ASA training dept. rumor

[JoeMerchant]

Thats what everyone keeps saying but didn't guys get the same amount of days off and credit with trip dropping via line bidding? Seems like when the company is in an overstaffed situation it wouldn't really matter to them.

We gave up getting paid for trip dropping in our last contract...We could do it, but we lost the pay. Now I get even more vacation and get paid too...It was an improvement over our last contract.

 

[ace6453]

Well, thats not entirely correct.

My best example, Vacation low on ASA PBS is burning the budget and the company cant get rid of it fast enough. They are regretting this one big.

Vacation low is just killing the budget and profits, it has nothing to do with inept middle management, stupid scheduling/planning practices or 3 name changes in 3 years.

 

[Plainsman]

I sure wish they would get rid of SH.

 

[Oakum_Boy]

Killing the budgets and profits because of a some extra trips in open time? Nice try.

How 'bout the 350 cancelled flights over the weekend we won't get paid for, not to mention the inept middle management of crew scheduling and planning that results in inefficient trips, cancelled flights, understaffing...

Oh, here's one- How about the condition of the airplanes? The cockpit is covered in dirt, dust and crud...critical switches like rudder trim breaking because of it (the spilled drinks were like three instances), pencil whipping write ups over and over and over until the airplane finally goes AOG in the middle of nowhere or has to divert, etc, etc...

All ASA management choices. Sorry. Try again.

 

[sunlitpath]

When the dust finally settles, I think many of you will find the Skywest/ASA management team to be very acceptable. All management teams encounter operational and organizational challenges. When evaluated honestly and objectively , using profitability and viabilty as metrics, their performance is quite good in this difficult environment. Attempting to beat them down with ill placed, tired rhetoric will not achieve much of anything. By all means we must negotiate for fair QOL and compensation, but don't expect them to give away the farm; particularly when the farm isn't producing much in the current drought conditions. I encourage anyone who has questions about operational issues to simply ask SH or BH for clarification. They have answered every question I have ever asked.

 

[ASA_Aviator]

When the dust finally settles, I think many of you will find the Skywest/ASA management team to be very acceptable. All management teams encounter operational and organizational challenges. When evaluated honestly and objectively , using profitability and viabilty as metrics, their performance is quite good in this difficult environment. Attempting to beat them down with ill placed, tired rhetoric will not achieve much of anything. By all means we must negotiate for fair QOL and compensation, but don't expect them to give away the farm; particularly when the farm isn't producing much in the current drought conditions. I encourage anyone who has questions about operational issues to simply ask SH or BH for clarification. They have answered every question I have ever asked.

Wow. Someone gets it...

 

[Thebadcat1313]

When the dust finally settles, I think many of you will find the Skywest/ASA management team to be very acceptable. All management teams encounter operational and organizational challenges. When evaluated honestly and objectively , using profitability and viabilty as metrics, their performance is quite good in this difficult environment. Attempting to beat them down with ill placed, tired rhetoric will not achieve much of anything. By all means we must negotiate for fair QOL and compensation, but don't expect them to give away the farm; particularly when the farm isn't producing much in the current drought conditions. I encourage anyone who has questions about operational issues to simply ask SH or BH for clarification. They have answered every question I have ever asked.

Nice to see an adult comment vs. all the kids.

 

[ratherbeflyen]

1. The XJT side doesn't want the ASA PBS system. ASA does. That is causing a lot of the conflict.

2. The XJT side seems to really want to fight just for the sake of fighting. The XJT side doesn't want to acknowledge the fact that we do have to remain competitive. The ASA side isn't advocating paycuts, but is setting it's sites a little lower.

3. The instructor section list integration didn't go well between the two sides.

I checked with my in the know crowd about what happened last week. I can't comment about this week. It sounds like most of it is being blow out of proportion on here.

1. I'll concede that the vast majority will NOT take the ASA pbs as it stands, including myself even though it would get me off reserve. The only way I'd agree to pbs is if the minimum days per month went up and vacation touch/drop still applied.

2. I haven't heard anything on this subject and can't comment either way.

3. As far as I'm concerned the only way any pilot should be able to go hold a long term off line position is to resign their seniority number. Do you want to be a pilot or do you want to be an accountant? Go pick ONE. I also think that every flight instructor should have to fly a minimum of 10-20 hours per month. I really don't know how your supposed to be an expert instructor on an airplane that you turned 60 before the thing was invented. Having said that, I am absolutely positive that there are instructors that are only instructors because of their discontent for the line and will fight anyone and everyone to keep the status quo and their current pay.

 

[ASA_Aviator]

I checked with my in the know crowd about what happened last week. I can't comment about this week. It sounds like most of it is being blow out of proportion on here.

1. I'll concede that the vast majority will NOT take the ASA pbs as it stands, including myself even though it would get me off reserve. The only way I'd agree to pbs is if the minimum days per month went up and vacation touch/drop still applied.

2. I haven't heard anything on this subject and can't comment either way.

3. As far as I'm concerned the only way any pilot should be able to go hold a long term off line position is to resign their seniority number. Do you want to be a pilot or do you want to be an accountant? Go pick ONE. I also think that every flight instructor should have to fly a minimum of 10-20 hours per month. I really don't know how your supposed to be an expert instructor on an airplane that you turned 60 before the thing was invented. Having said that, I am absolutely positive that there are instructors that are only instructors because of their discontent for the line and will fight anyone and everyone to keep the status quo and their current pay.

Do you have guys working as accountants and keeping seniority? That's a little odd. Within the company, or external?

I think our instructors have a month of line flying per year at ASA.

 

[Data]

When the dust finally settles, I think many of you will find the Skywest/ASA management team to be very acceptable. All management teams encounter operational and organizational challenges. When evaluated honestly and objectively , using profitability and viabilty as metrics, their performance is quite good in this difficult environment. Attempting to beat them down with ill placed, tired rhetoric will not achieve much of anything. By all means we must negotiate for fair QOL and compensation, but don't expect them to give away the farm; particularly when the farm isn't producing much in the current drought conditions. I encourage anyone who has questions about operational issues to simply ask SH or BH for clarification. They have answered every question I have ever asked.

Hey, this is FI, logical, well written posts do not belong here. Let's get back to mindless dolts bemoaning how evil Scott and Charlie are, those guys are much more entertaining!

 

[ratherbeflyen]

Do you have guys working as accountants and keeping seniority? That's a little odd. Within the company, or external?

I think our instructors have a month of line flying per year at ASA.

Accountants may have been a little facetious, but there are pilots in company management positions holding a seniority number. Doesn't the CEO have a line pilot number?

 

[CFI2766]

When the dust finally settles, I think many of you will find the Skywest/ASA management team to be very acceptable. All management teams encounter operational and organizational challenges. When evaluated honestly and objectively , using profitability and viabilty as metrics, their performance is quite good in this difficult environment. Attempting to beat them down with ill placed, tired rhetoric will not achieve much of anything. By all means we must negotiate for fair QOL and compensation, but don't expect them to give away the farm; particularly when the farm isn't producing much in the current drought conditions. I encourage anyone who has questions about operational issues to simply ask SH or BH for clarification. They have answered every question I have ever asked.

Two points:

1. Most sane people agree with this statement. However, most sane people also disagree strongly that the only 'metrics' that matter are profitability and viability.

By this logic, why not enact an immediate reduction in benefits in the name of 'profitability' and 'viability'? Why not enact an immediate increase in productivity by decreasing the amount of time employees are given for a vacation? This too would enhance 'profitability' and 'viability', right? Why not select the bid runs every month that produce the best numbers on the management summary, regardless of the quality of life for the pilots that the resultant schedules would produce? This too would enhance 'profitability'...


2. From one ASA pilot's viewpoint, the current management team is clearly head and shoulders above anything that has previously existed in the past at ASA, especially when evaluated in a 'rate-reset' environment. However, we've now encountered two consecutive summers where pilot staffing was grossly inadequate. There are numerous stories of aircraft that are simply not receiving the maintenance attention that they require. Though there is an ostensibly friendly slant to the internal communications (with the blatant exception of '...It doesn't matter how we got here..'), we've received far too many 'Thank You For All That You Do' statements and far too few resources to accomplish the mission of reliably moving people and cargo in a scheduled airline environment.

The lesson that is seemingly not being learned here is that there needs to be a genuine focus on what needs to happen out on the flight line to get the job done. The realities of the last two years indicate that the current management team is all too content to view things through the distantly-removed prism of repeated name changes, superfluous Acepaloozas, and uniform changes that are a 'top priority.'

 

[ASA_Aviator]

Two points:
Though there is an ostensibly friendly slant to the internal communications (with the blatant exception of '...It doesn't matter how we got here..'),

Since I know that you know Scott personally, I'm going to throw the BS flag on this one. While it was certainly a not thought through statement, it was not blatantly unfriendly. I get that people like to harp on that phrase, and it's a good populist motivating sound bite, but don't go inflaming it saying it was unfriendly. It was just a quick, desperate sentence intending to accept responsibility, and motivate people to look past the blame to cover the flying for the weekend. (Admittedly, the opposite result happened...)

There's enough ammunition out there that you don't have to go misrepresenting things.

 

[CFI2766]

Since I know that you know Scott personally, I'm going to throw the BS flag on this one. While it was certainly a not thought through statement, it was not blatantly unfriendly. I get that people like to harp on that phrase, and it's a good populist motivating sound bite, but don't go inflaming it saying it was unfriendly. It was just a quick, desperate sentence intending to accept responsibility, and motivate people to look past the blame to cover the flying for the weekend. (Admittedly, the opposite result happened...)

There's enough ammunition out there that you don't have to go misrepresenting things.

Disappointing...I know Scott about as personally as you do: He's my boss's boss. Let's not 'misrepresent' that he and I share a special bond, or, alternatively, that I do not respect him for the work he does at our airline. Scott has his role to play at ASA; he is very good at what he does.

No inflamation necessary: It was a terrible way for a supervisor to address an employee group. It was counter-productive and likely served to decrease the productivity of the pilot group. He is aware of my, and many other pilots', feelings on this matter.

It's telling that this is the point that you chose to address. Nothing more substantive in my post that you care to respond to?

 

[Freebrd]

And notice that SH hasn't been sending out too many memos lately, instead CT has. Me thinks SH got his pee pee whacked for that negative memo. But hey it doesn't matter how WE got here......