Airtran new contract ques?

[Murphy]

Why don't you tell Gary to call it off and go buy American. You guys would be perfect together. We'll buy Spirit and we'll duel it out in the Caribbean and South America. See you in Rio. Seriously?

 

[nimtz]

Will always chuckle at SW pilots that beat their chests as they proclaim themselves king of the hill. Go ahead and brag, but your earnings in this profession are still paltry compared to the past...

 

[herewego again]

Unless it is over a holiday period. Then you are only allowed to swap with another pilot if he or she is willing. In other words, you are not allowed to manipulate your schedule over a holiday period via automation.

Sorry DonVerita, wrong again!

You CAN swap your holiday trips, via automation, with company open time. No calls to scheduling required. You are just required to trade into a duty period on the same designated holiday that you had flying on. Same applies to a trade with another pilot, fully automated online, no call's required, although most of us do as a courtesy. (Caveat: A call or text may be required if a PIN is used on the trip)

Go easy on these generalizations on a contract/system you seem to know very little about.

Kindest regards
Herewegoagain

 

[Lear70]

Ok, so is it not limited up to a certain amount? There has to be a limit. 9.3 vs. 10.5 at the limit is the same.

No, there's no limit.

It's not a 401(k) plan. It's a DEFINED CONTRIBUTION plan.

The old-style traditional "pensions" at a Legacy carrier were Defined BENEFIT plans. The company contributed a certain amount every pay period into a general fund that was invested by THE COMPANY in different mutual funds, bonds, stocks, whatever. The COMPANY owned the fund. The problem came when the stock market BOOMED in the late 90's and management took all the extra "profits" and cashed them out into management bonuses. When the stock market later collapsed, there wasn't enough cash left to pay the defined "benefits" to the employees already retired, and the DB fund was declared insolvent and turned over to the PBGC for pennies on the dollar to payouts (which is why my dad to this day still gets $3,300 a month when he was supposed to get over $10k a month in retirement).

Seeing the problem in that, the National Pilot's Association back in 2000 negotiated a Defined CONTRIBUTION fund. This fund isn't EVER contributed into by a pilot. It's strictly contributed by THE COMPANY every paycheck (so it's all post-tax dollars the company already paid taxes on for us) into a self-directed investment fund. WE own our own individual fund once we're fully vested (4 year cliff vesting). WE control which stocks, bonds, and mutual funds it gets invested in (that are inside the plan at any rate, that's a whole different argument and if you hear us use the name Steve Restifo, this is what it's referencing).

We also have a 401(k) that doesn't presently have a match but will if this integration takes more than 2 years (doubtful), and IT has the IRS contribution limits you're thinking of.

Hope that helps explain it better. The 10.5% B-fund is something we don't have to contribute a dime and get automatically with no cap. Your profit sharing, from my understanding of the payouts has, over the last 10 years, paid more than our F/O's would make in B-fund under our new contract, but not more than what our CA's make in B-fund.

That and our ability to specify "call-first / call-last" on reserve (you may have that, not sure) and guaranteed 125% or 150% premium pay for ALL trip pick ups inside 48 hours would be about the only major things in our contract that I'd like to see retained. A lot of the things in our new contract that are good protection provisions seem to be unneeded at Southwest with the way your company does business. The rest of it, yeah, your contract wins hands-down.

 

[herewego again]

SWA does have a "Pass/Fly" preference, similar to your "call first/call last".

 

[Lear70]

Cool. Thanks.

 

[Muppets]

I get it....GK told you guys how special you were to the family. He explained that you were the "best" and really impressed all the interviewers with your knowledge of runway lighting. For the last several years you walked around with a big gold star on your forhead.....your mom was real proud of you. Then.....out of no-where, GK brings home 1700 new family members. The family has no idea what the backgrounds or culture of these people who have arrived. One thing is for certain though....these new members havent won a gold forhead star like you. Suddenly you realize that maybe you werent as "special" as GK had told you....that pilots are all basically the same.....

I understand why the SWA guys are pissed...Id be pissed too

 

[malibuVride]

No, there's no limit.

It's not a 401(k) plan. It's a DEFINED CONTRIBUTION plan.

Actually, Reddog is sort-of right here. SWAs matching on 401 contributions is a 'qualified' plan, and subject to IRS limits. ATs Defined (B-fund) plan is also a 'qualified' plan and is therefore subject to the same limits.

The IRS limits total contributions from all 'qualified' plans to $49,000. That means the total of B-fund, employee 401 contribution and company match.

The sad thing is that AT pilots don't really need to understand this as we don't make enough to get to the $49,000 limit. I believe the are a number of SWA capts that hit that limit each year. They have to choose to put some of their money into 'non-qualified' plans...what a tough problem to have!

 

[Ty Webb]

The difference is that the Company has to make the 10.5% contribution regardless of what you contribute.

If a CA made $180K last year, the Company had to contribute $18,900. into a fund that is only controlled by the Pilot.

If you're bumping up against a limit, I'd rather have a larger portion of it coming from the Company and a smaller amount from me. . . . but, of course, I'd rather have a bigger paycheck and a smaller Company contribution, in the scheme of things, so this discussion is pretty much just academic.

 

[malibuVride]

That and our ability to specify "call-first / call-last" on reserve (you may have that, not sure) and guaranteed 125% or 150% premium pay for ALL trip pick ups inside 48 hours would be about the only major things in our contract that I'd like to see retained. A lot of the things in our new contract that are good protection provisions seem to be unneeded at Southwest with the way your company does business. The rest of it, yeah, your contract wins hands-down.

The only problem is that mgmt doesn't give a crap about any of these new things! Its hard to retain something we've not seen work yet. Hopefully, this group will see that the best thing for every AT pilot is to work for SWA...and the sooner the better!

 

[DonVerita]

Sorry DonVerita, wrong again!

You CAN swap your holiday trips, via automation, with company open time. No calls to scheduling required. You are just required to trade into a duty period on the same designated holiday that you had flying on. Same applies to a trade with another pilot, fully automated online, no call's required, although most of us do as a courtesy. (Caveat: A call or text may be required if a PIN is used on the trip)

Go easy on these generalizations on a contract/system you seem to know very little about.

Kindest regards
Herewegoagain

Hmmm..."know very little about" eh? Got this info directly from a SWA friend of mine and quoted it as such. So, either you are wrong or he is wrong.

Either way, you stated "You are just required to trade into a duty period on the same designated holiday that you had flying on".

So you are still flying on Christmas. You did not get that holiday off via automation. The only other way, as it was explained by this SWA guy, would be to trade with another pilot whereby he/she would fly that Christmas day for you. Alas, maybe something got lost in the translation. He had asked me how I got Christmas off. I told him via trip swap during the SAP 1 process in Flica. He told me SWA has nothing like that and it would have to be a peer-to-peer manual trade, but the chances of finding another pilot to do that over a major holiday was almost nil. If that is not the case, perhaps you could briefly explain how the process works there.

Anyway...I hope that both sides will cherry pick the best of both worlds and make the new system into a great one...better than each side had on its own. As I've stated before - I never interviewed at SWA, never applied there, nor had any desire to work there. They treat you great, pay great, etc., but the operation just isn't my cup of tea. Maybe GK will institute assigned seating and a real Business Class.

Having said that, I also realize that this merger is something that I can not control, and neither can anyone on FI.com. Peacocking and taking a condescending attitude toward future co-workers is not the way to begin a harmonious relationship. I'll be going into this with eyes and mind open; viewing it as a new chapter in life that will bring job security, rewards, new destinations, and hopefully new friends.

 

[Lear70]

The only problem is that mgmt doesn't give a crap about any of these new things! Its hard to retain something we've not seen work yet. Hopefully, this group will see that the best thing for every AT pilot is to work for SWA...and the sooner the better!

Can't really argue that...

 

[puddlejumper101]

Airtran guys/gals, do you all pay for FLICA? I used Flica in my previous life and it is better than what SWA has inhouse...except it's a Sabre product. Wich means either the pilots or the company is paying Sabre (AMR) to use it. FLICA does have some neat things that we don't have. It also keeps real good track of the per-diem stuff when tax time rolls around. SWA does not have that...either way I don't see SWA paying AMR for scheduling software. The inhouse stuff is good enough, plus we have some real techies here that find ways to make the SWA stuff more user friendly.

 

[DonVerita]

No...we do not pay for Flica. Company pays for it, as they do at American, JetBlue, Delta, US Airways, and the other airlines who utilize it.

Flica was only recently acquired by Sabre. They were formerly called Flightline Data Services and developed the product all on their own years ago. More info. on that can be found here:
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=73098&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1445233&highlight=

For you SWA guys who haven't seen it, just ask around; or if you see one of us on a laptop killing time between flights, we'll be happy to show you. I think you'll really like it when you see it. The GUI is sharp and the product is fast and easy to use.

 

[puddlejumper101]

No...we do not pay for Flica. Company pays for it, as they do at American, JetBlue, Delta, US Airways, and the other airlines who utilize it.

Flica was only recently acquired by Sabre. They were formerly called Flightline Data Services and developed the product all on their own years ago. More info. on that can be found here:
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=73098&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1445233&highlight=

For you SWA guys who haven't seen it, just ask around; or if you see one of us on a laptop killing time between flights, we'll be happy to show you. I think you'll really like it when you see it. The GUI is sharp and the product is fast and easy to use.

I agree, the software is good. More user friendly than what we have. I don't think SWA would pay for that though.