Flex bid Gone

[shanes123]

Flex Flight Attendants have lost their Flex Bid schedule. Why would one Flex pilot think their not next? KR Loves your Flexbid correct ???? Then why would the Flight Attendants lose it?? We been saying since day one he will get rid of that schedule and here’s step 1. Getting ready for the 8/7.

 

[Club ORD FO]

Flex Flight Attendants have lost their Flex Bid schedule. Why would one Flex pilot think their not next? KR Loves your Flexbid correct ???? Then why would the Flight Attendants lose it?? We been saying since day one he will get rid of that schedule and here’s step 1. Getting ready for the 8/7.

KR's schedule of choice is the make-your-own. That's what they do on the red Label. You get paid a bigger bonus iff you do 7+ day trips but a lot of pilots ignore that.

 

[shanes123]

LOL...Ya ok....Make your own.. lets see how long make your own last if he gets full control back. you guys are hopeless. your all like a bunch of retarded kids who keep sticking your finger in the light socket over and over and over....

 

[Club ORD FO]

LOL...Ya ok....Make your own.. lets see how long make your own last if he gets full control back. you guys are hopeless. your all like a bunch of retarded kids who keep sticking your finger in the light socket over and over and over....

Flexbid is in the contract, so what are you worried about?

 

[shanes123]

CONTRACT???? Oh who got us a Contract?????? So its protected by a contract? that who exactly got for us? Hmmmm So confusing!!!! Oh and I am not worried about anything Flexbid sucks love to see it go away.

 

[Club ORD FO]

CONTRACT???? Oh who got us a Contract?????? So its protected by a contract? that who exactly got for us? Hmmmm So confusing!!!! Oh and I am not worried about anything Flexbid sucks love to see it go away.

Um, the union got us the contract?

so first you say we should fear flexbid going away, but then you say you want it to go away. What?

 

[993_Pilot]

Flexbid may remain, but what keeps the company from manipulating it for longer rotations or how will the scheduling committee verify that they were assigned is any order? Serious question.

 

[justmeinmsp]

993 is the winner. It is in the contract but how it’s used is not. The company has full control over the parameters it uses

 

[doh]

Actually, it says 4, 5 and 6 day rotations in the contract. And domestic red label says they just have to cover the left seat. Am I not reading that correctly?

 

[993_Pilot]

Actually, it says 4, 5 and 6 day rotations in the contract. And domestic red label says they just have to cover the left seat. Am I not reading that correctly?

Yes, there are some limits in the MCBA, but no checks and balances that I can see. How does the scheduling committee verify what is available and what order the bids were awarded in? Can I specify 14 day green lines only? In other words, what keeps the management from giving everyone a 16 day green line? We are so understaffed, I actually fear this will happen. Can I be stuck working every weekend or peak travel day if the company "needs" me to? Never having bid this before, I am genuinely curious if there are any checks & balances, or is it all just left up to the discretion of management, confined by the few restrictions / rules in the MCBA and the honor system? We are being asked to make this choice before we have any definitive answers and while the extra money is tempting, I am dubious that "the needs of the company" won't ALWAYS come first.

 

[doh]

I can’t give you a tutorial on here. I don’t type that well. I think Super Dave has a tutorial. Email him and ask for it.

 

[Imissmypilot]

Why do most of you continue to be so gullible?

Get it through your heads: with this management team running the show absolutely 100% of nothing has do with what works for or is in the best interest of the pilot group. Ricci has his thoughts of how things should be and ideas, messages, programs, benefits etc... will continue to be massaged, manipulated and crafted toward that end. Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly but always toward that goal.

Did yesterday's announcement regarding the ability to bid what amounts to a fixed bid within Flexbid clue you in at all? Sure, the name might stay (just to make some of you suckers happy) but the truth is it's going to always be (and even more so under Ricci rule) what management wants first, what management needs second and what works for pilot at a distant third, maybe.

993 has it right on the money. There are simply no parameters in the CBA that a pilot should bank on.

Even under Bombardier, Flexbid was not perfect. Under DAC it has/will become a nightmare. If Flexbid really worked then we would get our schedules the same day the bids closed. The open secret about Flexbid is that the results are tweaked for over a week to get the result management desires and the pilot group will buy as a pilot-centric result. This has only been exacerbated under Ricci rule and the RL self scheduling paradigm. Have you noticed it is impossible to get a 4 day tour or less than a 15/16 day line?

More sculpting to the Ricci system underway. The only reason Flexbid was allowed to stay is because the union predicted it's demise. So as an alternate they will just continue to chip away at Flexbid until it's but a shadow of what you think it represents.

The self scheduling will see similar mandates that replace total freedom with complete compliance.

Mark my words.

 

[justmeinmsp]

Ummm, unless something has changed recently, 8 day rotations became green lines in Flexbid after the buyout

 

[Imissmypilot]

Ummm, unless something has changed recently, 8 day rotations became green lines in Flexbid after the buyout

No they were added to yellow lines which previous to buyout were limited to 7 day max.

Do you remember why Bombardier did not allow for 8 days even on a yellow line? Funny enough they considered it a safety concern. Guuuuhlope...

Just a reminder, until now, green lines were always limited to 6 with a 4 off before/after minimum.

 

[Club ORD FO]

No they were added to yellow lines which previous to buyout were limited to 7 day max.

Do you remember why Bombardier did not allow for 8 days even on a yellow line? Funny enough they considered it a safety concern. Guuuuhlope...

Just a reminder, until now, green lines were always limited to 6 with a 4 off before/after minimum.

Er, no. We always had 7 and 8 day lines. But they were made green lines in the new bases after the buy out. Still yellow in DFW and a few others.

 

[Imissmypilot]

Er, no. We always had 7 and 8 day lines. But they were made green lines in the new bases after the buy out. Still yellow in DFW and a few others.

No you are discussing special circumstances as if they are the general rule. In doing so, you are just helping the narrative the these changes (that do not honor the original choices of the pilot group and are occurring outside of negotiation) are acceptable.

What I am talking about is the basic operation of Flexbid as designed and the pilot group it was designed for. Not the crazy bull**** added in after the acquisition or bull**** that is precipitated by unnegotiated changes in work rules.

You are both smarter than allowing that crap. I could be wrong on the 8 days occurring pre-accquisition (it's been a while now) but my statement stands without out.

As designed, with overwhelming pilot preference in mind, green lines have been 14-16 day lines limited to max 6 day rotations with the standard rules of min 4 off before/after 6, min 3 off before/after 5's and 4's. Additionally green lines protected the rules on lead ins and vacation blocks.

Yellow lines allowed for 7 days prior to the buyout (maybe 8 but not my recollection.) Yellow lines expand the choices to 12-18 days on, eschew the "rules" and allow for 2 day off mins.

Do you even remember why green lines were green lines? Kinda funny in just 3 years most do not. It's because with duty days of 8-9 hours, time home on 5/3 or 4/3 was a highly valued and doable choice. With 12 plus and killer first/lasts we now need larger chunks of off time just to recover.

In the early days of Flexbid, pilots viewed a yellow line bid as a last resort to get off specific days. Now yellow is probably the preference since getting worked to the bone requires a rethinking of strategy. SD put out stats at one point that back this up about the early days but I've since purged them.

Unlike you, I am no fan of Flexbid. That's not a knock on you, I'm just saying that to give context to my statements. I would take a fixed 7&7 in a heartbeat and have tried to fashion my bid for years with that attempt (with little luck since 16 appears to be the demand.)

However there are two principles I stand on:

1.) I will not lose money to help Kenn Ricci save it.

2.) I will not endorse unnegotiated changes to our work rules or adherence to the MCBA in a fashion attempting to discredit the value of the union to the pilot group.

 

[justmeinmsp]

That is correct 8 days were in secondary bases. I’d be interested in knowing the percentage of pilots that still live in one of those 5 bases vs how many live in the secondary. If you don’t think making 8 days green for all to bring in equality to the group as a hole, you’re dreaming. What prevents them from defining CLE as THE primary base and all others secondary? They also changed the min days off at the same time. Funny how things are forgotten. That’s his best technique. Distract you with his right hand, while his left is picking your pocket. Other things lost during that time. 3 sick days per year. But hey, now it’s PTO and that’s better. Right? 3% 401k match. That horse crap of it was temporary and never meant as a long term option is bull. That was never mentioned until KR showed up. Par for the course considering the bonus fiasco. Out of seniority upgrades via International Large Cabin. Another stinky pile of crap. Funny how you all of a sudden have made up reasons to selectively move people around and then there’s the pay disparity for RL. Those joe cool, awesome uniforms. Short term disability was shortened, long term is hard to get. Several have been denied it. But you got loss of license, right. Good luck with that one. Who’s the underwriter for that policy? KR. A bunch of new airplanes means growth, right. What’s the total fleet count in 2013 for FO and FJ combined vs now? Good luck getting those numbers, but I’d estimate flat, at best. Drink up boys, that’s some good cool aid right there

 

[Imissmypilot]

PTO? What bull****. I heard they are selectively requiring in-network visits for sick calls. What happened to "it's PTO so you can use it however you want?"

Not only that but I heard they're requiring an in network visit cuz then they have access to the diagnoses codes. Talk about major issues.

Heard of a pilot who got a CGF for making a sick call but the company phone showed him out of domicile. When he arrived for his CGF he asked if they thought it was impossible to get sick while away from home?

2 lessons learned: the company can track your phone and never ever ever be specific with your pto reasoning.

 

[doh]

IMMP and JMiMSP, I’m glad you two are paying attention. SPT, Phildo and wookieboy are asking what the union has done. Turnabout is fair play, so what has management done for us. Loss of 3% 401k, loss of sick time, short term disability, etc. AND 8 day green lines with 4 days off. And never forget, less than one quarter of us are able to take advantage of red label. The rest of us are stuck subsidizing this BS!

 

[shanes123]

I don't have the airplane numbers.. But my guess is we are well into the negatives. Whole beechnut/nextjunk fleet gone that was a SHT load of planes and all the Xs gone Legacy 600 heading out the door .. My best guess is we are shrinking rapidly..and the pilot count on the last SLI I saw was 574..Someone correct me but I thought we were over 650 pilots at time of merger.. Thats almost 100 pilots down if my guesstimate is correct