PSA Charlotte Base

thevideographer said:
Yalls' union signed an LOA forcing 180 FOs to upgrade without a vote? The flow is only 10 a month after it increases? Yikes
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The contract already allowed the company to force the most junior, barely qualified FOs to upgrade. Adjusting things to be able to force the more qualified senior FOs to do it instead makes a lot more sense to me. Forcing the barely 1000 SIC FOs to upgrade instead of the many bypassing 2000+ hour FOs seems dumb from a probability / risk standpoint.

And again, there are ways to avoid getting forced to upgrade for those with good reasons. I don't have a big problem with this.
 
Beefy McGee said:
The contract already allowed the company to force the most junior, barely qualified FOs to upgrade. Adjusting things to be able to force the more qualified senior FOs to do it instead makes a lot more sense to me. Forcing the barely 1000 SIC FOs to upgrade instead of the many bypassing 2000+ hour FOs seems dumb from a probability / risk standpoint.

And again, there are ways to avoid getting forced to upgrade for those with good reasons. I don't have a big problem with this.
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So instead of forcing people to upgrade, why doesn't the company, ya know, pay them well enough to upgrade? What happens if the one being bent over the upgrade barrel says no? Terminated? What if said upgrade candidate flops on the checkride or IOE? Will he get to return to the right seat? All of this garbage points to an up or out policy and that is a very perilous path to walk upon. All of this stuff being "negotiated" and done without the input of the membership. Your union dues became taxation without representation.
 
Quarryman said:
All of this stuff being "negotiated" and done without the input of the membership. Your union dues became taxation without representation.
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I went into more detail on FB, but during the last election for CLT union reps (probably the most powerful position within PSA ALPA) we received roughly 11 nomination ballots that resulted in the current CLT CA Rep running unopposed, and two CAs running for FO Rep, including the #2 CA in CLT. Those nomination ballots are actually mailed to all CLT Pilot's home address, but I imagine most of them get circular filed as soon as said pilot sees the return address.

For the actual election, the actual turnout was 15%.

If you're feeling unrepresented, it's not ALPA's fault.
 
Quarryman said:
So instead of forcing people to upgrade, why doesn't the company, ya know, pay them well enough to upgrade? What happens if the one being bent over the upgrade barrel says no? Terminated? What if said upgrade candidate flops on the checkride or IOE? Will he get to return to the right seat? All of this garbage points to an up or out policy and that is a very perilous path to walk upon. All of this stuff being "negotiated" and done without the input of the membership. Your union dues became taxation without representation.
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From my understanding you can say "I don't feel comfortable." and like fatigue there's nothing they can do about it. Unsure how true that is or is not
 
Quarryman said:
So instead of forcing people to upgrade, why doesn't the company, ya know, pay them well enough to upgrade? What happens if the one being bent over the upgrade barrel says no? Terminated? What if said upgrade candidate flops on the checkride or IOE? Will he get to return to the right seat? All of this garbage points to an up or out policy and that is a very perilous path to walk upon. All of this stuff being "negotiated" and done without the input of the membership. Your union dues became taxation without representation.
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Interesting questions. And the captain pay improvement is supposedly is in the works.

There are provisions, case by case, for guys to talk to the Chiefs/company to explain why they should not upgrade and they shouldn't be forced if the reason is good enough.

It remains to be seen what the consequences might be if someone refuses a forced upgrade with no good reason for it.

With the flow and reserve rule changes, plus the holiday season being over, there may be enough FOs choosing to upgrade that the lack of upgrades may reduce enough for the forced upgrade to be a rare thing. Time will tell on that.

Upgrade was not very difficult though in my opinion. The one guy who struggled in my class, we all saw it coming, and even he passed, albeit on a recheck. 11/12 first time goes though. You just have to focus and work hard during training, but that's the same thing we all did to get through FO training. Every pilot at this airline currently already has the PIC typerating, so the ride shouldn't be that hard. By the time someone goes for upgrade, unless they are a DEC they should have done this same ride from the right seat several times. If they can't pass it, does that mean they struggle to pass their FO recurrent rides too? If that's the case, if they are that marginal, should they even be in the industry?

A rumor I heard recently is that AA has seen an increased amount of marginal pilots making it to mainline via the flow (big surprise right?). AA doesn't like it and may be looking at ways to tweak things to get more screening on the flows, such as requiring flows to have been a captain at their regional.
 
Quarryman said:
So instead of forcing people to upgrade, why doesn't the company, ya know, pay them well enough to upgrade?
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I don't think it was ever about the pay. In fact, you could say it the other way around...

FO pay is high enough that, when a pilot ranks QOL as more important than pay, they'd rather not upgrade and be junior. Also, it's pretty normal at even major airlines, that a senior FO getting way more than min days off and crediting well above kin guarantee makes the same as a junior captain at min guarantee and min days off.
 
BobDDuck said:
I don't think it was ever about the pay. In fact, you could say it the other way around...

FO pay is high enough that, when a pilot ranks QOL as more important than pay, they'd rather not upgrade and be junior. Also, it's pretty normal at even major airlines, that a senior FO getting way more than min days off and crediting well above kin guarantee makes the same as a junior captain at min guarantee and min days off.
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True that. I did the math, in base FO at 90 hrs credit versus commuting CA rsv at 75 hrs, difference about $3500/month. Take out extra from taxes, commuting costs/food, crashpad around $350/mo, and the difference comes crashing down in a hurry.
 
thevideographer said:
Yalls' union signed an LOA forcing 180 FOs to upgrade without a vote?
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No, the MEC approved an LOA that allows the company to force senior FOs to upgrade, but only if not enough other qualified FOs bid for the vacancies.

The flow is only 10 a month after it increases? Yikes
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Correct. That also means that if you got hired in early '14 you're less than 5 and a half years on property before you flow. Some guys got lucky. We expect further gains in that number pending some other ongoing negotiations.
 
chrisreedrules said:
Yea I mean to flow more pilots the company has to make sure it can fill those CA spots. And I personally think Jr Manning your most inexperienced FOs is not a good avenue to take. So where does that leave them?
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I’m not against what they did. I am optimistic that things will change and we won’t have to resort to relying on forced upgrades. I look forward to upgrading after I get the rest of my 1000 hrs ( which will be around the first part of summer). Hopefully the improvements to reserve are in place. I think we’re headed in the right direction, if the disgruntled few will be patient.
 
Just over a year ago, we started really filling new hire classes because of the pay raises. Oct 24th, 2016 was the first "large" hiring hiring class after the "lull of 2016". Since then, we hired a ton of pilots.

Those that were hired in the tail end of 2016 and early 2017 will start hitting their 1000 hours in the next few months. I looked at many of their schedules, and quite a few flew 700+ last year. Many of them will want to upgrade. Hopefully we will be able to fill upgrade classes without any "forced" upgrades in the very near future.
 
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