E-190s at Airtran?

[FlyFastLiveSlow]

Yet if there were more people on the staff to return phone calls to 1500 guys, you would complain that we were paying too much in dues.

If Alan can't handle the emails/calls he should not have promised to answer every single one of them. I had a union rep tell me that we have so much money in "reserve" that NPA doesn't know how to spend it. That may have been an untrue statement. I assumed it was a reliable source. But, it sure makes it sound like they could afford one or two more people if they wanted to. Someone had plenty of time to compile the new hotel guide, right?

The people I hear complaining about SAP2 don't seem to realize what actually happened:

The Company manufactured this whole problem by introducing new limits into SAP 2 that eliminated SAP as a viable means to improve your schedule (I had 24 legal trades refused the last month of FLICA-based SAP 2, because JT can't figure out how to actually run the program in an intelligent manner).

The reason that you can't get any SAP2 trades done now is that instead of having four different email addresses processing SAP2, they only have one now, because they want guys like you to blame the union, and accept SAP2 via FLICA, with the same problems it had.

Fine, then work to fix the problems together; are they doing that? I'm not "blaming" the union. The NPA asked to revert to the old way without clearly explaining why. All that was said is that "after many complaints, the NPA has decided to revert to......." A concise explanation of exactly why would have been nice. A single paragraph is all that it would have taken. And regardless of how many email addresses are available, how are they (crew planning) held accountable to first come first served??

And last, putting a question up on a website is not scientific polling, not even close. If you don't understand why, maybe you should have taken a Statistics class when you were in college, but I am not going to spend any more of my Sunday educating you or trying to undo the brainwashing you've obviously been subjected to.

So by your own logic, the last election was "unscientific". Maybe highly inaccurate? Hell, maybe Alan didn't actually win last time? Maybe we should elect the NPA Pres by random sampling from the Wilson Polling Center next time then. Maybe your voice will be heard, maybe not, but I'm sure a "representative sample" will be fine with you, right? Maybe when a TA is offered, we should do Wilson Polling, and take a representative sample of the pilot group to accept it or reject it. That would be much more scientific, right? Therefore more accurate. Again, maybe you will get to vote, maybe not, but you should be happy with it.

I aced stats, jackass, and poli sci. I know how a referendum works. Do you? It's very simple, you log in with a password, you click "yes" or "no" to the question "do you support the rule change?" You click submit, and you are locked out from voting again. Should you choose not to participate in such a democratic process, that is your choice, and your voice will not be heard.


Have a nice life.

See Above

 

[FlyFastLiveSlow]

True enough, but the only thing that would take me from here to one of those companies is pay. I like the flying we do (when we're not on a 3 hour ground hold for PHL like today and up against a 14:30 duty day now), and I would like to make this my final stop on the career path.

That's the single, biggest problem the NPA faces with the membership. We are the MOST diverse group I have ever seen at an airline. There's no POSSIBLE way they can satisfy 100% of the pilot group ALL the time.

I don't like some of the things the NPA has done. I am vocal about some of the things I'd like to see changed. Many people see that as "helping management". I, like you, disagree. I believe we can disagree with certain NPA actions and still walk the line when asked to.

It's not a totalitarian state. To try to get people not to voice their opinions if they run contrary to the NPA's stated policies is ludicrous. People don't work like that.

I dedicated a LOT of my time to the Communications Committee at my last carrier, and we used Wilson Polling several times. I can agree 100% that it is ALWAYS accurate within 2-3% if a vote is taken. They've been doing this a LONG time.

I'm one of the guys who supports age 65, with certain caveats. That said, it SHOULD have been put to a vote. We have the ability to allow a company-wide vote on this issue. At my last carrier, there was a rule on the books that ANY side letters or agreements concerning pay or QOL absolutely HAD to be put to vote. I wish we had that here.

Sure, why not just set the restrictions properly?

I'm absolutely CERTAIN you can get the company to arbitrarily agree to SPECIFIC coverage percentages, right? Go for it, that would be GREAT! Thanks!!!

*sarcasm off* The problem is that we have no way to FORCE the company to set the minimum coverage levels in a reasonable manner. THAT was the shortcoming of the SAP II side letter and something we should have pushed for during the Christmas debacle when the company needed relief (but I digress).

Until we can get a REASONABLE staffing level number from the company to use for automated SAP II and have oversight to see that it's being used properly, there is no solution.

It's frustrating sitting on the sidelines and not knowing what's going on; I understand that completely. People have to realize that the RLA has no teeth, our company does NOT manage this place with the benevolence seen at SWA, and we have no way to affect change without the company's agreement or the SBA.

There ARE no easy solutions, or they would already be in place.

Incidentally, I'd like to hear more about the P2P call last Thursday. I was at a funeral and was unable to call in.

Much better said than I could have done it. I agree with you 98%. I wanna stay here too, but unfortunately there are people that sign on here as a fill in, while just waiting for fedex to call.

 

[newnan]

Is it disgraceful? We don't even know what they offered this last time. It's like the Bush administration. "Just trust us". But you need no details. Convince me why I should trust them on that.
I blame my union for certain tactics they have used, not necessarily for what they are trying to accomplish. NPA stooped to Kolski's level early on in this process. That was a HUGE disappointment. I was extraordinarily hopeful about the new group. I just wish the high road were taken.

I'm actually quite pro-union in general (something that baffles me considering the majority political orientation among pilots, but that is another discussion altogether) ....so convince me, sway me in the direction of standing behind them 100%. I'm open....I'm waiting for a convincing argument. Sell me.

You sounded like you might have a legitimate opinion on the state of our affairs (I don't agree with it, but it's your right) until I read this. You have absolutely no clue how the RLA and negotiations work. You will not see anything after their initial proposal until the whole deal is TA'd. The most either side is allowed to say is very general opinion but certainly no details. Based on our initial proposal and the company's initial proposal, I can only ascertain that the raises may not cover cost of living since the ammendable date, let alone be any raise on top of that, whether that be hourly or total compensation. Based on all the public info available, the NPA's opinion of this is good enough for me until I see the complete TA and have a chance to make a choice for myself.

 

[FIREMAN]

"Until we can get a REASONABLE staffing level number from the company to use for automated SAP II and have oversight to see that it's being used properly, there is no solution"



Iam sure I heard SH state at a recurrent lunch that " I pulled the number out of my ?ss." He was talking about the number used for the SAP2 min staffing.

The company can brainwash and so can the NPA. The truth is always between the two. The lack of com. from the NPA could be by design.

 

[FIREMAN]

"The most either side is allowed to say is very general opinion but certainly no details"

Then why are both original proposals on the NPA web site?

 

[FlyFastLiveSlow]

You sounded like you might have a legitimate opinion on the state of our affairs (I don't agree with it, but it's your right) until I read this. You have absolutely no clue how the RLA and negotiations work. You will not see anything after their initial proposal until the whole deal is TA'd. The most either side is allowed to say is very general opinion but certainly no details. Based on our initial proposal and the company's initial proposal, I can only ascertain that the raises may not cover cost of living since the ammendable date, let alone be any raise on top of that, whether that be hourly or total compensation. Based on all the public info available, the NPA's opinion of this is good enough for me until I see the complete TA and have a chance to make a choice for myself.

I actually do understand how it works. But another poster here called the offer "disgraceful". My point was how does he or she know that? NPA was disappointed, so it probably was not a good offer. But to sit and call it "disgraceful" when having no idea of the details is a stretch. Maybe it is, my point was, we don't really know that.

I agree, let's wait until we can see a TA before casting judgement.

 

[newnan]

You will not see anything after their initial proposal until the whole deal is TA'd

You conveniently left that sentance out

 

[newnan]

I actually do understand how it works. But another poster here called the offer "disgraceful". My point was how does he or she know that? NPA was disappointed, so it probably was not a good offer. But to sit and call it "disgraceful" when having no idea of the details is a stretch. Maybe it is, my point was, we don't really know that.

I agree, let's wait until we can see a TA before casting judgement.

Maybe we're getting somewhere, you started out not trusting the NPA and now maybe agreeing that since they said the offer was disappointing that it probably was.

As an aside, does anyone think we'll get more than 60% to even vote on the TA when it comes due to the apathy here?

 

[FIREMAN]

You will not see anything after their initial proposal until the whole deal is TA'd

You conveniently left that sentance out

You are right I read right over that,sorry.

 

[FlyFastLiveSlow]

Maybe we're getting somewhere, you started out not trusting the NPA and now maybe agreeing that since they said the offer was disappointing that it probably was.

As an aside, does anyone think we'll get more than 60% to even vote on the TA when it comes due to the apathy here?

Certainly will be interesting to see how many vote. Although, according to Ty, we don't need a vote, just a polling sample should do. I hope it's more than 60%. I know that I will vote.

Yes, i agree that the offer probably was disappointing to the NPA. Maybe to me too, maybe not. I can not fairly make that determination. The word is too relative. I don't hate the NPA as you might think, I just think it's important to point out the deficiencies of the NPA, as well as provide an opposing view to the chest thumpers. If the chest thumpers aren't tempered by reason, or even negativity, things will raqpidly spiral out of control.