Virgin America Pilots ALPA Drive

SpiceWeasel said:
They dropped it by $500 a month justifying it by giving new hires a $24/day voucher with 41 days of credit to the restaurant at the hotel ($1066 worth).

ALPA didn't kill the culture, management did. No more new hire BBQ at Sonny's, no significant other in the sims or at orientation, and more importantly, you CANNOT have your wife, girlfriend, etc., come stay with you now during training.

No waivers no favors.
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Really? No free BBQ? That's your big complaint?

Of course they don't want overnight guests in the room. That's probably a provision in the contract between the hotel and the company: no overnight guests. It's a money loser for the hotel. Besides, you're supposed to be in there studying and preparing for the job. They're investing a lot of money in your training. The last thing they, or you, want is a training failure due to outside distraction.

And don't even mention the $500; you're coming out ahead on that deal. You can't even get one decent meal on $12 a day.
 
Phil Schuyler said:
Really? No free BBQ? That's your big complaint?

Of course they don't want overnight guests in the room. That's probably a provision in the contract between the hotel and the company: no overnight guests. It's a money loser for the hotel. Besides, you're supposed to be in there studying and preparing for the job. They're investing a lot of money in your training. The last thing they, or you, want is a training failure due to outside distraction.

And don't even mention the $500; you're coming out ahead on that deal. You can't even get one decent meal on $12 a day.
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lol I don't even know where to start.

The BBQ "was" a culture-building event.

Overnight guests? Provision in the contract? Please, do some research before you spout your ignorant views, sir.

People have these things called "weekends" where they might be able to spend, say, one, maybe two days unwinding from the grind of learning a new company, and new plane. One of my new hire classmates got to see his child and his wife as part of having the hotel. You are okay leaving your wife and kid for 6 straight weeks? Seriously???

And finally, you, sir, clearly do not know how to cook if you think, number 1, it's a great idea to have a voucher for hotel food for 6 weeks, and 2, you think that $24 a day is going to get you far if you don't prepare your own meal. Howabout the extra $500 for stuff like "life" and preparing your own food.

Go and play at your crappy regional dispatch job man.
 
PhilosopherPilot said:
Plus changing new hire training pay unilaterally and with no notice was pretty crappy.
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Honestly, I was surprised they did that. Why bother spelling it out in the PEA if ALPA apparently can't even represent new hires. Well, they say they won't on pay, but a paragraph later they say they'll be there if there's a training review issue. I'm a little confused on how ALPA can only represent them on one or two issues. I figure either the PEA applies or it doesn't.
 
Phil Schuyler said:
Really? No free BBQ? That's your big complaint?

Of course they don't want overnight guests in the room. That's probably a provision in the contract between the hotel and the company: no overnight guests. It's a money loser for the hotel. Besides, you're supposed to be in there studying and preparing for the job. They're investing a lot of money in your training. The last thing they, or you, want is a training failure due to outside distraction.

And don't even mention the $500; you're coming out ahead on that deal. You can't even get one decent meal on $12 a day.
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Seeing as the "hotel" IS the company, I don't think that's it. They used to fly in your spouse and let them stay with you for the first couple of days of training. They even encouraged you to bring them to orientation. Then I guess flying them in got too expensive or something.

Make no mistake, the "no overnight vistors" rule wasn't made for the pilots. It was made for the FAs, AO/GO and every one else. We're just getting fall out because a lot of other crewmember groups treat training as a Spring Break instead of a serious career event. Before moving over to the Lodge, there was no rule about "no spouses/girlfriends/whatever spending the night." Money losing for the hotel isn't even a thing since it's not contracted to the hotel. It's our own building.

As for the dropped $500, no one is coming out ahead on that deal. Our old extended training hotels were extended stay hotels with kitchens and shuttles to grocery stores. Now? It's a shared kitchen on the floor with no frig in the room (make sure you label your stuff and lock it down with a combination lock). I'm doubtful on the transportation options as well. I'd say bring a car, but they're cracking down on parking over there. It was already tight before the Lodge was built. But, hey, check out that softball field they built.

When the union sent the e-mail about new hires getting their pay cut, I was sure they misunderstood something. They were tossing around numbers that didn't add up and "value" dollar figures. Based on what they said, I guess the company still owes me something like $300 from when I was a new hire. Either that, or there's stuff in that "value" number that is still hidden behind an iron curtain. I also figured the company wouldn't be that dumb to shoot themselves in the foot since we're already having trouble attracting decent talent and even more trouble keeping them in the first year.
 
SpiceWeasel said:
They dropped it by $500 a month justifying it by giving new hires a $24/day voucher with 41 days of credit to the restaurant at the hotel ($1066 worth).

ALPA didn't kill the culture, management did. No more new hire BBQ at Sonny's, no significant other in the sims or at orientation, and more importantly, you CANNOT have your wife, girlfriend, etc., come stay with you now during training.

No waivers no favors.
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Is this really all true? It wasn't long ago that this was the case. That's kinda sad. At our Co. we were never allowed spouses in training but the one big event annually we had was the Refresh event. It was last held in 2014 and cancelled for 2015 and beyond.
 
CirrusMonkey said:
At VX or JB?
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He's talking about JB. At VX, training pay is $2,500/month until completion of IOE. No hotel/meals in SFO. If you get the sim in SFO, they give you/partner a rental car to get to/from sim facility. If you get sim in DFW or MIA, you get full hotel, per diem, and rental car.
 
SpiceWeasel said:
lol I don't even know where to start.

The BBQ "was" a culture-building event.

Overnight guests? Provision in the contract? Please, do some research before you spout your ignorant views, sir.

People have these things called "weekends" where they might be able to spend, say, one, maybe two days unwinding from the grind of learning a new company, and new plane. One of my new hire classmates got to see his child and his wife as part of having the hotel. You are okay leaving your wife and kid for 6 straight weeks? Seriously???

And finally, you, sir, clearly do not know how to cook if you think, number 1, it's a great idea to have a voucher for hotel food for 6 weeks, and 2, you think that $24 a day is going to get you far if you don't prepare your own meal. Howabout the extra $500 for stuff like "life" and preparing your own food.

Go and play at your crappy regional dispatch job man.
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SpiceWeasel said:
lol I don't even know where to start.

The BBQ "was" a culture-building event.

Overnight guests? Provision in the contract? Please, do some research before you spout your ignorant views, sir.

People have these things called "weekends" where they might be able to spend, say, one, maybe two days unwinding from the grind of learning a new company, and new plane. One of my new hire classmates got to see his child and his wife as part of having the hotel. You are okay leaving your wife and kid for 6 straight weeks? Seriously???

And finally, you, sir, clearly do not know how to cook if you think, number 1, it's a great idea to have a voucher for hotel food for 6 weeks, and 2, you think that $24 a day is going to get you far if you don't prepare your own meal. Howabout the extra $500 for stuff like "life" and preparing your own food.

Go and play at your crappy regional dispatch job man.
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I'm not surprised the BBQ events was cancelled. It apparently wasn't effective if the JB pilot group chose to unionize. But that's neither here nor there

I didn't know that the company "hotel" was in reality a dormitory. Functionally anyway. If it's company owned and operated, then they every reason not to allow overnight guests. If nothing else, there are safety and security issues present. As Kellwolf send, some people don't take those events as seriously as others.

I know perfectly well what it's like to spend 6 weeks away from my family. It sucks. I hated it. But we knew it was temporary, and so we agreed that we'd just head down and get through it. But there are people in this world who spend 6 MONTHS (or more) away from their family, and their living conditions are not nearly as nice, and they're not paid anywhere near what you are. So why don't you go complain to them about it. I'm sure that will fall on receptive ears.

There are legitimate business reasons why these decisions are made. They're not just made to "screw the pilots." Get over your persecution complex.

And yes I can cook when I have something more than microwave and a beer fridge to do it with.:)
 
L-16B said:
Are you not positive spaced home on your days off?

I've never understood people that don't go home on days off during training.
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Because maybe they live on the other coast.

Leave PHX at 4pm local arrive on East Coast at midnight on Friday. Leave East Coast Sunday AM and arrive in PHX at midnight.

Not the smartest way to temp the new hire/probie Gods. IMO of course.

The new hires in June had it nice. They didn't even have to buy their new hire meal themselves. They even flew their family in for the new hire evening shin-dig. I really don't think anyone can compare the pre-merger US Airways with any other place, it was pretty low rent. Happy to be here, but still low rent. Remember second year pay on the AIRBUS was what...$56/hr? Absolutely great people, but the contract had been gutted numerous times, and never renegotiated.

But yeah, they did positive space you to and from training on your days off...so I guess there's that.
 
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Phil Schuyler said:
Really? No free BBQ? That's your big complaint?

Of course they don't want overnight guests in the room. That's probably a provision in the contract between the hotel and the company: no overnight guests. It's a money loser for the hotel. Besides, you're supposed to be in there studying and preparing for the job. They're investing a lot of money in your training. The last thing they, or you, want is a training failure due to outside distraction.

And don't even mention the $500; you're coming out ahead on that deal. You can't even get one decent meal on $12 a day.
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They replaced Sonny's with a mixer/cookout at the lodge. Still free food! They didn't kill the pilot mixer ahead of time. They just brought it in-house. It got a little screwed up last week just since it was the first time, but the kinks will get worked out for the next class.

I will say the food is really good in the lodge. There's a lot of variety, and the $26 will buy you three meals a day no problem. BUT that's no good for 6 weeks. Sometimes you just gotta get away from the home base.

I understand why the rules/pay ads what they are, but it's not very JetBlue, and not good for pilots in general.

The no visitor rules have me straight up angry. I'm probably never going to be okay with that. Ever.
 
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wheelsup said:
Leave PHX at 4pm local arrive on East Coast at midnight on Friday. Leave East Coast Sunday AM and arrive in PHX at midnight.


But yeah, they did positive space you to and from training on your days off...so I guess there's that.
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Even as a low priority new hire it shouldn't take all day to go west bound, especially to a hub.

Also Airways (and the WOs) historically had one of the best treatment of new hire programs. They had to make up for the pay issue somehow.
 
Phil Schuyler said:
I'm not surprised the BBQ events was cancelled. It apparently wasn't effective if the JB pilot group chose to unionize. But that's neither here nor there

I didn't know that the company "hotel" was in reality a dormitory. Functionally anyway. If it's company owned and operated, then they every reason not to allow overnight guests. If nothing else, there are safety and security issues present. As Kellwolf send, some people don't take those events as seriously as others.

I know perfectly well what it's like to spend 6 weeks away from my family. It sucks. I hated it. But we knew it was temporary, and so we agreed that we'd just head down and get through it. But there are people in this world who spend 6 MONTHS (or more) away from their family, and their living conditions are not nearly as nice, and they're not paid anywhere near what you are. So why don't you go complain to them about it. I'm sure that will fall on receptive ears.

There are legitimate business reasons why these decisions are made. They're not just made to "screw the pilots." Get over your persecution complex.

And yes I can cook when I have something more than microwave and a beer fridge to do it with.:)
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It's not necessarily the new rules, it's the way they're implemented. It's more of a 180 degree turn from the way it used to be and a "Deal with it" attitude to go with it. I don't think they're intentional out to "screw the pilots." I think the implementation is knee jerk and poorly thought out. To make it worse, the company keeps saying they'll work with the union, the pilots and every one else and then things like new hire pay being cut gets cut along with other policies that have been around more than a decade get dropped on us like a ton of bricks.

Also, if you wanna cook in the microwave or beer fridge at 2 am at the Lodge, you'll have to leave your room to do it. That's a step backwards from the way it's been for at least 7-8 years as both of my long term training events were in an extended stay hotel. What I'd LIKE to see is the company offer some kind of option. You can stay at the Lodge or you can get a stipend equal to the "value" of your room at The Lodge to use to book your own room somewhere else and make up the difference out of your own pocket. It's not costing the company any more than it would be spending already.
 
kellwolf said:
It's not necessarily the new rules, it's the way they're implemented. It's more of a 180 degree turn from the way it used to be and a "Deal with it" attitude to go with it. I don't think they're intentional out to "screw the pilots." I think the implementation is knee jerk and poorly thought out. To make it worse, the company keeps saying they'll work with the union, the pilots and every one else and then things like new hire pay being cut gets cut along with other policies that have been around more than a decade get dropped on us like a ton of bricks. Also, if you wanna cook in the microwave or beer fridge at 2 am at the Lodge, you'll have to leave your room to do it. That's a step backwards from the way it's been for at least 7-8 years as both of my long term training events were in an extended stay hotel. What I'd LIKE to see is the company offer some kind of option. You can stay at the Lodge or you can get a stipend equal to the "value" of your room at The Lodge to use to book your own room somewhere else and make up the difference out of your own pocket. It's not costing the company any more than it would be spending already.
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Problem is unless the lodge is sitting empty. Then it costs them money if you are not there. Hopefully they can resolve the issues but looks like some should of been in the design phase.
 
So, I owe an apology to @SpiceWeasel. We don't agree, but that was no reason for me to be a jacka$$. I do apologize to you sir, and to @Derg for my poor behavior in your living room.

Pay it forward. That's what this is all about. I forget that sometimes.
 
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