CAL LAX Base Rumor, AGAIN!

[Paul R. Smith]

It will be an interesting summer. If you subtract the HNL flying what's going to be left in the bid package? Maybe a handful of high quality trips and the rest could be the usual unproductive 3 and 4 day trips. The senior people who are generally insulated from the unregulated hand of CAL's scheduling marketplace are going to be scrambling over scraps if they want to avoid sitting in a center 737 seat for 4 legs and 10 hours of a 20-hour pairing.

And just wait for the IRO HNL turn. TOC on the way out, FO goes back for the meal and movie and a long nap, comes back at TOD. On the way back, CA goes back for the meal and the movie and long nap, comes back at TOD. Ten hours of radios and paperwork for the IRO, five in each seat, is one long day. I've already seen this on IRO turns to other places on the 737. Fun.

If people don't adjust their bids significantly there will be a lot of DM4. Who knows, maybe it will finally reach the unreachable to read the next contract before they vote it in.

Very interesting...The law of unintended consequences in all its glory.

We'll see.

 

[bizicmo]

Monthly bid for March already announced . . . . 45% of CLE flying is HNL pairings.

IRO Day One: DH IAH, DH SNA;
Day Two: HNL turn;
Day three: DH EWR, DH CLE.

First off please forgive me for any stupidity. Its been awhile for me with the work rules and block times for those routes and so I was just wondering. If that is an actual trip, I am just guessing that is about 25 hours in a plane. What is keeping the computer from spitting out a schedule with two of those back to back, thus keeping someone in an airplane for 50 hours over a 6 day period. That just seems absurd so I must be missing something.

 

[densoo]

First off please forgive me for any stupidity. Its been awhile for me with the work rules and block times for those routes and so I was just wondering. If that is an actual trip, I am just guessing that is about 25 hours in a plane. What is keeping the computer from spitting out a schedule with two of those back to back, thus keeping someone in an airplane for 50 hours over a 6 day period. That just seems absurd so I must be missing something.

You may be right. Don't fly a lot of international or DH. Why not though? It's only 24 hours of time that the FAA counts, the rest is DH. What's doable is that you can get in at 2230 from the HNL turn on the 2nd day and catch the 2330 redeye back to CLE. 23 hours of flying credit in a 48 hours.

There's also a 35 hour 5-day.

 

[densoo]

Very interesting...The law of unintended consequences in all its glory.

VRF for March is out and for the first time in a very long time many FO BESs are not being offered VRF, including CLE. Summer's starting early.

 

[densoo]

First off please forgive me for any stupidity. Its been awhile for me with the work rules and block times for those routes and so I was just wondering. If that is an actual trip, I am just guessing that is about 25 hours in a plane. What is keeping the computer from spitting out a schedule with two of those back to back, thus keeping someone in an airplane for 50 hours over a 6 day period. That just seems absurd so I must be missing something.

For now, these trips are only offered once per week.

 

[lookin4better]

I am really suprised the furloughs have not been recalled yet..... what would be a drop dead date in order to recall / train them by summer? I would imagine very soon... looks like 2011 or 2012 for the recalls unless more retirements occur.

 

[Twotter Driver]

I am really suprised the furloughs have not been recalled yet..... what would be a drop dead date in order to recall / train them by summer? I would imagine very soon... looks like 2011 or 2012 for the recalls unless more retirements occur.

I am thinking the later part of this year or the first few months of 2011 is when the recalls will happen. There is still a small possibility of a new bid coming out in April that could have recalls on it. With a short term notice they could be in training in late April or early May and on line by the beginning of June for the busy summer schedule. I am not really sure how the summer flying will be covered with our current staffing situation. With that said, I fully expect CAL management to take the "low road" and fly the summer schedule without recalls. We are adding a number of new routes and have a net gain of a minimum of 10 airframes this year, including 4 757-300's, and 2 777's. Next year we will receive at least that many new airframes with the 787 coming on line by the middle of the year.

 

[Twotter Driver]

One other note...CAL pilots have an extremely good piece of leverage in our contract. I believe, if used properly, this can be used as a bargaining chip to ink a new contract and bring back our 147 furloughed brothers and sisters

Pilots contract threatens Continental-United ventures



A little-known pilot contract provision could scuttle two major international initiatives planned by Continental and United Airlines and their Star Alliance airline partners.
The two U.S. carriers, along with Lufthansa and Air Canada, received antitrust immunity from the U.S. government last year to divvy up revenue and closely coordinate flights across the North Atlantic.
Chicago-based United and Continental are using that partnership as a template for a trans-Pacific venture they are forming with All Nippon Airways to compete with that region's troubled juggernaut, Japan Airlines.
However, Continental's pilots hold an effective veto over the deals as a result of a clause in their contract that bars the Houston-based carrier from entering into a revenue-sharing arrangement with another U.S. carrier.
Deep in contract talks with Continental management, the pilots union is refusing to budge on the "scope" language in their collective bargaining agreement.
The stalemate is holding up the full launch of the Atlantic joint venture and would be a barrier to the Pacific deal, sources said. The Atlantic partnership must be fully operating by December under the terms of the antitrust immunity granted by the U.S. Department of Transportation last summer.
"There are a number of open items related to governance and commercial issues that we are working through on the joint venture, including discussions concerning our pilots' scope clause," said Continental spokeswoman Julie King. "The companies and the DOT recognized that there were a lot of issues to be resolved in setting up a joint venture, and that's why the DOT order gives 18 months for the joint venture to be implemented."
The pilots are aware of the clout that they hold as potential deal-breakers and the importance of the international forays to Continental's management. The nation's fourth-largest carrier defected last year to Star from the SkyTeam alliance and formed a close relationship with United that many analysts think is a precursor to an eventual merger.
"I think they're counting on us," Capt. Jay Pierce, head of the Continental pilots union, told the Tribune. "History would probably tell you that's not a bad gamble for them to take. I will say this: We are well aware of the leverage this gives us."
Continental and its pilots have been in contract talks since July 2007 and, after reaching agreement on nine sections, are starting to tackle "hard economic issues" like pay, Pierce said. Scope issues touch all of the hot buttons: pay, management's rights and job security, he noted.


Since Continental is known for healthy employee relations in an industry rife with acrimony, industry observers predict the carrier will find a middle ground with pilots.
"It needs to get worked out," said aviation consultant Robert Mann. "Like it or not, this is where the industry is going."
Many U.S. pilots find the prospect of large-scale partnerships deeply threatening. They worry that carriers are seeking to outsource the long-range flying jobs that are among the most prestigious and highest paying.
American Airlines' pilots oppose its proposed trans-Atlantic alliance with Oneworld partners British Airways and Iberia. While United and Continental pilots didn't try to block Star's Atlantic venture, they want assurances that pilot jobs won't be a casualty of "metal-neutrality," the practice of giving all participating carriers a cut of revenue on a flight regardless of who flies it.
"We do not want a shell operation," said Capt. Wendy Morse, who heads United's pilots union. "We want metal in the market, United pilots being productive in terms of flying their own airplanes and route structure."
That concept is less threatening to Delta Air Line's pilots, who already participate in a metal-neutral venture in the Atlantic and last fall endorsed their management's bid to form a partnership with JAL that would likely have a similar structure. But the pilots have safeguards against flying cuts. Delta, for example, is required to maintain a minimum number of landing slots at Tokyo's Narita Airport for its own aircraft, according to a Nov. 30 union communique.
Proponents of the new ventures argue that they will create jobs and travel growth as passengers in Tokyo or Brussels find it easier to get to destinations like Costa Rica.
"Joint ventures and alliances make us a stronger airline and partner, and create and protect jobs," said United spokeswoman Jean Medina. She estimated that United's alliance with Lufthansa and other partnerships have created or protected 3,000 jobs that would have otherwise vanished.
But this decade's alliances may prove far different than those forged during the past two decades, when global aviation boomed, warned aviation consultant Hubert Horan, a former airline executive who helped form the original Northwest-KLM alliance in 1992.
"These are taking place in markets that are shrinking, not growing," he said. "There's no discussion of how that pain will be shared."

 

[bravodude]

Leave it to the General and his mighty Delta. first they caved on scope with RJ's now they are doing the same thing with partnerships but don't worry this is good for all of us.

 

[mamba20]

One other note...CAL pilots have an extremely good piece of leverage in our contract. I believe, if used properly, this can be used as a bargaining chip to ink a new contract and bring back our 147 furloughed brothers and sisters
"

I hope I'm taking your post out of context here. Scope is not leverage! It is job security, especially for the B3. We cannot allow our union or our pilot group to even hint a relaxing our scope clause. It actually needs to be strengthened.

CAL management is all about outsourcing our mainline jobs to the lowest bidder. We cannot allow this to happen. Call/write your reps!