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Pinnacle Near Top of Their Game in January '09 On-Time Performance

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I won't defend the union leadership which allowed the trip value/15 over system at Pinnacle. I do know we won't be voting on a TA that includes it.

I do ask the question: Were these "the worst negotiated pay rules in the industry", when the union negotiated them in May of 1999?

Now I ask a second question: Are you aware that when said contract was signed in May 1999, Express I airlines was a small outstation based Saab operator? At that time, the pay rates were good, and the work rules were good for the operating environment.

Since that time, Express I has become Pinnacle, a hub based CRJ operator. The work rules are not so good in the current environment and the company has taken great pains to use every loophole in the contract to maximize efficency while reducing staffing. To blame the union for this is rediculous. They negotiated a nice little contract for a small 1999 outstation based Saab operator. A lot has changed since then, and could have been corrected in May 2004 at the amendable date. The company is to blame for the non-ammendment of the current CBA.
Excuses satisfy only those who make them.
 
Yes. It was chicken sh*t in 1999. And it is chicken sh*t today. I've never known a work group to credit so little for hours flown.

Perhaps you would have liked to work under Mesa's credit system that was in place prior to their recent TA where they only get trip value regardless of how long it takes to get there.

The current system in place at PCL is worth about a 2% salary hit with the 15 minute no-pay window after trip value. I doubt you'd ever see a TA get past the pilot group without the elimination of this 15 minute buffer.
 
Perhaps you would have liked to work under Mesa's credit system that was in place prior to their recent TA where they only get trip value regardless of how long it takes to get there.

The current system in place at PCL is worth about a 2% salary hit with the 15 minute no-pay window after trip value. I doubt you'd ever see a TA get past the pilot group without the elimination of this 15 minute buffer.
It's a 2% hit if you assume 100% credit to trip value. Add in what other airlines get in additional credit from block or better and various overrides... the gap is far far greater.

When will you stop making excuses for yourself and realize that 9E is now the bottom of the barrel?
 
I'd be curious to see any factual evidence that you can provide that the 1999 Express I CBA was grossly inferior to any other small regional's CBA in 1999.
Look at all the exclusions you included in your little factual evidence inquiry?

How does Pinnacle's 1999 contract compare to all other Memphis based Saab 340 air carriers with less than 300 pilots?

Give me a break. Block or better is not a new invention. Many airlines have had it... Pinnacle's contract was and is a steaming turd, plain and simple.
 
When you quit slamming the union on this board, join a commitee and become involved in the solution?
I'm so sick of hearing that tired comeback. The solution will come when the equivocating and excuse making ends... and the pilot group and the MEC finally decide to grow a pair.
 
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It's a 2% hit if you assume 100% credit to trip value. Add in what other airlines get in additional credit from block or better and various overrides... the gap is far far greater.

You assume trip values are always less than scheduled time. They are not, in fact on an annualized average they are the same if not a little bit better on the TV side. Getting paid "scheduled" time or better is an invitation for the company to slash marketing times in order to save on pilot payroll. That would make the pilots earning block time only which is the worst pay scheme of all.

I was not making any references to overall pay outside of the current PCL flight credit system.
 
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Every scheduled block has a buffer in it. Use common sense: You don't hear other airlines fighting for trip value pay. They fight for Block or Better. Why? Because over the year you will earn more making scheduled block than averaged trip value.
 
Every scheduled block has a buffer in it.

Yeah....that buffer is scheduled arrival time +14 minutes to qualify as DOT on-time.


Use common sense: You don't hear other airlines fighting for trip value pay. They fight for Block or Better. Why? Because over the year you will earn more making scheduled block than averaged trip value.

Care to back up that statement with any facts? "Block or better" is a sound bite used to describe any number of schemes that pay either a predetermined value or the actual flight time, whichever is greater. Horizon, Mesaba, and several other carriers use average values for credit calculation.
 

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