PSA New Hire FO Classes Suspended

bretthullrampage said:
Word is they still want to negotiate some and are keeping the details secret as to not give management an idea how we feel about it. All this negotiating leads me to believe AAG wants us to give up something major. I wouldnt be surprised if its related to critical coverage pay and/or SAP.
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bretthullrampage said:
Word is they still want to negotiate some and are keeping the details secret as to not give management an idea how we feel about it. All this negotiating leads me to believe AAG wants us to give up something major. I wouldnt be surprised if its related to critical coverage pay and/or SAP.
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With the way the reserve levels have been set during SAP, critical coverage is basically non existent as it stands right now. I'm not sure what the point of getting rid of SAP would be, people fly the same amount, they just get to do it when they want to.
 
Personally I don't see how management at any airline, given the current environment, can realistically expect pilots to give up anything unless the overall contract is a major improvement. About the only way it might work is by dangling the "quick upgrades" promise to a sheeple regional pilot group.
 
wheelsup said:
If United or Delta wanted to really hurt AA, they'd hire a bunch of PSA's newly minted check airman. Would be kinda humorous :).
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This is why I would not be surprised to see legacies try to find employee models that gets them control of their regional partner pilot pools. If you look at the numbers they need in order to meet retirements, they need a pilot pipelines that will feed their need for retiring mainline pilots while not feeding competitor needs.
We shall see said the blind man.
 
PSA's MEC recently said that they were working on a preferential hiring program with other ALPA carriers, instead of with mainline AAG. That would be a huge slap in the face to AAG if the PSA employees started to move in large numbers to another legacy carrier.
 
Blackhawk said:
This is why I would not be surprised to see legacies try to find employee models that gets them control of their regional partner pilot pools. If you look at the numbers they need in order to meet retirements, they need a pilot pipelines that will feed their need for retiring mainline pilots while not feeding competitor needs.
We shall see said the blind man.
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The best way they can do this is give new hires at the WO a seniority number at mainline. It's actually pretty genius. It essentially locks you into that carrier, because after 3-4 years think of all the seniority lost if you were to go to another carrier outside of your mainline one. They can continue to pay low rates and save the money on feed.

Downside is, almost no external hiring as not many would want to go to that mainline carrier as a street hire with guys who are flowing with half a decade in seniority above them. Also you'd have to staff your feeders primarily, and it would be significantly tougher to do that than hire into mainline directly.

Another option is bring the flying back, or at least a significant portion. Here at AA I would like to see a large order for 195's to replace a decent chunk of the Republic 170 flying.
 
wheelsup said:
The best way they can do this is give new hires at the WO a seniority number at mainline. It's actually pretty genius. It essentially locks you into that carrier, because after 3-4 years think of all the seniority lost if you were to go to another carrier outside of your mainline one. They can continue to pay low rates and save the money on feed.

Downside is, almost no external hiring as not many would want to go to that mainline carrier as a street hire with guys who are flowing with half a decade in seniority above them. Also you'd have to staff your feeders primarily, and it would be significantly tougher to do that than hire into mainline directly.

Another option is bring the flying back, or at least a significant portion. Here at AA I would like to see a large order for 195's to replace a decent chunk of the Republic 170 flying.
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In order for that to work legacies would need to return to the model of owning their regional partners.
Again, I'm not going to guess how they crack this nut. They may just stick their collective heads in the sand until it becomes a crisis then lobby the government for some kind of relief or competitive advantage.
Also will be interesting to see how those without feeders- such as LLCs- deal with the issue if the legacy carriers figure out a way to lock in their regional pilot pools.
 
wheelsup said:
Another option is bring the flying back, or at least a significant portion. Here at AA I would like to see a large order for 195's to replace a decent chunk of the Republic 170 flying.
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Absolutely!

Too bad AAG doesn't have options with Embraer... oh...wait... :D
 
Blackhawk said:
Personally I don't see how management at any airline, given the current environment, can realistically expect pilots to give up anything unless the overall contract is a major improvement. About the only way it might work is by dangling the "quick upgrades" promise to a sheeple regional pilot group.
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It seems to be working just fine.
 
Blackhawk said:
Personally I don't see how management at any airline, given the current environment, can realistically expect pilots to give up anything unless the overall contract is a major improvement. About the only way it might work is by dangling the "quick upgrades" promise to a sheeple regional pilot group.
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It works well, actually. That's why we're on this constant "rinse, repeat" cycle.
 
wheelsup said:
If United or Delta wanted to really hurt AA, they'd hire a bunch of PSA's newly minted check airman. Would be kinda humorous :).
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I think that is already happening to an extent with the hiring out of the old LCAs to other airlines that the new LCAs are replacing. Perhaps not in a directly planned "wanted to really hurt AA" way, but that is the effect.

It's hurting PSA for all the cost of all us trainees who are sitting on our butts at home being paid our minimum while providing no benefit because there aren't enough LCAs to get us through IOE faster. More guys are leaving for other airlines each month than the SSP fo AA. Which is good, and why a lot of us aren't worried about SSP numbers.

I would not give up something good from the contract in order to increase SSP. We don't need to. If we are patient, barring another 9/11 or other catastrophe, we should't need it.
 
Autothrust Blue said:
It seems to be working just fine.
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Derg said:
It works well, actually. That's why we're on this constant "rinse, repeat" cycle.
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Again, current environment, not that which existed a year or two ago. When you can't find enough pilots to fly airplanes it's foolish to expect current employees to take concessions. Then again, based upon what I read on this website maybe there are enough regional pilots who would take a concessionary contract even in this environment.
 
Soku39 said:
With the way the reserve levels have been set during SAP, critical coverage is basically non existent as it stands right now. I'm not sure what the point of getting rid of SAP would be, people fly the same amount, they just get to do it when they want to.
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The grievance hearing for the critical coverage setup (basically, can they change the required number of reserves AFTER the month starts) is this month some time I think. You never know with arbitration how things will go, but there is a whole lot of evidence that shows the intent was to have the number set prior to the month starting and then not change. *If* the arbitrator agrees with that, they will be stuck paying large amounts of CC pay, or having the ability for people to drop or trade out of a whole lot of days that they don't have staffing for (as long as they are short staffed in general). The system was, as written, absolutely genius. The balancing of scheduling flexibility with paying premium pay was one of the sections of that contract that I am most proud of. It forces the company to be sufficiently staffed, or have to pay CC pay OR allow scheduling flexibility and still have to pay JM pay which is even more. So, if they lose this arbitration, I can see the company dangling a HUGE carrot to try to get away from the costs generated by it.

As far as SAP... the issue is that it occurs (per the language) prior to the reserve grid being developed so there is nothing stopping EVERYBODY in round 1 from dropping Christmas day if they wanted. Of course all the junior guys would be JMed back in to working that day, but it would be at 200% (or 175%? I can't remember any more). I think somebody told me there was an LOA that took the edge off of that a bit but I can see the company wanting more protection from that.
 
The arbitration is tomorrow and Thursday. All parties are supposedly already in Dayton and preparing.

The company promised that they would arrange for the former employees/witnesses (they are currently at US?AA) to be at the meeting, since the company kept postponing the arbitration. When it actually came time for the real arbitration, the company backed out this week and would not let the former employees be off work at AA to come to the arbitration. APA stepped in and made sure that they were available. Here is a big thank you to the members of APA for their support in getting our witnesses to the arbitration!
 
tbstanto said:
The arbitration is tomorrow and Thursday. All parties are supposedly already in Dayton and preparing.

The company promised that they would arrange for the former employees/witnesses (they are currently at US?AA) to be at the meeting, since the company kept postponing the arbitration. When it actually came time for the real arbitration, the company backed out this week and would not let the former employees be off work at AA to come to the arbitration. APA stepped in and made sure that they were available. Here is a big thank you to the members of APA for their support in getting our witnesses to the arbitration!
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That's great APA stepped up. Dealing with USAPA was... challenging. Hopefully the WO ALPA units will have more luck with APA. I wonder who the arbitrator is.
 
wheelsup said:
If United or Delta wanted to really hurt AA, they'd hire a bunch of PSA's newly minted check airman. Would be kinda humorous :).
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Psa robbed all those FOs from Endeavor and it worked out well for Endeavor guys. 20 grand in pay retention and acceptance rate on the SSP doubled.

Everyone keep poaching, mainline will have to take it all back soon :)
 
jynxyjoe said:
Psa robbed all those FOs from Endeavor and it worked out well for Endeavor guys. 20 grand in pay retention and acceptance rate on the SSP doubled.

Everyone keep poaching, mainline will have to take it all back soon :)
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Every guy from my January class that came from Endeavor is now either in CA upgrade class or will be in the next month. I'd say the decision to come to PSA is working out well for them.
 
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