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.