DAL737FO said:
JohnQ,
The elemination of the CAP is absolutely going to hurt us furloughee's. Lines are going to be built between 72-82 hours, however a pilot will have the ability to fill up to the FAR's. There will be plenty of pilots doing exactly that to offset the 32.5% paycut. So once again we are our own worse enemy. Right now they do not know how many less pilots will be required under PBS. Their guess right now is between 200-300 pilots.......
I had been slated to return either January or February after 2 1/2 years on the street. The company now has the ability to delay recalls by double the original time. So if they wanted to stay on their original timeline of 30 a month they could now wait until June 2006 before starting to recall again. The only thing that could help us guys on the street out is a huge chunk of retirements in the next couple of months.
B-727 Freight Dawg
Look, I understand your point of view--completely! I have not been furloughed, nor even displaced, so I am the first to realize that it is easy to say "raise the cap," etc. when I am hardly directly affected. I hope you are recalled as scheduled...
That said, you have to live in the real world--again easy for ME to say. You cannot say "United Plus" (which was one of our slogans in C2K) in the good times and completely ignore them in the bad. Want UALs concessions? They have 2000 guys on the street, caps between 89-95 hrs, and NO DUTY RIGS! They literally have 2-3 day trips paying less than 10 hours. AMR has 2600 guys on the street, with 400 more due in January. How do we compete? I consider it a great achievement on our negotiators parts that we kept most of our duty and trip rigs intact.
And as I once told a guy, if every DAL pilot refused to fly GS (for non-Delta guys, that means greenslip, which is premium pay overtime flying), I am convinced that it would not result in the recall of one furloughee one millisecond earlier than he otherwise would have. It is profits, and profit-enabled growth, not artificial caps and manning formulas, that will bring all the furloughees back. That is the essence of capitalism. Of course, that is fine and good in an academic discussion. When you are furloughed from your dream job, and your soon anticipated return date is most likely delayed (or even done away with), such discussions mean nothing.
And FYI, I have only flown 2 GS in the past 8 years, last time four years ago. I will not fly one with guys on furlough, which is a personal decision I came to a long time ago--acknowledging that conflicts with everything I have just said!
I truly wish you the best--which means back on the property ASAP, keeping guys like me in line!