I am asking this question for a friend of mine....the VFLR that was awarded a couple of years ago....when you get recalled back she knows she will go to the bottom..how about pay? Thank you.
You come back as a new hire, period. New hire pay, seniority, everything.
You also recieve the offer after our list of 1800 Involuntary Furloughees are offered recalls and passes until they either must come back or remove from the list. If this highly unlikely event ever occured, they would then begin recalling standard voluntary furloughees, which I believe number about 2000. After they have had all of thier recalls/passes etc and that list is exhausted, they would get to Involuntary Furlough Limited Return, which your friend is on. IFVRs would return as new hires to the company.
The intention of VFLR was more of a buyout than furlough. The "limited return" part was added only so participants could technically say they were "furloughed" rather than "bought out" and therefore recieve unemployment. The idea of someone actually returning as a new hire is not something that is expected to be a reality. Nor is the idea of US Airways ever getting to that very bottom of it's massive furlough list.
Last time I checked US (east) had about 4,400 active F/As and has since recalled about 200- so 4,600 active (someone correct me if you have better numbers.) A quick look at the most updated system seniority list effective July 11th (which includes all furloughees), shows 7,756 F/As. The bottom 717 are VFLRS and generally are considered there for technical reasons only as explained above. Down from the 10,400 active US F/As on 9/11/01, but still nearly double the active list which is pretty pathetic.
None of the above takes into account the as-yet-unmerged America West F/As, whi I believe number just over 2000.
Unless US Airways reverses course. goes nuts and the east organically doubles in size, adding 200 more airplanes and returning to it's pre-9/11 size, the furlough list will never be cleared. US Airways will buy, be bought, or go under before that ever happens.
Your friend could be a new hire at America West and begin accruing seniority now for a combined list if they really wanted back into US that badly. Again, major airlines that are still major have 0 furloughees and are hiring big time, some up to 2000 this year alone. Thier pay, benefits, aircraft, and destinations are way better than US and reserve is brief assignment compared to the lifelong punishment it is at US Airways. Without a seniority date, I just cannot imagine why on earth anyone would want to put themselves on that twisted monster of a list.
