Abx?

[Jurassic Jet]

New proffer out today for 3 DC-8 FO's.

 

[ke4lir]

New proffer out today for 3 DC-8 FO's.

Do you think anyone would actually bid it? Or can I plan on being junior manned into it?

 

[Jurassic Jet]

Do you think anyone would actually bid it? Or can I plan on being junior manned into it?

Anybodys guess. I for one would not want to go through that torture to only be on the aircraft for 5 months and then get surplussed back to the same aircraft I just came out of and go through more training.

Oh wait....almost forgot about that highly coveted SIC type rating! imp:

 

[LarryinTN]

There will be some who will bid it for the pay raise. Probably guys who live near ILN so they're home during training.

 

[nitefr8dog]

I talked to two 9 FOs that already plan to go back to the 8 they figure the a/c will be around for a while might even end up back in MIA.

 

[Cobraair75drvr]

When did you hear this? We (nwa freight dogs) knew we would lose our lovely ILN layover but thought it would be in 08 when the contract is up. We figured we would be replaced with Polar. Are you saying this is happening in the near future, because ILN is at least in our May bid packages?? Going to miss the BW3, Damons, Kroger, and last but not least Tractor supply

 

[xspud]

cobra, we have to keep our ears to the ground here or we usually don't hear anything, change without notice is the order of the day in the DHL world. So there hasn't been any official notice and I don't think the trip is on our May bid.

There was a reference in our latest union/company scheduling committee minutes to a 767 ANC trip being "postponed up to 4 weeks". Like most pilots, I hadn't heard anything about an ANC trip to begin with. abxdx posted about replacing NW and he has always had good info. DHL has been on a major push to cut costs on the air side, I assume the 767 would be cheaper than the 747 (plus the PDX-ANC DC9). Since the DHL consolidation we frequently bid trips that change or go away. I'm sure our PDX-ANC trip will be on our May bid, also.

 

[Jurassic Jet]

Anybody listen to the unions conference call yesterday? Anything interesting?

 

[GoABX]

Nothing that earth shattering. Many calls were not taken due to lack of time. Many people were not happy with: 1. proposed pay rates 2. 23 day blocks in Japan 3. lack of tiered vacation 4. rampant open time.

Anyone heard any numbers on the size of next week's mega-bid? Supposed to take the 76 through September.

 

[Jurassic Jet]

Thanks GO,

So a bid is due out next week for sure huh? Guess I better listen to the audio archive.

 

[flyinboxes]

When did you hear this? We (nwa freight dogs) knew we would lose our lovely ILN layover but thought it would be in 08 when the contract is up. We figured we would be replaced with Polar. Are you saying this is happening in the near future, because ILN is at least in our May bid packages?? Going to miss the BW3, Damons, Kroger, and last but not least Tractor supply

They are going to supplement you, not replace. Astar picks up SFO and SJU. The bids for the trips are out. In 08 you will be replaced by Kalitta and then (09)by a 767-300er, flown by?????(my guess). DC8 to SJU and A300 to SFO.

TSC is awesome, Damons is terrible, BW3 is hit or miss but the beer is cold.

 

[356emain]

Astar will be flying SFO until the 767F is out of c-check. SJU is not a done deal for Astar or ABX yet.

 

[nitefr8dog]

Thanks GO,

So a bid is due out next week for sure huh? Guess I better listen to the audio archive.

For sure? What rock are you living under? The only thing for sure is nothing is for sure!

 

[ABXbooger]

There won't be any updates to the company website for a while. Apparently they are trying to design a workaround for a virus in the system. Nice.

 

[erichartmann]

Nothing that earth shattering. Many calls were not taken due to lack of time. Many people were not happy with: 1. proposed pay rates 2. 23 day blocks in Japan 3. lack of tiered vacation 4. rampant open time.

Anyone heard any numbers on the size of next week's mega-bid? Supposed to take the 76 through September.

I'd be interested to know how you define "many" as in "many people". I listened to the call. Due to time constraints the number of questions accepted you could count on one hand with fingers left over.

I recall one junior DC-9 Captain commenting on the vacation. To put it in context, the briefing indicated the handling of vacations on the ANA flying was currently the thorniest issue. The E-Board was asking for suggestions. He suggested that changing the bid system for vacation might help. He also ran for the E-board several years ago on a "juniority rules" platform and was soundly rejected.

There was also one relatively junior DC-9 FO who complained about the open time. In effect, he wants to ban open time so he can move up however many bid positions that would gain him. The rest of us would suffer, but he doesn't care. He doesn't realize (care or perhaps understand) that he would also suffer.

 

[LarryinTN]

It certainly wasn't "many" and the concerns about a tiered vacation bid and limited open flying didn't gain much traction.

There was additional concern regarding the 23/23 schedules for ANA but without us having any flights to/from Japan anything shorter is difficult to make work. I know they looked very hard at 15/15 schedules but, after travel days, it ended up being more like 18/12 or 19/11 which isn't very attractive to the crew members and the travel costs would be high. Business Class tickets are running around $8500 to $9000 round trip and it would be nice if there was some money left from the contract to pay us instead of having it all go to airline tickets. The company probably wanted something like 60/60 to save travel costs but you'd time out after about 23-24 days per month anyway so why keep the crews in country for those extra 7 or 8 days off if you can't get any more flying from them?