Pinnacle Status?

TUCKnTRUCK said:
Those football days must come back to bite you :) Always wondered what supplement loading did to the liver (prob. about the same as all the drinking I did)
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Yeah, I didn't take one supplement in my football career. Just to much stuff they don't know about that crap.

Have you been called in at all on reserve? We have like 45-50% reserve coverage per day on the Captain side.
 
higney85 said:
I spend maybe $25 a 4-day trip. That is typically one the 1 long layover on a "'liquid diet". I bring a duffle that is loaded with food. Plus hotels with free breakfasts are always good for the budget!:D
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Guess I've been unlucky. Lately I've been staying in the hotels that DON'T have free breakfast. PHL is notoriously expensive b/c a) the hotel restaurant sucks and b) there are like zero choices around the hotel. I get all giddy when I can score a free banana. It's gotten that bad. Heard we moved hotels in CLE to save $1 per room, and we lost the free breakfast there. Used to be a Hampton, and now I think it's a Raddisson. Company saves $3 a night, and the crews spend more than that each for breakfast now.
 
kellwolf said:
Heard we moved hotels in CLE to save $1 per room, and we lost the free breakfast there. Used to be a Hampton, and now I think it's a Raddisson. Company saves $3 a night, and the crews spend more than that each for breakfast now.
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yeah, but what do they care? The breakfast we buy now, doesn't come out of their pockets.
 
kellwolf said:
Guess I've been unlucky. Lately I've been staying in the hotels that DON'T have free breakfast. PHL is notoriously expensive b/c a) the hotel restaurant sucks and b) there are like zero choices around the hotel. I get all giddy when I can score a free banana. It's gotten that bad. Heard we moved hotels in CLE to save $1 per room, and we lost the free breakfast there. Used to be a Hampton, and now I think it's a Raddisson. Company saves $3 a night, and the crews spend more than that each for breakfast now.
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The Radisson at least does have grab and go bags for the crews in the AM. Not much, just a pastry and some type of fruity bar with a bottle of water, but it is better than nothing at all. Not to mention the hotel restaurant has pretty good food for a decent price (with discount).
 
I guess I just get frustrated that with our current contract we get pretty much zero say in where we stay. Esp since we've discovered that if you fill out a hotel performance report of the company web site, the hotel committee doesn't even see it.
 
citationCJ1 said:
Has the March schedule out yet? With the 30 displacements, how does it look? Also, do you see the 3000 hr cut.
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Well, verdict is in. No 3000 hour plunge in block hours. In fact, we went UP about 1000 block hours in March over February. Not that they'll cancel the displacements to cover it.....
 
I guess thats good news. Were the marketing hours better last year? Its hard to believe eveyone on the board is saying 9E is short staffed and yet there are LOA and displacements. Anyone can explain in a simple way how this works?
 
Block hours for May 08 (the oldest bid pack I have access to):36,743

Block hours for March 09 : 34,370

So, it's about 2400 block hours less than May 08. That was the month I hit the line as a CA, and I flew over 60 hours that month on RSV. If I recall, that was before they really started scaling down the line awards, and it was VERY common to find CAs and FOs with lines in the 88-93 hour a month range. The only people that really think the airline is over staffed is management. Ask a scheduler, and they'll tell you the real scoop.

IMO, the discplacements were to save $$$. Displace 31 CAs to FO, and that's 31 fewer people you have to pay CA pay. We were shorter on FOs than CAs, so now we're just equally short. I had a trip put on my schedule last week that actually said "short on MSP CAs" in the comments section. So far this month, I've been used every day I've had a RSV day. I'm on RSV Thur-Sun, and I just looked at open time. 51 pairings in open time for CAs, 31 for FOs. Open time for the rest of this bid period (which runs till March 1st since Feb is a short month): 755:44 for CAs and 941:16 for FOs. This doesn't count in using RSVs for sick calls, irregular ops or the things RSVs are SUPPOSED to be used for.

If I were one of the 31 getting displaced, I think I might be parked outside PT's house with a can of gasoline right about now after being, more or less, lied to by management.
 
citationCJ1 said:
So if they are short on FO's and CA's, what are they gonna do about it? Cancel the displacements? Start interviewing?
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Neither. Canceling the displacements would mean management did something wrong. They won't admit that. In fact, they are spin masters to make everything that happens look like it was part of some cunning plan. -900 pay rates were a prime example. The arbitrator ruled in our favor, but the memo sent out said they were glad the arbitrator saw it their way, even though the pay rate he set was several dollars an hour more than what they wanted. The displaced CAs have "super seniority" for 90 days from the effective date of displacement. It wouldn't surprise me to see a CA vacancy 90 days from March first to get these guys back on the left side. However, it also wouldn't surprise me if the company left 'em in the right seat.

As for what they'll do, the same thing they did last time we were short: junior man and extend until we're all ready to drop dead......then they'll go on a witch hunt when people start calling in sick b/c they've worked so much their immune system shut down. This happens pretty much every spring. Question is, will they let it get to the point that they start canceling flights again. Reserves will be breaking guarantee, line holders will be hitting the 90 hour mark again. You'll see that before you see any more upgrades or new hire classes.
 
kellwolf said:
As for what they'll do, the same thing they did last time we were short: junior man and extend until we're all ready to drop dead......then they'll go on a witch hunt when people start calling in sick b/c they've worked so much their immune system shut down. This happens pretty much every spring. Question is, will they let it get to the point that they start canceling flights again. Reserves will be breaking guarantee, line holders will be hitting the 90 hour mark again. You'll see that before you see any more upgrades or new hire classes.
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And then they will wonder why they are short again in nov/dec because everyone is timing out.
 
blee256 said:
And then they will wonder why they are short again in nov/dec because everyone is timing out.
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Yeah, if I were a line holder, I'd be excited about that probability. But, with 2 months gone and not breaking guarantee either month, they'll be able to abuse me come Xmas and New Years. It was nice when I was an FO getting bought off of trips staring in OCTOBER, though....
 
Okay, pilot bid packs are out, and it looks like they tried to us PCL math to hide the 1000 hour increase. From Feb, we had a total of 33,370 block hours. If you add up the break down of block hours between DTW, MEM, MSP, "other" and IND, it comes out to 33,278. Okay, so they're off a little bit. Looking at March, it would APPEAR we lost hours since the total says 33,267. BUT, when you add up the breakdown you get 34,369, a difference of 999 hours. So, the total is NOT the same as the individual block hours added together. Nice try, guys, but we can add.

I moved up 2 slots in seniority, but I moved up 4 slots on bidding. Went from 195 in MEM to 191. 13 CAs on the "no bid" list, and of those at least 3 won't be flying the line anytime soon. The others look like ones that took voluntary LOAs.
 
kellwolf said:
I moved up 2 slots in seniority, but I moved up 4 slots on bidding. Went from 195 in MEM to 191. 13 CAs on the "no bid" list, and of those at least 3 won't be flying the line anytime soon. The others look like ones that took voluntary LOAs.
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Did you see my name on there? haha or was it just for MEM pilots?
 
kellwolf said:
I just looked at the MEM bid pack. MSP guys taking the LOA only means I'm gonna get DHed to MSP more. :)
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But it's getting nice here. You can hop over to the MOA and get some wings at Hooter's or maybe some barbecue at Famous Dave's....:bandit:
 
JEP said:
But it's getting nice here. You can hop over to the MOA and get some wings at Hooter's or maybe some barbecue at Famous Dave's....:bandit:
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My MSP trips lately have been DH from MEM to MSP, do a highspeed to somewhere like ALO where I get 7 hours and change on the ground, fly back to MSP, get 10 hours of "rest" in a hotel room, DH back to MEM.

Here's my trip to DTW I start tonight: DH to DTW at 16:31, highspeed to BGM with 7:10 on the ground, back to DTW, 12 hours in a hotel room, highspeed to ITH with roughly 7 hours on the ground, 10:08 in the hotel room, DH back to MEM at 20:00 Sun night.
 
kellwolf said:
My MSP trips lately have been DH from MEM to MSP, do a highspeed to somewhere like ALO where I get 7 hours and change on the ground, fly back to MSP, get 10 hours of "rest" in a hotel room, DH back to MEM.

Here's my trip to DTW I start tonight: DH to DTW at 16:31, highspeed to BGM with 7:10 on the ground, back to DTW, 12 hours in a hotel room, highspeed to ITH with roughly 7 hours on the ground, 10:08 in the hotel room, DH back to MEM at 20:00 Sun night.
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Does that not count as out-of-domocile reserve?
 
blee256 said:
Does that not count as out-of-domocile reserve?
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Nope. That counts as a trip that's been built. Out of domicile RSV is when they send you up to sit RSV in a hotel on-call. They can build a trip with DHs on either end all day long. They just can't send a guy to another city to sit RSV b/c they're starting to run low on RSVs in that city. At least, they can't do that anymore.
 
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