BluDevAv8r
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2001
- Posts
- 985
Lear70 said:Well, there's a couple issues in there. First, I don't like profit-sharing. It's too easy for a management group to find ways to "reinvest" in capital spending items and there went the "profit". It really depends on how the profit-sharing is set up and how it's calculated. If it's done so that the company has to pay based on pure revenue / operating expense, regardless of other non-operating expenses, then I MIGHT sign off on it. Otherwise, no way.
Most profit sharing plans are based off EBITDAR. Obviously you want to run it up the income statement as high as possible. That said, taking our debt to finance transactions won't really affect the profit sharing plan except for the interest expense line. Lastly, one should get used to variable compensation...it is unfortunately the way of the future in this business.
Lear70 said:Second, in the last 6 months I was at PCL, I deadheaded exactly ONCE on a 2:30 trip BOS-MEM. Cost me 1:15 in deadhead pay not to have 100% deadhead pay. A VERY FEW people deadheaded every other leg, but with 100% deadhead credit PCL would simply stop making trips like that. Like I said, if deadhead credit ends up being 10 hours a year (3 times what my average was), I'd still come out ahead making $5 or $10 more in hourly rates.
That is good then...as long as DH isn't an issue in how they build the trips, then 50% isn't that huge a deal.
Lear70 said:I'd like to see how you did that, MORE than 30% in soft credits doesn't sound any way attainable unless you bid JUST to make that happen (bid trips with deadheads every other leg, bid trips with 14 hour duty days but only 2-3 hours of flying, and fly 18-20 days a month).
XJT doesn't have much DH built into the trips. They usually pop up in trips as trips are split throughout the month for 30/7 issues, etc. The smart pilot knows how to get paid the most for working the least. There are many ways to do that in our contract and it isn't just DH time. Picking up a trip on a day off is one way. Any day of flying is at least 3:45 if you pick it up on a day off. So if I pick up a 2 hour turn it is 3:45 or if I pick up a 1 hour flight to the overnight then fly back early in the morning it is 7:30 for doing 2 hours of flying. What if I am scheduled to fly 29 hours in 7 days over 5 days (4-day trip and a day trip which is a 6 hour turn) and then go over on the first 4 day trip by an hour...Scheduling then drops my 6 hour turn but I still get paid for it. What do I do the next day on my "real" day off? Pick up another turn. Domicile rest violations are also pay protected. At XJT pilots are paid scheduled or actual, whichever is greater on a segment basis. That paid out about 5-10 hours per month right there in soft time. I was JM'd zero times in 2005 but reassigned into a day off twice which can pay out huge if you know what you are doing. The list goes on but basically if you know the contract you can make it work for you. So yes, 30% soft time absolutely attainable.
Lear70 said:Again, I agree with you that the contract should be WRITTEN by pilots, but it should be NEGOTIATED by professional negotiators with pilots in attendance who can counsel the negotiators when the company starts trying to twist and screw with things.
I touch on this in my previous post but having "been there done that" I think I will continue to go on record saying that having the right pilots at the table doing the negotiating with the professionals' assistance is the way to go.
Lear70 said:As far as a $10 an hour raise on DOS, I don't see any reason why not when the company makes as much as they do and it's about 1.5% to 2% of their profit margin. Time for them to share.
THAT'S THE WHOLE PROBLEM WITH REGIONAL PILOTS!!
I'm not trying to pick on you or be an a*s, really I'm not, but that really pisses me off when people say that.
Pay SHOULD be purely a function of market conditions and company profitability. Pinnacle is EXTREMELY PROFITABLE. They have shown NO signs of losing the business (yet), and even if they do take a hit on aircraft (NWA reduces them in size), they'll STILL be extremely profitable.
WHEN and IF PCL loses the RFP and drops below 79 aircraft (the CEO's self-described minimum operational size for "guaranteed profitability"), THEN I'll reduce my expectations.
Until then, I don't give a crap if a company is Ma and Pa's flying service or if they're Southwest. Revenue is revenue is revenue, I don't give a carved rat's a*s where it comes from as long as it keeps coming. If regional pilots would realize that VERY BASIC BUSINESS ECONOMIC PRINCIPAL, maybe they'd start to dig out of the hole they're in.
Good luck to you, you DEFINITELY have a better contract than PCL, I just think you honestly could have done about 5-10% better than you did on rates. Just my .02 cents,,,
I no longer work at XJT but being that I was the Chairman of the XJT NC at the time and dealt with the NMB as well as the CEO of XJT, I am pretty comfortable saying we weren't going to get another penny out of the company without getting a release to a strike (which wasn't going to happen due to the NMB situation at the time...and that hasn't changed either). And that is all what this boils down to - LEVERAGE. The NMB holds the key to PCL's ultimate leverage point...the threat of a cooling-off period and job action. Why do you think ASA doesn't have an agreement yet? Same thing...those guys have been in negotiations for almost 4 years!
-Neal