ClearRight
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- Joined
- Nov 26, 2001
- Posts
- 183
The old contract defined a line of flying as 65 hours. I haven't been able to find that in the new contract as of yet. But, under the old rules, the Company COULD have built lines to 65 hours to preclude furloughs.
From what I've found so far, 75 hours is the line minimum. So, if they tried to stay as close to 75 as possible, at least some of the furloughees would be back on the property. Currently, the line AVERAGE is hovering around 83-84 hours. So, with 338 lines of flying time 9 hours, that gives you 3042 hours of flying. Divide that by 75 and you end up with 40 more lines of flying and that's just SEA.
Or, if you will 40 more pilots OFF the street. Additional lines require additional reserve coverage as well.
Instead, management would rather build higher lines and run lean reserves. We've run OUT of reserve F/Os two of the last three weekends I've flown. But, I guess the staffing gurus know what they're doing....
Not flaming or playing sides, just trying to figure this out. . . .
Those numbers reflect the summer schedule. What happens in the fall when the daily ANC-DEN, -SFO, -ORD, -DLG, -AKN go away and daily ANC-SEA drops from 20 flights to 16? From what I understand all the new flights (ATL, AUS, Hawaii) are just a redeployment from the weak Mexico market. Hopefully that will change when this swine flu scare goes away.
I think it's the low load factors scaring them into reduced utilization of the airplanes and cutting the schedule. Less airplanes flying means less pilots needed. We're just a fixed cost, not career professionals with families who depend on our income.
As one in the furlough range, I am really hoping something changes and they figure out just what's needed and stop arbitrarily throwing numbers around so their butts are covered. "We may be overstaffed for the winter schedule. . . let's tell 'em we're gonna furlough 80 just to be safe. . ." Never mind the fact that the bottom 80 of us are now stress balls trying to figure out how to trim the budget, spouses looking for jobs, preparing the kids for school changes, and scrounging around for every penny. I wonder how much grocery money I could get for my kids' Wii??I do not think they have a clue what their staffing needs really are. Their plans have changed too many times over the past year.