division between MDA and the rest of the mainline. Some have said that there were some provisions for going back and forth, but in general you had to be furloughed to go there. I concede that, the point is that it turned out that the company LEFT the aircraft on the mainline and ALPA should have defended the rights of the pilots and corrected that and other issues!

What does PDT have to do with anything? They are not on our certificate or seniority list.

Okay all you PDT and PSA guys out there. You thought the US mainline guys looked down on you? How about this bunch?

 

[Pi brat]

PI,

Would you rather these guys not have the option to bypass the MDA operation. ie the first 400 or so "furloughed" AAA pilots instead of given the option to bypass they would have had to quit. If it were to have been treated as just another Mainline A/C thats what would have happened as we see now with guys being forced back to the 190. As you know when a guy gets bumped off the 757 to the 737 he doesn't get a choice to go on furlough instead.

Still the restriction of what a guy could bid to while at MDA, What bearing do you think it had on this.

Flip

That would have been the downside, but in my opinion the way it should have been. The company changed the game along the way, they should have corrected it then, but like many things around here they do what they want and the union let them. Not sure what your are asking in your last sentence.