Airtran hiring updates

[Murphy]

It will be a while before the fallout from this is fully known... As long as we keep "mainline" growing, thing will be fine. But if mainline growth stops and suddenly 15-20 86-seat RJ's start popping up around the system... You're going to have a lot of very angry AAI pilots whose upgrade gets put on long-term hold or who sit on reserve an extra year or two or three...?

Don't even know where to begin on this subject.

When the union leadership and the most militant members of the pilot group seem to say they're aren't happy with 86 seat language but it is what it is and we got the holding company bound, GOD help us all on the rest of a Tentative Agreement.

Impasse (noun):
A position or situation from which there is no escape; deadlock.

Example

A point in labor negotiations at which reaching an agreement is impossible because neither party is willing to compromise or change position.

With a 98% strike vote, the negotiating team needs to get this word in their vocabularly.


You're membership said through their vote that they were willing to take this to the mat with management, the leadership and negotiating committee need to start acting like it.

Don't bring us a TA that is only marginally better than TA 2 and the membership is shaking their heads wondering why a TA was voted down, two union leaderships were blown up, ALPA was brought on property, and management has run roughshod over the current CBA for the past 5 years.

 

[General Lee]

Right now, under existing Scope, AirTran can fly just about as many 50 seaters as they want, and around 40 70-seaters, based on current ASM's. The proposed Scope allows that same number of 50- and 70- seaters, and ALSO allows the company to farm out up to 15 86-seaters initially, with 5 more potentially, based on growth and ASM's for a max of 20. If AirTran isn't growing, they can't add more RJ's.

So, new Scope = 20 86-seaters, 40 70-seaters, total of 60 outsourced hulls (assuming we don't use any 50-seaters which, for the most part, are money-losers). We don't know WHO will fly them or even IF there's a CONCRETE plan for them; all we know is that they can outsource them, but haven't as of yet beyond the CURRENT SkyWest deal.

What we got back for that was Merger and Fragmentation language, Successorship language, and we bound the holding company (no alter-ego Pinnacle-Mesaba-Colgan-esque whipsawing).

The $60 Million Dollar question is: which aircraft are they going to use for growth? 737? 717? or RJ?

It will be a while before the fallout from this is fully known... As long as we keep "mainline" growing, thing will be fine. But if mainline growth stops and suddenly 15-20 86-seat RJ's start popping up around the system... You're going to have a lot of very angry AAI pilots whose upgrade gets put on long-term hold or who sit on reserve an extra year or two or three...?

For the time being, with a new contract likely requiring more staffing for better trip and duty rigs plus the new flight & duty rest provisions coming into effect next year plus our forecast growth, I don't see anything slowing down for a while. In the future? Well, my crystal ball has been a little glitchy for a while now.

Thank you very much for the response. We all know that RJs, especially bigger ones, often help park smaller mainline planes (we have seen a lot of that), and I hope that doesn't occur too much to you guys. You are right, it will be interesting to see which fleet gets future growth. Hopefully it is your mainline. Take care.


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[maxblast72]

Thank you very much for the response. We all know that RJs, especially bigger ones, often help park smaller mainline planes (we have seen a lot of that), and I hope that doesn't occur too much to you guys. You are right, it will be interesting to see which fleet gets future growth. Hopefully it is your mainline. Take care.


Bye Bye--General Lee

The TA'd section prohibits any agreements with any other carriers to cause the furlough of any Airtran pilot. The million dollar question is how well we could enforce that and can the company find ways to sneak around the language. I feel better with ALPA written language than NPA written language.

To be more specific on the TA language, 20% of Airtran's ASMs could be flown by partners (no change from current contract). The difference is, up to 15 86 seaters could be utilized and an additional 86 seater allowed for every 3 mainline aircraft up to a cap of 20 86 seaters. At Airtran's current size, 20 86 seater would produce around 10% of our ASMs which would still allow 10% of our ASMs to be flown by any combination of aircraft with 70 seats or less.

Another question is how CASM effective would CRJ-900s be in Airtran's network where the average ticket price is around $100. AirTran has proven the 717 and 737 can make money at those price levels, not sure if large RJs could. Would Skywest even want to do a revenue sharing deal with Airtran if there were fixed fee per departure contracts to be made with United or Delta?

As of right now, we have 2 leased 717s scheduled to come online in February 2011, 4 737 deliveries between March and December 2011, and another 6 737 deliveries scheduled for 2012. Back in June, Airtran renegotiated our deliveries with Boeing pushing 9 deliveries from 2011-2014 to 2015-2017. The above mentioned delivery schedule includes the effects of the recent deferrals.

The TA'd scope section was unanimously approved by our 4 elected status (LEC) reps and I believe all 3 MEC officers. There are some strong voices against the TA'd but I can't tell if they are the minority or majority. That is what makes the voting process interesting.

 

[Crash Pad]

Would Skywest want to do the flying. I hope you aren't serious. Yes they want to do the United, continental, Delta, and now Airtran flying. Diversifies the portfolio. Who knows they will have to battle it out with the other outsourced flyers of the world.

The contract they TA will pass. The group being vocal about scope are in the minority. Most people I fly with say things like "so a regional would really go out and buy twenty jets to do the flying?"... "we can't stop the company from making money and if an 86 seat jet works they should be able to do it"... "maybe I'm naive but I don't think 20 jets is a big deal"

Those statements indicate that people hired ten years ago don't have a clue what is going on. So of course the negotiating group agreed. Maybe they got a five dollar pay raise to boot.

I blame ALPA national. Why didn't they sit down with the MEC and explain to them how important this is? Why is ALPA always giving away scope? Seriously 86 seats is an E190 with first class or a CR9 with first. I'm not saying Airtran shouldn't have these planes... I'm saying we should fly them.

Leave it to ALPA to sell the junior guys down the river. It worked so well for them at Delta. Enjoy reserve and being an FO... Hey captains look real close at that reserve language. Once they reduce MKE by 20 jets you too might be on reserve.

 

[Murphy]

I blame ALPA national. Why didn't they sit down with the MEC and explain to them how important this is? Why is ALPA always giving away scope? Seriously 86 seats is an E190 with first class or a CR9 with first. I'm not saying Airtran shouldn't have these planes... I'm saying we should fly them.

Leave it to ALPA to sell the junior guys down the river. It worked so well for them at Delta. Enjoy reserve and being an FO... Hey captains look real close at that reserve language. Once they reduce MKE by 20 jets you too might be on reserve.

Does Mother ALPA really care where their dues money comes from?

RJ pilots get bigger jets and get a negotatiated pay raise, ALPA National gets more money.

Majors relax scope, regionals hire more pilots and send the money to National.

Majors get a pay raise at the expense of selling out on scope, dues money goes up even though they scoped out their flying to the regionals.

It's hypocrisy to think Mama ALPA can represent regional, legacy, and major airline pilots on the scope issue. Congrats to creating a two-tiered pilot system over the years and letting each individual pilot group sell their futre growth and seniority down the river at the legacy carriers.

Does anyone have the address for the esteemed scope expert, Mike Abrams, I want to send him an early Rosh Hashanah card for reviewing Section I.

 

[Crash Pad]

ALPA gets 2%... the 2% at a regional is wayyyyyyyyy less. I can't figure out why ALPA would sign this pile of poop.

 

[fam62c]

I could be wrong but I don't see large RJ's operating in the AAI network for one simple reason that someone mentioned earlier: the CASM'S on these large RJ's is probably higher than AAI's 717's. The regionals may have lower labor costs but these shiny new RJ's are expensive and the lease costs are high. I'll bet they are paying way more for those RJ's than AAI is paying for the 717's. UAL, DAL, AMR are one thing, their costs are so high that it may make sense for them to sign fee for departure deals with regionals for small plane lift, although, I've always been convinced the majors lose money on these deals and the Skywest's and Republic's of the world are the winners.

It seems to me that the folks who run AAI drive a pretty hard bargain and I just don't see them ever signing a conventional fee for departure deal with another carrier where the subcontractor is guaranteed a profit and AAI takes all the risks. The current Skywest deal is much different. The planes don't say Airtran and Skywest has a risk of loss if the routes don't pan out. I would also bet the AAI is watching the loads and fares and as soon as a route becomes viable for a 717 the RJ will be moved to develop the next podunk city for AAI.

Again, I'm not saying it's not going to happen but if they really wanted to do this why wouldn't they have done it already? I don't think that AAI, SWA or JBLU really need regionals because they have such low CASM's and unlike the legacy carriers they don't feel the need to serve every city in the USA to feed their huge hubs. I think that the AAI/Skywest deal simply happened because Skywest got hosed by Republic (after Skywest hosed Skyway) in MKE and they were PO'd and had some 50-seaters and crews in MKE. I'm guessing that AAI has the better end of that deal and Skyest will probably bail out at some point.

 

[Crash Pad]

JBLU doesn't have a regional because they fly the E190 (86 seats). The reason they haven't done it in the past is because scope limited them to 70 seats. SKYW has enough cash to try revenue sharing. They will be more than happy to expand for yet another airline.

AirTran has a sharp management team despite what some may think. They asked for the relaxed scope for a reason.

 

[27 driver]

Copy dat.

If you were a high powered exec with the shiny degree from Harvard, would you fly a 717 with say a combined pilot hourly rate of $249 (Hawaiian rates, 10yr CAPT, 5yr FO) or would you farm out some flying to a tiny little 76 seater with a combined pilot hourly rate of $123 (Skywest, 10yr CAPT, 5 YR FO)?

If you were a pilot would you rather fly for major airline pay or regional pay. Not sure where you are going with this but I was just giving my opinion. Unless the rest of our TA is spectacular I won't be able to vote yes based on this scope language. I can't stand 1 or 2 more years on RES here at the Tranny. You can bet management wanted relaxed scope for a reason. The deal with Skywest just makes giving the growth to them that much better for AAI and does nothing for the pilots. AAI management assumes very little risk. And when oil goes up $10 a barrel and AAI fires/furloughs 200 guys the regional lift stays for the duration of their individual contracts while we sit on unemployment. We will never be able to prove these agreements caused a furlough.

 

[PCL_128]

JBLU doesn't have a regional because they fly the E190 (86 seats).

Those E190s have 100 seats, not 86 seats.

 

[fam62c]

JBLU doesn't have a regional because they fly the E190 (86 seats). The reason they haven't done it in the past is because scope limited them to 70 seats. SKYW has enough cash to try revenue sharing. They will be more than happy to expand for yet another airline.

AirTran has a sharp management team despite what some may think. They asked for the relaxed scope for a reason.

So why didn't they bring in a bunch of 70 seaters over the last several years then? I mean what's magic about 86 seats as opposed to 70? I'm sure they wanted to keep their options open for the future because anything can happen but I still don't see the economics of it making sense. Why would AAI pay another company more to fly an 86 seater under a subcontract than it would cost them to do the same flying in one of their own 717's? Again, anything can happen but the numbers don't look convincing to me. Any 86 seat route that would allow AAI to profit after paying the subcontractor's costs + profit would be viable in a 717 and the cost would be less which means higher profit. The only way I see this happening is if some regional operation comes on hard times and is willing to do a Skywest type deal with big RJ's where the risks are shared and AAI does not guarantee their profit or assume the risk for fuel price increases.

 

[Fly-By-Cable]

Or AT gets into some hard times and republic says, "hey want a $100 million dollar loan? All you have to do is sign a 10 year, 25 AC agreement and stock goes up Mr. CEO. Think about the bonus you'll get for making this deal." With the new scope, they can do it.

 

[T3700]

With the old scope they could do it. Or even better, with the old scope they could transfer 50 717's to the new subsidiary called "Airtran Express" and offer RJ wages to fly them.

 

[Lear70]

With the old scope they could do it. Or even better, with the old scope they could transfer 50 717's to the new subsidiary called "Airtran Express" and offer RJ wages to fly them.

Correct.

Binding the holding company is huge.

Will the 86 seaters end up biting us? Only time will tell... Not the perfect solution, for sure.

 

[ATLplt]

No Lear and PCL, not a perfect solution at all. It very much concerns me.

The remaining open sections of this TA better be gold, encrusted with diamonds! I am emailing all my status reps to voice my opinions on how my expectations for pay and such have sharply risen. I'm watching my career expectations at this company dwindle upon every company press release. FO pay better be AT LEAST Alaska rates at DOS. We're gonna be stuck in this seat for a loooong time. Anything less will be an epic FAIL. We need to drawn a line in the sand and be prepared to utilize what we voted on last spring.