Alaska Pilots to resume negotiations.

[md83driver]

We do have additonaly a/c. We took our 12th 900 this week and still have not returned the two 400's to the leasing company that were due to go back.

 

[mach none]

What is VSA?

voluntary senior available.

You place yourself on what is essentially reserve for the day(s). You can specify no all-nighters, turns only, etc.. If you have over 85 hours credit, you get time and a half. The company offers trips according to the CBA, which I don't have handy. Long call-out, trip make up, sick leave make-up, etc..

By doing VSA, you eliminate the need for the company to hire more pilots. I am all about helping the company. However, they should not rely upon vsa for their staffing model. And that is exactly what they are doing. We have 40 or so, souls sitting in the pool that should be working for us.

 

[General Lee]

We have greenslips at Delta, and 1060 furloughed....


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[wms]

We have greenslips at Delta, and 1060 furloughed....

Are they allowed to do that or are they just ignoring the contract?

 

[General Lee]

The company is all for it. And, the last time we said we didn't want to do greenslips---we were sued and lost. I have not ever had one, and don't plan to. It is a personal choice I guess....

Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[flx757]

We do have additonaly a/c. We took our 12th 900 this week and still have not returned the two 400's to the leasing company that were due to go back.

Again....I was ONLY referring to the extra flying created by the TANGO program. That's all. No sense beating this dead horse any further.

Alaska will need to hire pilots at some point in the future. It's just that in the schoolhouse, the word is that point is later rather than sooner.

If I hear anything different, I will post it here.

 

[md83driver]

Originally posted by flx757
[Again....I was ONLY referring to the extra flying created by the TANGO program. That's all. No sense beating this dead horse any further.

I don't see it as beating a dead horse. I was not replying to any particular post or in any way trying to contradict what you said in yours. In fact, I agree with what you have said about the TANGO flying. All I am trying to do is throw what information I have out there so the poolies and others will have a little hope. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Rhino]

silence

The silence is deafening...

The company must be willing to pay the wage increase due in May.

Interested to hear more stories of how little reserve coverage there is from day to day.

 

[lumax]

Here is a little noise…

Midterm contract negotiations have again been terminated. The negotiating committee is now preparing for the regular negotiations, which are due to begin on March 15.

As far as reserves, SEA 734/7/9 F/O’s were very busy last month flying about 70-80 hours. That is a lot compared to my average over the last 2 1/2 years of about 35 hours/month. Scheduling is desperate for SEA 734/7/9 captains for this month asking them to sign up to fly on days off.
The rumor is management has stated that we are over staffed by 50 pilots. If you look at retirements alone, I don’t see how we can possibly be over staffed. Starting next year, at least 40 retirements/year for the foreseeable future.
My personal belief is that those of us on the bottom of the seniority list and future new hires are somehow being held as pawns in the upcoming negotiations.

 

[mach none]

Lumax,

You are on the Alaska seniority list with 1100 hours. That is pretty impressive. I hope that is just a typo.



Management has stated that we are overstaffed by 50 pilots, but when they were asked by the negotiators during the mid-term talks if this is the case every month, they said no. We are understaffed. They cannot furlough or even threaten furlough. They barely cover the schedule right now. What are they going to do this summer. Cancel flights!

We are starting the retire pilots and we are still adding more flight hours. We have to hire soon. My guess is there will be a bid this fall with some new hires soon after.

 

[lumax]

Mach,

You are right, with 1100 hours that would be impressive, better yet pretty much impossible. Just playing with the numbers!
I have a question for you that you might have an answer for:
with the last bid, effective 7-04, the bid that you propose might come out, and the hiring that must take place to cover retirements, who is going to do all that training. Can AS handle all that training or is outsourcing the answer?

 

[flx757]

I have a question for you that you might have an answer for:
with the last bid, effective 7-04, the bid that you propose might come out, and the hiring that must take place to cover retirements, who is going to do all that training. Can AS handle all that training or is outsourcing the answer?

I can attmept an answer, since I work in the training dept. We are hiring and training instructors and gearing up for the next hiring boom, whenever that might be. Right now, we are doing virtually NO training, since only the occasional transitiion, or returning military pilot needs training (in addition to the normal CQ).

So, I would think we could handle whatever amount of training they put on. I don't think you're going to see anything like 40 a month until the end of time, or any huge numbers like that. So, the training dept can handle the expected training.

The recent bid to help cover the summer schedule....where a number of Captain positions were reduced and an equal number of Senior Qualified First Officers was added (to give crew planning the option to use a certain number of pilots as either Capts of FOs, depening on schedule need), created more training events than they had anticipated....I think they just figured the same guys who were reduced would go to SQFO, but it didn't work that way, so now they are re-thinking that whole bid.

What I am interested to see, is what he bid in July looks like.

 

[Ted Striker]

Flx,

Is SQFO where you are qualified as a Captain, but bid right seat and then they can use you as a Captain if needed? Just curious, thanks.

 

[captain]

I wish I still had my '73 pinto!

 

[Singlecoil]

Hey FLX757,

Is it true that an MD First Officer recently resigned his seniority to become an instructor?

 

[AK737FO]

cancelled bid?

Flx757 - interesting info on the MD-80 bid. I kind of thought it would make a small fire down there. Same as the recent ANC bid, you never know how it is going to turn out... I for one was suprised to see a senior ANC Captain take the #1 SEA FO seat- big pay cut there, I also did not expect a senior SEA FO to come to ANC and take a Captain seat. Just like a box of chocolates...
As to a bid this July - no rumors up here about that - what are you hearing?
No matter what the company does at this point, it is to late to save the summer season, unless we get a whole bunch of our fighting men out their war birds and back to work very soon. They will need all the VSA they can get to fly the summer schedule. If they don't get a huge amount of steady VSA, I am afraid we will see flights cancelled due to lack of pilots. This does nothing but hurt the entire company and for the life of me I can't figure out why they are not hiring... Is it a power struggle during negotiations? That makes no sence to me, what does ALPA care if our CEO wants to cancell flights because he thinks we are "fat" by 50 pilots.
Greed is a very powerful tool. I don't think our pilot group would do VSA if we had guys out on furlough, but since that problem does not exist here, greed will take over. Pilots will fly VSA and lots of it - but will it be enough? I don't think they will hold out till 05 for new hires. My prediction (my opinion only) is that Bill will see the light some time this fall and realize that the summer was screwed because of lack of crews and the school house doors will open wide this fall.

Striker, a senior qual here is a Captain qualified first officer. He bids FO each month and earns FO pay. If the company needs him for a month they will allow him to bid Captain (reserve) and pay him captain (reserve) pay. If the company gets in a jam and needs a senior qual to do even one flight during an FO month, then he gets captains pay for the month.

 

[FL510GV]

increase in chatter?

I am thinking about establishing a new Alaska hiring rumor level...

Green -- Nothing doing
Blue -- Increase FlightInfo viewing Frequency
Yellow -- Persistent, but irregular, unsubstantiated Rumors
Orange -- Increase in chatter, tittilating rumors, maybe even phone calls?
Red -- Actual Class sighting


The response is deafening, I'll start now.

The OFFICIAL Alaska Hiring Rumor Level is YELLOW.

For more information about the Rumor Level visit:
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?theme=29

 

[flx757]

AK737FO,

Yeah...the bid created more training events than they anticipated, so they cancelled the bid.

Singlecoil...

I haven't heard anything about an MD-80 pilot resigning his seniority to become an instructor. As of today, we have 2 full time Management Flight Instructors on the MD, and about 16 or so on the 737. The rest are line pilots who do instructing on the side.

Rumor has it they are looking to hire one more Management Flight Instructor on the MD, and they have just put 2 more on the 737.

As far as being fat on pilots, the word going around the flight ops building, is that if the pilots on military leave return, then that puts us between 50-70 pilots fat. If not, then they'll have trouble with the summer schedule, hence the SQFO program....as a stop gap measure that probably will be inadequate. I guess we'll see.

 

[mach none]

The McCord guys will not be released until August at the earliest. My friend just got activated and goes to the sandbox in July. This summer is blown! They need to run a class by next month just to get some bodies in the seats by July. A third or so of the overstaffed pilots are medically retired pilots.

The schedulers are even complaining that we need to hire.

I agree that someone will see the light and hiring will resume this fall.

AKFO: The rumor about the FO resigning his # is true! Not sure which a/c he was in but he was a new hire.

 

[AirlineWannabe]

New Hire?

Mach,

Can you define "new hire" at Alaska?

Does that mean he was hired in the past 2 years?

And if he was a "new hire", what are his instructor qualifications?

I guess if he was older, he might be better off financially taking an instructor job that will last beyond age 60.

Just curious.

Wannabe