Jet Blue

[MajorAv8r]

As there is a fair amount of restructuring among the major carriers to reach the labor costs of the new starts ups, I am curious to Jet Blue's "contract." I realize there isn't one, but don't know a better term, nor do I know someone who works there.

I know the pay. But, would someone please fill me in on your work rules. Are your duty limits just the FAR limits? Do you have rules that keep them from rerouting you into off days? Do you feel a line holder remains productive, or lots of sits? Sick time? Vacation time?

Jet Blue is used as the comparison that the major carriers are negotiating "down to", I am just curious how bad it really is. Most seem happy there.

Thank you.

 

[IB6 UB9]

This should be good. If you are serious send me a PM.

 

[Skank]

As there is a fair amount of restructuring among the major carriers to reach the labor costs of the new starts ups, I am curious to Jet Blue's "contract." I realize there isn't one, but don't know a better term, nor do I know someone who works there.

I know the pay. But, would someone please fill me in on your work rules. Are your duty limits just the FAR limits? Do you have rules that keep them from rerouting you into off days? Do you feel a line holder remains productive, or lots of sits? Sick time? Vacation time?

Jet Blue is used as the comparison that the major carriers are negotiating "down to", I am just curious how bad it really is. Most seem happy there.

Thank you.

Your purported questions reveal that you need to do a little research before you post such loaded queries. Most of the issues you mention have been discussed here ad naseum. As far as "negotiating down" to our contract, United seems to have significantly overshot the target. You might also consider that with bankruptcy, it's not negotiating that's happening. The copy-cat style managers that ran United into bankruptcy are now determined to have a labor cost advantage over us and everyone else so that they can continue to try to run us out of their markets. It appears that Northwest will now attempt to follow the same stragtegy. Before the United bankruptcy we had gotten one large raise and another seemed imminent. Now the whole industry can forget about raises for a longtime. American, on the other hand seems to be willing to try to run their Airline without destroying their labor. If you still feel like we can blame the ills of the whole industry on one airline with 80+ airplanes, while dismissing the actions of the largest few airlines, then I say good luck to you in whatever you do, because you're going to need it.

 

[GVFlyer]

As there is a fair amount of restructuring among the major carriers to reach the labor costs of the new starts ups, I am curious to Jet Blue's "contract." I realize there isn't one, but don't know a better term, nor do I know someone who works there.

I know the pay. But, would someone please fill me in on your work rules. Are your duty limits just the FAR limits? Do you have rules that keep them from rerouting you into off days? Do you feel a line holder remains productive, or lots of sits? Sick time? Vacation time?

Jet Blue is used as the comparison that the major carriers are negotiating "down to", I am just curious how bad it really is. Most seem happy there.

Thank you.

The JB'ers don't seem to be too forthcoming with the answers to questions such as yours and I'm certainly not qualified to respond. But, I've noticed that some pilots are very happy there, others are not. In the last six months, Gulfstream interviewed two JetBlue pilots looking for a position there. They said that some of their colleagues were going to FedEx, UPS, and Southwest, while others are returning to the airlines that furloughed them.

I like JetBlue, after observing that Neeleman abandoned the Herb Kelleher model by buying route specific aircraft, creating mini-hubs and spending $125 million in capitalization, I started shorting their stock and that strategy has been very profitable for me.

GV

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Your purported questions reveal that you need to do a little research before you post such loaded queries. Most of the issues you mention have been discussed here ad naseum. As far as "negotiating down" to our contract, United seems to have significantly overshot the target. You might also consider that with bankruptcy, it's not negotiating that's happening. The copy-cat style managers that ran United into bankruptcy are now determined to have a labor cost advantage over us and everyone else so that they can continue to try to run us out of their markets. It appears that Northwest will now attempt to follow the same stragtegy. Before the United bankruptcy we had gotten one large raise and another seemed imminent. Now the whole industry can forget about raises for a longtime. American, on the other hand seems to be willing to try to run their Airline without destroying their labor. If you still feel like we can blame the ills of the whole industry on one airline with 80+ airplanes, while dismissing the actions of the largest few airlines, then I say good luck to you in whatever you do, because you're going to need it.

Doesn't your non-airmanship analysis also apply when times are good? Wasn't the DAL industry leading contract leveraged off the UAL industry leading contract?

American not trying to destroy labor? The Evil Empire? Are you kidding. Anti Labor is ingrained in AMR Corp Culture. American is just in a reasonable position right now... thier pain will come....

Look- the US Airline business model is broke. Right now, there is no leadership from the CEO's. (what about the ATA? [which JB is a member of]Shouldn't they be exercising some leadership.... After all they do represent the Airlines)

All the CEO's care about is carving out their non performance compensation packages and raping labor. That is thier [short term] solution to the problem. There is no long term solution.

What is the real solution? I'm not that smart. I'm trained to fly airplanes. I could speculate the European and Asian Airlines are doing just fine. Why is that?

Your comment, coming from a JB pilot, that UAL/DAL/NWA BK is not negotiating with thier pilots, is noted. Generally, it goes like this...

Company: We need concessions or we'll furlough big time.
Pilot Representation: Send us your books. We'll analyze and get back to you.
Company: We need cuts now.
PR: We have a process, its democratic. You'll have to wait.
(analysis complete)
PR: Ok, our pilot reps have voted to engage (negotiate) in concessionary bargaining.


Can you imagine what the contract massacre would be at UAL/DAL/NWA if management had unilateral and unchecked reign to make pay and work rule cuts?

The LCC carriers maybe next as the Legacy carriers get incredibly lean.

How do the JB pilots work with managment on negotiating (concessionary or leading)???

 

[klhoard]

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JB pilots will never, ever be subject to a concessionary deal. Their individual 5-year contracts are guaranteed with the full force and benefit of the Government of the United Nations. . . .
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Never, ever, question that. . .
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The power of ONE . . .
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[Blue Dude]

As there is a fair amount of restructuring among the major carriers to reach the labor costs of the new starts ups, I am curious to Jet Blue's "contract." I realize there isn't one, but don't know a better term, nor do I know someone who works there.

I know the pay. But, would someone please fill me in on your work rules. Are your duty limits just the FAR limits? Do you have rules that keep them from rerouting you into off days? Do you feel a line holder remains productive, or lots of sits? Sick time? Vacation time?

Jet Blue is used as the comparison that the major carriers are negotiating "down to", I am just curious how bad it really is. Most seem happy there.

Thank you.

First of all, if you want information, you can ask, but you sound pretty condescending. "Just how bad is it for you poor schmucks anyway" is one message that comes across.

Second, there is a contract, in the classic sense of the word: a legal agreement between two parties. However, one of those parties is not a union, so it's not a collective bargaining agreement. That seems to get some people on this board a little hung up, but it's a contract, not a "contract".

Third, there are work rules, a pretty extensive set, but I'm not going to cut and paste a 40 page document in here. The work rules are incorporated into the contract by reference. That would seem very naive to pilots from most other airlines, but it works for the same reason we don't have (or need) a 500 page contract: there is a level of trust between management and the pilots. That level of trust is also what keeps management from changing rules at will - it would be a betrayal. And a betrayal would make a collective bargaining agreement both necessary and inevitable.

You can learn all the details of JetBlue's contract and work rules to your heart's content. But the contract is completely unsuitable for a unionized airline. There simply aren't enough layers of protection in either direction. There's no history of bad blood and bad faith so the whole elaborate specificity isn't there. Besides, for many quality of life issues, the pilots run the show, particularly in scheduling. A non-management pilot team builds the pairings and shapes the monthly bid, so you don't see a whole lot of sitting around or deadheads. So we count on our own pilots to keep from screwing us over, rather rely on slippery contract language to do it. It would never work in another setting. Too much contract gamesmanship going on. But it works for us, which is why most pilots are reasonably happy with the arrangement.

 

[Midnight Mike]

The JB'ers don't seem to be too forthcoming with the answers to questions such as yours and I'm certainly not qualified to respond. But, I've noticed that some pilots are very happy there, others are not. In the last six months, Gulfstream interviewed two JetBlue pilots looking for a position there. They said that some of their colleagues were going to FedEx, UPS, and Southwest, while others are returning to the airlines that furloughed them
GV

Happy people & unhappy people in the same company, I think that would apply to every company in the world...

 

[psysix]

Do they have a west coast base?

 

[FlyBoeingJets]

Third, there are work rules, a pretty extensive set, but I'm not going to cut and paste a 40 page document in here. The work rules are incorporated into the contract by reference.

...You can learn all the details of JetBlue's contract and work rules to your heart's content. But the contract is completely unsuitable for a unionized airline.

We could, but no one posts the contract. So we really can't learn about it.




MajorAV8tor,

We've asked the Blue folks for this info before and we can't get the source document. It has nothing to do with a perceived "condescending attitude" on your part.

Regards.