Realistically, what do you want?

[SpiceWeasel]

Why do you think most will never happpen?

Used in another thread... the phrase "negotiating capital". I would bet you'd have to give up a lot to get that. For example, pay rates probably wouldn't be touchable.... though if you were paid duty maybe the current rates would seem much better.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Work rules

Min 14 days off for reserves
Min 13 days off for line holders

Call first/call last reserve system
Long-call reserve for at least 25% of reserve lines
No more ready reserve
No mandatory extensions/junior manning
150% pay for pick-ups when reserve manning drops below pre-set level
200% pay for extensions/junior assignments (voluntary)
Fully transparent scheduling (union gets full access to CrewTrac)
Reserves able to drop and trade days off
Max 12 hour scheduled duty day (already have it, but want to keep it)
Max 14 hour actual duty day
Min 10 hours rest between duty periods
etc...

vacation

Year Vacation

1 Two weeks
5 Three weeks
8 Four weeks
12 Five weeks

per diem

$1.95/hr domestic
$2.35/hr international

retirement

14% B-Fund
50% company match on first 5% of employee contributions to 401(k)

and so forth?

Scope - own all jet flying and all prop flying in excess of 50 seats; bind Holdings
Insurance - company pays 80% of premiums, co-pays locked for duration
General - company pays for 1,500 hours per year of ALPA flight pay loss; ALPA PAC & insurance checkoff
Hotels - business class or better (Hyatt, Marriott, Hilton, Doubletree, etc...)
Furloughs - mandatory voluntary leaves and reduction in line values prior to furloughs
Grievance - min of 6 system boards per year; all termination cases expedited
Training - ALPA notified of any failures; no termination from failed CA check, just back to the right seat

So, to say you'd like to be paid for 80 hours of work while only flying 20... well, find another thread Mr. (Mrs.) Imagineer.

That's not unrealistic in certain situations. I used to get paid 70 hours for flying 25 all the time on stand-ups.

Retirement. Strickly 401k. I know pensions are better in theory, but ever since it became legal to dump the retirement into the company coffers and give it out as bonus money I'm awestruck at the stupidity of it. If I contribute, company matches. I pick where the money is going into.

A B-Fund pension is your best bet. You own the account that the money goes into, so the company can't get rid of it in bankruptcy, but you don't have to contribute anything. For instance, AirTran contributes 10.5% of my gross income every month to my B-Fund without me contributing a dime. Anything over that is voluntary on my part.

Seniority to be a rotating bid on aircraft type. No more having guys who are forever senior and guys who are forever junior for monthly bidding purposes or for vacation bidding purposes. Seniority still to be used for bidding aircraft type, but once on type the rotation starts. All pilots on type placed in one of 5 groups. Groups rotate each month so you get an average of two tops bids per year and two bottom bids per year.

I would quit this profession before I would put up with this nonsense. Seniority should mean something.

Pay to be based on length of service not aircraft type. Prevents a lot of unnecessary training and doesn't penalize guys who don't want to fly widebody or long haul.

I've always liked this idea, but it's usually a hard sell to both the pilots and the company.

Rotating seniority. Now there's a truely BAD idea. You pay your dues, you get the benefits of your seniority.

Amen, brother.

 

[Polar742]

Min 14 days off for reserves
Min 13 days off for line holders

We have 14 days off minimum for all pilots, 15 days off in a 31 day month.

$1.95/hr domestic
$2.35/hr international

Our 1995-based per diem is $2.30/hr int'l and IIRC, $1.80 domestic, so those rates might be a tad low....

Scope - own all flying ; bind Holdings

the mo betta....I'm not too proud to fly a prop....because the less than 50 seat prop let the cat out of the bag, as we've witnessed over the last 35 or so years.

Hotels - business class or better (Hyatt, Marriott, Hilton, Doubletree, etc...)

Some secondary freight company already has this in place.

That's not unrealistic in certain situations. I used to get paid 70 hours for flying 25 all the time on stand-ups.

This is where the trip rig comes in, no?

A B-Fund pension is your best bet. You own the account that the money goes into, so the company can't get rid of it in bankruptcy, but you don't have to contribute anything. For instance, AirTran contributes 10.5% of my gross income every month to my B-Fund without me contributing a dime. Anything over that is voluntary on my part.

Agreed, but I've always seen (and I squirrel away) an amount equal to 20%.


The good news is that some of the wants are already out there, even in some old, old outdated contracts. The flip side is, if that stuff is already out there, are our sights set too low?

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Our 1995-based per diem is $2.30/hr int'l and IIRC, $1.80 domestic, so those rates might be a tad low....

the mo betta....I'm not too proud to fly a prop....because the less than 50 seat prop let the cat out of the bag, as we've witnessed over the last 35 or so years.

Some secondary freight company already has this in place.

Matt wanted us to be "realistic," so that's the angle I was going for. Yeah, I would like a lot more, but I don't think we'll be able to get it with the kinds of pay raises that we're looking for.

This is where the trip rig comes in, no?

No, that was just based on min guarantee. A trip rig would come in handy for stand-ups if it was 2:1, though. That would get us up into the 80s for stand-up lines.

Agreed, but I've always seen (and I squirrel away) an amount equal to 20%.

That's why I like the B-Fund plus a company match on 401k or even profit sharing. The B-Fund provides the minimum for a good retirement, but the rest is icing on the cake.

 

[Polar742]

Matt wanted us to be "realistic," so that's the angle I was going for. Yeah, I would like a lot more, but I don't think we'll be able to get it with the kinds of pay raises that we're looking for.

I don't see why a reasonable per diem increase from what it was in 1995 would be unreasonable.

I also would take a small hit in hourly rate to recapture scope. (Ours was recently recognized by the IBT as valid, so I have a glimmer of hope - /aside)

No, that was just based on min guarantee. A trip rig would come in handy for stand-ups if it was 2:1, though. That would get us up into the 80s for stand-up lines.

As soon as I read this, I realized I was thinking on our guarantee, not on the typical domestic guarantee. Our rig already takes us over guarantee when they help us accumulate airline miles on reserve for 16 days.

That's why I like the B-Fund plus a company match on 401k or even profit sharing. The B-Fund provides the minimum for a good retirement, but the rest is icing on the cake.

Agreed, but the 20% figure I was talking about is the bare minimum I saw, with anything above being the airplane and beer fund (for lack of a better fun term)

 

[SpiceWeasel]

Vacation.... 5 weeks after 12 years is unacceptable. That's just *crazy!*

 

[E_Dawg]

Reserve and scheduling rules desperately need work. The other night I flew until 1030p and got to bed around midnight. One day off and the next I had to be up at 4am to fly. A pm reserve schedule should mean pm flying. I was lucky to even have that one day to adjust; legally I could have done the 4am wake up the very next day. "The rules prevent you from being tired." I'm still laughing over that one.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

I don't see why a reasonable per diem increase from what it was in 1995 would be unreasonable.

Well, our current per diem is only $1.75/hr domestic, so I doubt we'd be able to get much more than $2/hr, if that. The international was a typo, though. I was going for $3.35. We already get $2.75/hr for that. It's easier to get a big bump on international per diem, since we don't do a whole lot of international yet. Better to get it now before it's too late.

I also would take a small hit in hourly rate to recapture scope. (Ours was recently recognized by the IBT as valid, so I have a glimmer of hope - /aside)

I don't think we're at any risk from outsourcing if we keep it at all jets/50-seat turboprops, and then we can negotiate the rest back at the next bargaining cycle. It's easier to take it in steps than all at once.

Agreed, but the 20% figure I was talking about is the bare minimum I saw, with anything above being the airplane and beer fund (for lack of a better fun term)

Damn, 20% would be one hell of a retirement nest egg!

Vacation.... 5 weeks after 12 years is unacceptable. That's just *crazy!*

How so?

 

[SpiceWeasel]

How so?

Like someone else said, 8 weeks, much like another region of the world, should be achievable. The culture in this country of work until you drop may have to change though...

 

[aloft]

Min rest that provides time for 8 hrs of actual sleep. 10 hrs at the hotel would work, and provides time for meals and morning personal prep. Coincidentally, that also serves Ed's desire for a PM line to involve only PM flying (or vice-versa), since that'd realistically mean 12 hrs between flights. And that's acceptable, I think.

 

[Clocks]

Like someone else said, 8 weeks, much like another region of the world, should be achievable. The culture in this country of work until you drop may have to change though...

lol. 2 MONTHS of vacation a year? That's ridiculous.

 

[BobDDuck]

lol. 2 MONTHS of vacation a year? That's ridiculous.

It's only ridiculous in the States. It's pretty normal in the rest of the world.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Like someone else said, 8 weeks, much like another region of the world, should be achievable. The culture in this country of work until you drop may have to change though...

I see what you're saying, but keep in mind that we already get 12-20 days off per month as is, so if you have trip touch (like we do), then 8 weeks of vacation can basically mean that you don't work a third of the year. Sounds nice, but not really a possibility.

 

[SpiceWeasel]

I see what you're saying, but keep in mind that we already get 12-20 days off per month as is, so if you have trip touch (like we do), then 8 weeks of vacation can basically mean that you don't work a third of the year. Sounds nice, but not really a possibility.

What is this 12-20 days off per month you speak of? :laff: The most I've ever seen was 14, and I had to work my butt off the rest of the month to get 10 of those days in a row for a mini-vacation.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

What is this 12-20 days off per month you speak of? :laff: The most I've ever seen was 14, and I had to work my butt off the rest of the month to get 10 of those days in a row for a mini-vacation.

Yeah, things have changed for you guys under PBS. When I was at Pinnacle, I once turned one week of vacation into 21 straight days off. PBS changed all of that, apparently.

 

[jtrain609]

lol. 2 MONTHS of vacation a year? That's ridiculous.

A lot of guys at ExpressJet could manage to pull almost that much vacation with the work rules we had, bro. Should they just give it back?

 

[JoelT]

A lot of guys at ExpressJet could manage to pull almost that much vacation with the work rules we had, bro. Should they just give it back?

The seven years I spent at XJT, every month that had a week of vacation in it was an entire month off. And, still I was paid 75 hours, sometimes a little more.

 

[TheShortOne]

I know I don't really have a dog in the hunt anymore, but lines that have all am shows or pm shows (I believe Southwest has something like this?) so that way your body isn't flipping around the clock so much. I'd also like to see something respecting the pilot's body clock (though I can't think of how it would work logistically) whereas if you're commuting from the West Coast to the East coast and have a 6am show on the east coast, you're on 3am body clock, and opposite - if you're an east coaster finishing on the west coast at 11pm (2am body clock).

 

[Clocks]

A lot of guys at ExpressJet could manage to pull almost that much vacation with the work rules we had, bro. Should they just give it back?

Dropping trips which touch a vacation and being granted 8 weeks of vacation are two different things, bro.

Use Capt Cauc as an example. Pilots would be working 4 months a year and getting paid 75 hours a month.

This thread is supposed to be about realistic things. Not to mention what would you rather have, 4 weeks of vacation you can intelligently turn into more, or 8 weeks of vacation with trips touching both sides.

 

[Screaming_Emu]

Share the crappy lifestyle that is reserve around the whole company. I've been more fortunate than most of my classmates but if I had to be on reserve for more than a few years I'd be looking for another job. Less pay, fewer days off, and the inability to have a "normal" family/social life gets really old.

If that doesn't work reserve pilots should get one day a month where you can be bypassed on the reserve list. Sometimes when youre on call things happen that aren't able to be dropped so you can go to work.

That along with more reasonable sick call policies...if you have the sick time you should be able to use it without being treated like a high school kid trying to skip school. Sick time is a benefit, you should be able to use it.