CAL to recall pilots

[zonker]

"Over 100" pilots to be recalled next year, to be continued indefinitely. Per Gordon's weekly voicemail.

 

[sgu]

awesome

Merry Christmas!!!! with more recalls to come!!

 

[General Lee]

That's great news. (For my friends at Expressjet too)

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[EMBpilot]

Is it true that all CAL furloughed folks are at Continental Express?
On the top of the list?
All 637?
Thanks.

 

[ERJ - Jay]

It's really confusing how they integrated the furloughs, but her's a snap shot. (Note: All pay rate examples below are from 10/01/01 effective dates of contract 1997, contract 2002 still being negotiated at both airlines, retro-checks yet to be deterimend per the yet to be closed CBA)

All CAL furloughs were givin a choice of:
1) Furlough, cash check, but no acrued longevity while on furlough.
2) Company Offered Leave of Apsence (COLA), no cash, but they accrue pay and retirement longevity while on COLA. So when they are eventually recalled, they will come back as say a 7 year FO pay instead of a 2 year FO pay. When you consider the pay differential over the following years till they reach 12 year pay (max) plus the 5 more years of service for retirement (Continental Retirement Plan = CARP), these were the ones who most people consider smart financially due to the huge winfall they will have over their remaining carreers.
3) Come to express, no cash check, no accrued longevity for pay at CAL or towards retirement. So when they are recalled, they will still get 2nd or 3rd year pay (the pay at which they left CAL).

For those who came to express:
1) Ex-Express pilots returned to there original position on the seniority list (top) at the appropriate pay rate they they would get if they never went to CAL (like 8 or 10 year 145 CA rate).
2) Off the Street Hires were integrated into the ExpressJet seniority list based upon their date of hire at CAL. This resulted in most of them being junior Jet captains on reserve, or senior first officers. However, they are also paid upon their date of hire at CAL in terms of longevity. Therefore a 1999 off the street hire coming to express could choose today to be a 5th CA on reserve flying there tails off but never breaking min gurentee at 5th year rate (135 CA 5th year = 51.14/hr, 145 CA=58.08/hr) or line holding FO 32.41/hr. Most reserve CA are on 135 CA pay.

(Side Note: due to 297 CAL pilots electing to come to Express initaially, ExpressJet Furloughed back to mid February class 2001. All pilots hired at CAL after Feb 2001 were therefore too junior to even hold a position at express, and were hence "double" furloughed. This was not clearly communicated to them prior to coming to express. Most, to my understanding, expected to come to the relative top of the Express seniority list like the ex-Express pilots did. Either due to poor communication by the company or union, many pilots were surprised to find out how junior they really were even at Express.)

The real kick of it is, even though they've been working this whole time, when they are recalled the guy next to or behind them in seniority who took the COLA instead will get paid more.
For example, 3rd year 737 "blended" FO rate = 74.56/hr
7th year 737 "blended" FO rate = 104.11/hr
net 29.55/hr = $2,216.55/month = $26,595/yr
and they will never be able to make that back for the rest of their time at CAL.

Those who took the COLA seem to be the ones who will end up better in the long term as long as they were able to find other employment in the short term. To be honest though, even at 5th year FO rate, how hard is it to find a job that pays a base salary of $29,169? Not to mentioned the increased retirement payments for the rest of their lives - if it still exists when they do retire (aka. what happened to the US Air guys). Hell, that's only $15.19/hr at a job working 40hrs a week on the clock, no overtime or benifits.

Hope this all helps. Of the 697 no longer on the CAL list, only 432 came to express.
All, however, will be recalled in seniority order, no matter what their choices were.

 

[RichardFitzwell]

You're kinda right...

It's really confusing how they integrated the furloughs, but her's a snap shot. (Note: All pay rate examples below are from 10/01/01 effective dates of contract 1997, contract 2002 still being negotiated at both airlines, retro-checks yet to be deterimend per the yet to be closed CBA)

All CAL furloughs were givin a choice of:
1) Furlough, cash check, but no acrued longevity while on furlough.
2) Company Offered Leave of Apsence (COLA), no cash, but they accrue pay and retirement longevity while on COLA. So when they are eventually recalled, they will come back as say a 7 year FO pay instead of a 2 year FO pay. When you consider the pay differential over the following years till they reach 12 year pay (max) plus the 5 more years of service for retirement (Continental Retirement Plan = CARP), these were the ones who most people consider smart financially due to the huge winfall they will have over their remaining carreers.
3) Come to express, no cash check, no accrued longevity for pay at CAL or towards retirement. So when they are recalled, they will still get 2nd or 3rd year pay (the pay at which they left CAL).

I know for a fact that not all CAL pilots were offered a position at ExpressJet. There were 96 that were too junior to hold on to Express. They were furloughed from CAL, flowed back and then immediately furloughed from Express (all on paper). No cash check or longevity, just a "Thanks for playing."

- One of the 96.

 

[General Lee]

Will they go back to Express now that they are recalling? They can wait there until they get the call to come back to CAL...Let's just get them back into cockpits....

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[ERJ - Jay]

Not entirely true. You were offered a position at express, and then were too junior to hold a position at express based upon date of hire at CAL. Since express had to furlough over 390 of it's own pilots to absorb your CAL bretheren - and so you were then furloughed from express. Have you gotten a recall letter from express in the last year? Or did you give up your recall rights to express? Not your fault, but, you were too junior to hold a position at express due to CAL contract 97 giving away all flying under 50 seats. You were technically offered a position at express, and then "double" furloughed.

Fair, definately not.

However, I feel that it was the fault of the union not explaining the fact clearly enough to the furloughs that there was a likely chance that since express out hired CAL 2 to one over the last three years that you would not be senior enogh to hold a position at express. My question to you is, because I really don't know the answer to this; is whether that first batch of furloughs were given the option to COLA or not. I remember them offering a bunch of COLA's right after Sept 11, prior to furloughing, but I don't remember if you were given a choice after the furlough letters went. I do know, however, that this most recent batch was given such a choice. Either way, I think everyone can agree that the situation got royally screwed up, and the people who got shafted were the same people the whole thing was designed to help - both pilot groups.

 

[RichardFitzwell]

General,

All of the 10-01-01 furloughs were offered positions with Express recently but very few accepted them. I know of one guy from my CAL new hire class that took the "recall" to ExpressJet. Everyone else either bypassed or resigned. He just told me that 66% of the ExpressJet recalls have resigned instead of returning to XJT (this may not be an accurate number but thats what he said).


ERJ - Jay

I was too junior ( 6 mos. at CAL ) to have been given the COLA option. I would have taken it had it been offered. I was just called by ExpressJet and asked if I wanted to accept the recall or resign. I resigned.

What I'm doing now is good enough until CAL recalls and there are guys that were hired to Express that deserve to get back to where they belong. What goes around, comes around.

 

[General Lee]

Richard,

You have a good attitude, and remembering those XJT furloughs is good. You are right, and you will be back at CAL soon.

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[ERJ - Jay]

Richard,
I'm sorry that your class of furloughs were not given the choice to COLA since later classes did. As for express, we were always told that "oh ya we expect everyone to want to come back." However, due to the treatment of the pilots at the initial furlough, being furloughed for almost three years, to return to first year FO pay at the bottom of a senirity list with almost 2500 pilots, only 1/3 of all those called have chosen to return. Rumor has it that now that CAL is recalling, express is once again behind the power curve on staffing for next summer and a master warning WNSHR alert is going off in the back ground. We're going to have to start hiring fresh off the street fast, and we don't even have a HR department anymore to accept applications.
While I'm sorry how thing turned out, I hope that CAL recalls quickly so that you can return to that air soon.
Frats,
Jason

 

[RichardFitzwell]

Richard,
I'm sorry that your class of furloughs were not given the choice to COLA since later classes did.

I'm pretty sure the only pilots offered a COLA from CAL were the ones able to flowback. Since I couldn't flowback due to senority, I wasn't offered a COLA. No one junior to me was offered a COLA either.

COLA's were a pretty good deal if you had some type of employment outside of Continental.

 

[ADG]

That's really good news.

How many CAL pilots are currently furloughed?
And for the next couple of years, what do the retirement numbers look like?

Thanks.

(too lazy to do a search)

 

[RichardFitzwell]

How many CAL pilots are currently furloughed?
And for the next couple of years, what do the retirement numbers look like?

There were around 694 CAL furloughs.

The up and coming retirements are as follows:
'04 - 95
'05 - 151
'06 - 244
'07 - 305
'08 - 240
'09 - 211
'10 - 201
'11 - 207
'12 - 210
'13 - 186

 

[zonker]

There are 637 CAL pilots on furlough (or LOA, flowback, etc.)

 

[RichardFitzwell]

There are 637 CAL pilots on furlough (or LOA, flowback, etc.)

Thanks Zonker;

That's a number that I should know considering all but about eighty are ahead of me.