HAL hiring

[Junkflyer]

The last vacancy bid had a reduction in 717 slots, Ohana will be flying flights currently flown by the 717. Not exactly a warm fuzzy for the interisland pilots.
Any reduction is bad for the group as a whole.

 

[Dan Roman]

The last vacancy bid had a reduction in 717 slots, Ohana will be flying flights currently flown by the 717. Not exactly a warm fuzzy for the interisland pilots.
Any reduction is bad for the group as a whole.

Junk, your concerns are valid, we do need to be vigilant. But what Jim said is well put. Inter Island will always be a huge market and will always require 100 plus seat jets. Over the years I've heard pilots opine all manner of threats that simply didn't happen. During our concessionary years we gave them turbo prop code share on the 1st and last HNL/OGG. A select few said we just gave away inter island (some of the same crew who are currently trying to reshape the MEC into their own perspective as we speak!). When we went from smaller to larger DC-9's we had some swearing we lost jobs. Etc etc, the point is Inter Island is a large market, and given Hawaiian's position in the market, we will always be the one flying it( there is no longer room, due to gate restrictions, for a second inter island jet carrier, ala AQ) So i maintain there will always be the inter island career option we have now. But we can't try to artificially control it. I think we have found a win win combination with what we have now.

 

[Dan Roman]

BTW... I'll go even further that the turboprop flying is better done separately rather than by pilots on our seniority list. Wait wait, give me second to defend that controversial position!.
If we had a small turboprop operation, the pilots would have to be frozen in the seats or no one would be able to train and get on the line before they could hold 717/ 767/ AirBus once hiring starts. The problems that would cause on the negotiating table would have a ripple effect throughout the whole seniority list. We don't want 'b scale " pilots flying inter island competing with the 717 pay scales. I saw how this works when we had DHC7 inter island. It put concessionary pressure on the DC9's. It sorta worked back then because HA was in concessionary mode. It would not work now as we are quite successful and need to be focused on keeping 717 and widebody flying at legacy industry pay scales.

 

[Dan Roman]

Finally, I sensed a hint of "Inter-Island vs. Widebody" on here. That's simply a very false perspective . There are always a few who like to stir that us against them pot, then, because good real time communication isn't possible with every rumor that gets put out there, it festers and the pilots so inclined run with a false premise. I've seen it over and over again. You should have seen the civil war we had over west coast domicles vs HNL pilots. It can get real ugly, real dishonest and real debilitating to our union solidarity.
Trust me, most of the wide body folks are also ex inter island. There is no bias against them. I couldn't feel stronger how important Inter Island is. I think all agree with me that we want industry standard for all.

 

[waveflyer]

Junk, your concerns are valid, we do need to be vigilant. But what Jim said is well put. Inter Island will always be a huge market and will always require 100 plus seat jets. Over the years I've heard pilots opine all manner of threats that simply didn't happen. During our concessionary years we gave them turbo prop code share on the 1st and last HNL/OGG. A select few said we just gave away inter island (some of the same crew who are currently trying to reshape the MEC into their own perspective as we speak!). When we went from smaller to larger DC-9's we had some swearing we lost jobs. Etc etc, the point is Inter Island is a large market, and given Hawaiian's position in the market, we will always be the one flying it( there is no longer room, due to gate restrictions, for a second inter island jet carrier, ala AQ) So i maintain there will always be the inter island career option we have now. But we can't try to artificially control it. I think we have found a win win combination with what we have now.

Thats a LOT of "ALWAYS" for any pilot so experienced

 

[Dan Roman]

Thats a LOT of "ALWAYS" for any pilot so experienced

Touche' ! Never say always! You are right, anything can happen to any of us and we should all be be aware of that. Let's just say the chances of anyone but HA doing the inter island jet flying are about the same as someone kicking SWA out of LUV. Not very likely.

 

[waveflyer]

HAWAIIAN INTER ISLANDoperated by Southwest



Since you said anything could happen

 

[igneousy2]

Jim, just a couple of questions,

Dunkerly (or at least some HA officer) has told investors on previous investor conference calls that HA doesn't need to start worrying about finding a 717 replacement until 2018ish. While i'd agree that means it's not imminent, 2018 is far less than 15 years away. Why the discrepancy?

You say there is nothing to worry about because Scope will protect you but if you do the math on your own numbers, it seems to me that what you are really saying is that, you don't need to worry unless you are relying on the 6,000 unprotected hours for your job. Am I missing something. If HA lost 6,000 hours a year, wouldn't that mean that somewhere around 140 pilots in a group of 600 would either be downgraded or furloughed, or in the best case if the slack was able to be taken up on the international side, not upgraded or not hired?

How is it that junior HA pilots need not worry because of their "solid scope", when at every other major US airline, scope clauses have been eroded to give benefits to the senior at the detriment of the junior? Are Hawaiian pilots unified enough to protect their scope clause?

 

[Jim]

When they presented the fleet plans for the 321NEO LOA road show, a 717 replacement was not listed and we were told 717s were going to be flying through the end of the 2020s with HAL beginning to investigate replacements after 2025 earliest.

6000/hour a year does not equal 140 pilots. We are talking 500 hours/month. At our guarantee fo 75 hour a month you are talking 7 FOs & 7 Captains or 14 pilots. Maybe a couple of less to account for days of vacation and training events.

29,000 hours/year was the number of hours we were flying when we agreed to allow HA to own a subsidiary. Those are hours between islands and do not count any mainland-outer island flying by the 321NEOs. Mainland - outer island is going to happen and it will erode the current 35,000 hours we are flying interisland. Before this agreement, we had no minimum interisland hours so this agreement actually protected what was previously not protected.

As I said, it also provided a minimum HA jet flown interisland hour number where there was none before. Before as long as they did not go between the four listed city pairs, and flew turbo props less than 69 seats & 69,000 lbs. HA could have code shared significant interisland flying out. Now we have a protected 29,000 hours.

It was not the perfect deal for HA pilots, but it tightened up our scope and provided protections to interisland that were not there before.

 

[nethan]

It was not the perfect deal for HA pilots, but it tightened up our scope and provided protections to interisland that were not there before.

Jim, I'm a new guy. Wasn't here for the last time around and am playing to catch up (when I can get guys to talk politics about anything other than then current MEC issues). Thanks for the history lesson about what came from where.

I agree that limiting code share to a WO only and adding a block hour requirement was a win last time. My concern is more about what is going to happen THIS time. The demographic of the airline is rather different than it was 5 years ago. Many of us new guys spent years flying RJs at the expense of scope clauses that the legacies gave up and are worried about the downward trend happening here too. I agree that the current protections, although far from adequate are enough to protect MOST of the inter island flying that is done today. However, I am worried that the company is going to come after what we have (mostly the limit on HNL to the big 4). If they sweeten the pot enough with benefits for the Airbus (maybe a min day so suddenly those 3 day west coast trips actually pay an ok amount) there are enough votes there to cave on scope. I worry that a lot of the senior guys here have absolutely no idea what scope means and have never really even read Section 1.

I enjoy day trips for now but will head over to the widebody side as soon as I can hold it without a hit to my quality of life. That said, there are many guys here who look forward to retiring from the 717 (or what ever replaces it), being home every night for the rest of their careers. Having the option to do that is one of the things that makes this place different, and I really would hate to see that jeopardized.