ASA 150% open time

[SLUF4]

talkin bout dragons here

 

[Abernathy]

Our pilot group is so weak that we pick up open time and premium trips right and left while people are on furlough and then the same people complain about red arrow days.

 

[rtmcfi]

You are a F'en retard. Of course I'd rather see them back. Take the dork out of your mouth for a second and think. What are they going to do right now? I stand by my statement. Either someone who wants it, flies or someone who doesn't want it, still flies it. Idiot.

Do you really fail to see the connection between open time pickup and furlough recalls? Really??? I hope your tires are not too expensive. It might take lots of open time to pay for their replacement.

 

[Redan]

The following is not all concrete fact, but my observations and humble opinion:

An airline can reduce costs to some extent by forcing its hand on the pilots (as well as the other employees). But to truly become a lean mean fighting machine and finely trim costs, the operation must have an "on the same page" teamwork oriented philosophy.

ASA went nearly 30 years through all sorts of ups and downs without ever furloughing. Once a company elects to do this, trust and loyalty are severely violated.

Many of the highly touted "contract improvements" from the last go round were quite enjoyable, briefly...that is until company found ways around them. By now I think we've all realized the four day trips and red arrow days are by design. Company withholds trips from lines and puts into open time. Then most lines contain only four day trips and what ends up in open time is primarily four days making it difficult to pick up trips, or increase your monthly credit (and forget about one day less swaps as well). This has resulted in quite an effective pay cut for many of our pilots. Company refuses to break these trips up for the open time pot, but you can bet they do break them up. They do when assigning them to reserves. Then of course, there's the red arrow day issue further limiting our ability to make legitimate changes. There is "low coverage" because the reserves are busy covering the open time.

While there were many advertised improvements to the scheduling section and reserve, life on reserve has become ever more difficult. Company quickly found ways around these and all the "company will attempt to" type language is worthless. There have been many band-aid MOU and handshake fixes put into place for reserves (ready reserve being one of the prominent issues) but they never last more than a couple weeks and then it's back to the old tricks. The scheduling operating patterns change so much that reserve pilots never know what to expect, it changes by the week. Wonder how cost effective the record number of sick and fatigue calls are?

An example of our teamwork philosophy from my own experience: With the brilliant models for IAD in place providing six reserves per seat and one spare aircraft, company realized right off the bat this was inadequate. Numerous reserves were immediately and with no warning TDY'd to IAD, many for 4-6 days with a two hour short call out and little knowledge of the IAD operation. Company then attempted to avoid assigning the required min day credit and paying the required per-diem by not calling it TDY. With union's phones ringing off the hook, they were forced to call company to task. So company begrudgingly agreed to pay as per the contract. They then promptly reassigned all TDY pilots as "call me first" (another flagrant contract violation) and began assigning TDYs as ready reserve...often for 2-3 days in a row...just for wanting what they were due. Additionally, the IAD based reserve pilots, mostly commuters want to fly. But since TDY was now "call me first," they were assigned trips first and the based pilots now often had to get hotels or hang in the crash pad. As a point of fact, eventually this was all sorted out, but my lord!

Lastly, where is PBS? Wasn't it supposed to be here by now. What about the parallel bidding? Still haven't seen that either. I've been told it's because Flightline needs all this time to adjust their program to our PBS agreement. I don't believe this for one second. Do you?

I think we all want the same things, growth, quality of life and to operate in a congenial less-confrontational environment. Having adequate staffing is a cost of doing business. I just don't believe being truly competitive is achievable or sustainable by wringing the savings out of pilots and employees.

 

[twott driver]

Seems like a fairly accurate observation of what's going on. All this kumbaya bs is getting a bit tiring, like scheduling saying "Aren't we trying to work as a team to run an ontime operation?" as a justification for taking your scheduled nap and giving it to a reserve, in blatant disregard of the contract.

 

[sayrejm]

To work as a team, everyone must follow the rules.

 

[Abernathy]

Seems like a fairly accurate observation of what's going on. All this kumbaya bs is getting a bit tiring, like scheduling saying "Aren't we trying to work as a team to run an ontime operation?" as a justification for taking your scheduled nap and giving it to a reserve, in blatant disregard of the contract.

BTW when they take that nap and give it to a reserve, if the nap is 8 hours or more in layover time (usually something like 8:15), it isn't a nap anymore. Reserves fly the nap, come back, and get extended. Oh and if you call in fatigued, my understanding is that everyone gets to perform a special carpet dance for KS.

ASA is turning into Mesa, and BH does a great job of making us feel special to be part of it.

 

[Freebrd]

The following is not all concrete fact, but my observations and humble opinion:

Wonder how cost effective the record number of sick and fatigue calls are?

Your entire post is RIGHT ON Bro!

 

[BWatz]

The following is not all concrete fact, but my observations and humble opinion:

An airline can reduce costs to some extent by forcing its hand on the pilots (as well as the other employees). But to truly become a lean mean fighting machine and finely trim costs, the operation must have an "on the same page" teamwork oriented philosophy.

ASA went nearly 30 years through all sorts of ups and downs without ever furloughing. Once a company elects to do this, trust and loyalty are severely violated.

Many of the highly touted "contract improvements" from the last go round were quite enjoyable, briefly...that is until company found ways around them. By now I think we've all realized the four day trips and red arrow days are by design. Company withholds trips from lines and puts into open time. Then most lines contain only four day trips and what ends up in open time is primarily four days making it difficult to pick up trips, or increase your monthly credit (and forget about one day less swaps as well). This has resulted in quite an effective pay cut for many of our pilots. Company refuses to break these trips up for the open time pot, but you can bet they do break them up. They do when assigning them to reserves. Then of course, there's the red arrow day issue further limiting our ability to make legitimate changes. There is "low coverage" because the reserves are busy covering the open time.

While there were many advertised improvements to the scheduling section and reserve, life on reserve has become ever more difficult. Company quickly found ways around these and all the "company will attempt to" type language is worthless. There have been many band-aid MOU and handshake fixes put into place for reserves (ready reserve being one of the prominent issues) but they never last more than a couple weeks and then it's back to the old tricks. The scheduling operating patterns change so much that reserve pilots never know what to expect, it changes by the week. Wonder how cost effective the record number of sick and fatigue calls are?

An example of our teamwork philosophy from my own experience: With the brilliant models for IAD in place providing six reserves per seat and one spare aircraft, company realized right off the bat this was inadequate. Numerous reserves were immediately and with no warning TDY'd to IAD, many for 4-6 days with a two hour short call out and little knowledge of the IAD operation. Company then attempted to avoid assigning the required min day credit and paying the required per-diem by not calling it TDY. With union's phones ringing off the hook, they were forced to call company to task. So company begrudgingly agreed to pay as per the contract. They then promptly reassigned all TDY pilots as "call me first" (another flagrant contract violation) and began assigning TDYs as ready reserve...often for 2-3 days in a row...just for wanting what they were due. Additionally, the IAD based reserve pilots, mostly commuters want to fly. But since TDY was now "call me first," they were assigned trips first and the based pilots now often had to get hotels or hang in the crash pad. As a point of fact, eventually this was all sorted out, but my lord!

Lastly, where is PBS? Wasn't it supposed to be here by now. What about the parallel bidding? Still haven't seen that either. I've been told it's because Flightline needs all this time to adjust their program to our PBS agreement. I don't believe this for one second. Do you?

I think we all want the same things, growth, quality of life and to operate in a congenial less-confrontational environment. Having adequate staffing is a cost of doing business. I just don't believe being truly competitive is achievable or sustainable by wringing the savings out of pilots and employees.

100% correct

 

[777forever]

I also thought the red arrows were there to reduce lineholder pay but when I looked at the June final schedules lineholders were routinely in the 90s for credit with some in the 100s. Then again I know there were some guys who got creative with swaps and bumped up their credit to 115-120 plus hrs. Maybe they're trying to prevent that.

 

[OCP]

BTW when they take that nap and give it to a reserve, if the nap is 8 hours or more in layover time (usually something like 8:15), it isn't a nap anymore. Reserves fly the nap, come back, and get extended. Oh and if you call in fatigued, my understanding is that everyone gets to perform a special carpet dance for KS.

ASA is turning into Mesa, and BH does a great job of making us feel special to be part of it.

KS is the most useless thing I have ever had to deal with. The company can not force you to do any company business, i.e. meet with a CP. If you call fatigue you go home. Maybe call someone on your way out.

 

[zawillif]

Today's open time in IAD every single trip is a premium pickup.

 

[SLUF4]

Good post, Redan. I hope we can get some of this language changed in the next contract. There are way too many loopholes in there. Adequate staffing is a direct cost of doing business. They are making millions in profit off of our backs. To me this is not really that different from them asking us to take a pay cut to stay competitive.

 

[buscap]

Do you really fail to see the connection between open time pickup and furlough recalls? Really??? I hope your tires are not too expensive. It might take lots of open time to pay for their replacement.

Connection or not, your tire slashing threat is hilarious!!

Tell you what Sir D-bag. I don't qualify for a slashing under your criteria, but how about you grow a pair and put your money where your mouth is.

What kind of car do you drive?

And another thing, for anyone who thinks picking up open time is such a disservice to fellow pilots, I would suggest you make it a high priority in the next contract. We can get language which would give the MEC the power to make picking up open time embarrassing or difficult. How much negotiating time and effort do you want to spend on that one?

Until then, I suggest you come out from your tough guy closet and let us know who you are. You are so willing to slash tires, I'm sure you would be willing to publish the names of pilots who pick up open time.

Your strong feelings about staffing, reserves and furloughs are well placed, but this childish mentality about slashing tires is ridiculous.

You wanna help the furloughs so much? How about sending cash when they need it? Or maybe set up an online bulletin board with pictures of their kids? Put signs in the crew lounge letting everyone know we still have furloughs?

Get creative, but don't be an idiot.

 

[SLUF4]

i think he was just kidding about tire slashing, but I like your idea about pictures of them etc. I don't think it would stay up in the lounge too long, though. i wish the company could see that their ideas are disrupting the team effort they want so badly. look at us-fighting about this. these things are tearing us apart.

 

[SpyFlysDOTs]

Reading this thread, I see the lipstick is finally starting to wear off someone.

 

[Av8trix616]

BTW when they take that nap and give it to a reserve, if the nap is 8 hours or more in layover time (usually something like 8:15), it isn't a nap anymore. Reserves fly the nap, come back, and get extended..

This was being badly abused *last* summer. I can only imagine that scheduling are getting to be real pros with this tactic by now. Nothing like 8:01 on paper followed by a full day of extensions...

 

[Abernathy]

Either someone who wants it, flies or someone who doesn't want it, still flies it. Idiot.

Tarzan, they aren't offering premium pick up trips out of the goodness of their hearts. They're offering them because they don't have enough reserves to cover them and are hoping you people will pick them up at our (the collective pilot group) peril.

If somoene doesn't "want it," they'll end up extending a lineholder and they know damn well when that crap starts, it'll be 2007 all over again.

 

[Abernathy]

This was being badly abused *last* summer. I can only imagine that scheduling are getting to be real pros with this tactic by now. Nothing like 8:01 on paper followed by a full day of extensions...

There has been no shortage of fatigue calls for this stuff, and it'll hit them hard this summer. There's a reason they've let KS harass fatigue callers. There will be calls to the FAA this summer, I can guarantee it. More and more FOs and CAs are at the point where they just don't care anymore.

Our MEC is too busy making sure everyone gets an obscene amount of time to figure out if they want to upgrade to captain or not and not enough time ensuring the company abides to other more important contract provisions. The MEC has been bought cheap by the company for 6 hour days.

 

[Abernathy]

Then again I know there were some guys who got creative with swaps and bumped up their credit to 115-120 plus hrs. Maybe they're trying to prevent that.

Maybe you should put down that ice cold Kool-Aid, junior.