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Jetblue 190 Question

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Outrank me?

A few things, and I know that I speak for many of the blue pilots who's sweat has made the company a true success story. Although firstly, I want to apologize to Skirt, it was a joke at her expense and it was wrong, but it was just a joke, I'm sure she's a fine aviator, who hasn't had an easy road through the commuters then to a major, then a furlough, and then being hired at JB. Isofar as IQ points that may be true, but she along with her fellow pilots at Blue could be doing much more to improve the lot of us all.

320, I've held back and bitten my tonque, on many issues, but I must confess, if the pilots at blue let these payrates go through, just like trying to get an exemption, which as I hear it has only been put on the back burner until things quiet down, it will have an affect on us all. Did the eagle pilots, with their 15 year contract, and those payrates/QOL issues have anything to do with the Midatlantic rates? What has MESA done to the entire industry?

Speedbird ask me, "well so tell me what can WE do?" I can almost hear the fright and resignation in his voice. Wow, I can actually be fired from Blue, I might not have my contract renewed, I'm not in the air force anymore. I better watch what I say and not bitch about the payrates. Think outside the box man, there are ways you can let the powers that be and even Dave himself know that these payrates and attempted excemptions are wholly unacceptable without risking your renewal/peace of mind. PILOTS! Stand up and say something, say that these rates are not good enough, if you don't you won't just be screwing yourselves, you'll have an effect on us all. Of course as you said I'm no critical thinker, but I'm able to expose a self centered mental mindset by reading a few posts. Speedbird, by reviewing your resume, I can see that you have had an amazing career, one that I hold the highest respect for. But the relative anonymity of the net allows me a certain degree of "frankness", further I can see that you possess, I am sure a fantastic intellect, but in the school of life, you seemed to have missed one thing, what WE do has an affect on us all. How we act each and every day can affect all our lives, for the better or for worse. Reexamine your life man! Look at what you have done! Look at who you are! You're good enough you're smart enough and doggonnit people like you! What you do is worth more than what you and the bubba's that will come after you will be getting, unless all of us stand up now and say, nope, not good enough. And I couldn't agree more regarding the financial independence issue. One more thing, have you cashed in all those Blue stock options yet? Why don't you tell us about the exercising of those options Speedbird or 320?

-FF
 
FF, I think you are for real, not just some troll out to spill flamebait. So I'll try, once more, to explain a couple of things.

Last things first, neither 320, Speedbird, Skirt nor I need ever to discuss our stock options and proceeds to you. Our personal financial status and well being, despite your protestations, are none of your business. In the general picture, though, here is a thought about money.

According to your calculus, what JetBlue does affects the rest of the industry. Sooo, other than Southwest, are there any other carriers linking profitability to employee compensation? Doesn't the concept of time and a half premium pay encourage productivity? Isn't productivity good? After all, even the French have discovered that a 35 hour workweek (orignally created in an effort to spread jobs within the country) is insufficient to obtain a living wage and actually make the country's economy advance. Aren't stock options a good thing? Don't they in turn encourage a long term view for profitability?

And that's not even touching profit sharing, which added many, many thousands to my 401K the last few years.

Please note that I'm not trying to brag. I'm only pointing out that what one particular carrier does does not necessarily translate directly to other carriers. I simply do not see other carriers moving toward a compensation package that emulates JBs, which is ostensibly a great business model.

How about something that is not quite as hard to achieve. Take, for example, redeyes. JB lays on a BUNCH of redeyes in an effort to make the aircraft utilization per day higher and capitalize on revenue from the West Coast. These are not popular flights for the crews for obvious reasons. They (the flights) benefit management and the company in general because the generate revenue. The smart man would say that they indeed benefit the crews because of that same profit. In any case, they ain't fun, yet JB seems to carry many more redeyes on the schedule than other carriers. Why not? Hmmm...could there be other factors in play here?

Or, are wages and working conditions the only issue here? I've already addressed part of the compensation, but how about work issues?

JB does not schedule 16 hour duty days for its crews (even FAs intentionally bidding a transcon turns). We tend to limit the total day to around 12 hours at the most (yes, unusual circumstances do dictate longer duty days, but these are not scheduled). Why hasn't this more "humane" way of scheduling flight crews made its way into the industry?

In other words, why do only the "bad" things you perceive JB doing have an impact on the industry? Why don't the great things we do percolate into the rest of the community?

I'll tell you why: you skew the argument to support your own theories. You take a single article that suggests JB's EMB pay may force others down as well as factual data. Don't be disingenuous--use your noodle.

I do not share your assessment of Speedbird's comments. Speedbird does not refuse to speak up--in fact, we are all addressing the EMB pay rates. The method that we do so is up to our pilot group, and--again--I think we will be successful in resolving the issue. This company has the most open corporate and individual communication strategy I've ever seen and I do not believe any pilot is worried about speaking his or her mind.

By the way, Skirt was not furloughed from her previous carrier. She was a Captain on the line, and decided to leave it for JB on her own accord. It was a courageous decision, but JB benefits from her presence.

I'm done here--I won't change your mind, but I do hope you read this with an open one.
 
turn&pull

Turn&pull, I hear your previous post about not wanting to relinquish your current job, just to take a 40k pay cut............you forgot to add....40k pay cut AND you get to clean the cabin too as a -121 Captain!! (For the good of the team).

I agree---stay where you are.
 
Contemplating....

Flip,

Thank You. My mind is open. Productivity is a good thing, but I stand by my options comment, you and I both know the weaknesses of the sytem. I can see that there are many things that Blue does that should be adopted by the legacy carriers. Why they don't is beyond me. While we can agree to disagree, let me say, thousands of pilots that are out there right now, and the ones that will come after us, will gain or lose by the stands we take on issues today and tommorrow. Airline managers, who I'll grant are not as smart as the ones at Blue, WILL cherry pick the contracual items that you guys allow, so they will look at low pay and then the next management type will say, ok, let's see, we'll try to pay them this, but NOT give the pilots incentive pay, and so it goes. Just please acknowledge that you don't live in a vacumn. Please realize that what you guys do (the new industry leaders) affects us all.

As far as the flamebait comment, if I made the pilots think, then it was good, if I pissed you off, then ask why. If I made one more guy say, NO, you know what, he's right, this isn't good enough, and I'm going to let someone know, then my purpose has been served. I truly wish the JetBlue pilots every success, through hard work and dedication, if the jetblue model is the better model, and in some ways, I think it is, there won't be an AA or a UA, or maybe even a DAL, and it will be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that skirt was indeed smarter than I.

In closing, leave the prof. better than you found it, that's all I'm saying.

-FF
 
thread creep?

Okay I'm too lazy to start a new thread, but I think this fits here anyway so here goes.

The rhetoric is flying, both from pilots and managements, about these "industry changing" jet blue pay rates. No doubt ExpressJet, ASA and soon Comair will be "pressured" with these rates.

I say we embrace them. As soon as management throws them in our faces we say "well, since you brought it up..."

We'll be HAPPY to talk about these rates! Just as soon as you give all of the following:

12 days off min for lineholder and reserve

Same trip productivity as Jet Blue

6000 shares of stock (same vestment schedule is fine)

You know that 2% you kicked into my 401(k) last year for retirement? Well you owe me another 15%!

The same percentage of 12 hour or less duty days JB gets, we get.

1.5 x override over 70 hours/month

everyone's sick bank gets converted to a PTO bank that everyone gets paid for eventually, and you can use to cover dropped trips. Percentage of drop trip requests that are approved will never be less than the same percentage at Jet Blue.

Company issued laptops, with electronic manuals, charts, whatever else JB has. (or a company provided personal assistant who will carry our 40 pound flight kit on demand)

The ability to recieve Captain pay after 6 months (or whatever JB's upgrade is when they get the plane)

The ability to recieve JB Airbus pay in the same period of time it takes JB pilots, including 320 Captain pay.

Furlough protection for everyone and 70 hours a month pay no matter what happens.

If JB pay goes up, ours goes up.

Just take the JB contract AND status quo (whichever is greater) and stick a big fat "me too" clause on it.

All new hires get 2500/month in training with hotel for the entire time. (rental car too? not sure)

Unlimited Space available pass benefits from day one. Employees gets priority over all "overbooked" revenue passengers. Yeah baby!

No hats.

If JB gets an MCO base, we get an MCO base.

Single seniority list for entire holding company. No outsourcing, no whipsaw, no codesharing. All us.

THEN we can entertain the idea of JB EMB-190 pay here on our property.

What Mr. manager? You don't like all that? You think the ONLY relavent part is the current proposed EMB-190 pay rates? Fat chance sucker! Now change the subject or STFU!

With all due respect, of course.
 
P38,

Don't forget to add.

Company pays for Loss of License insurance max 5K per month 60% base line .

Comapny Pays for Long Term Disability max 5K per month 50 % base line .

Company Pays for accidental death and dismemberment 50,000.

Comapny Pays for 100,000.00 Life insurance.

Company Pays for business accident insurance 250,000.00.

Rental cars in training are paid for.

Company self imposed grievence system as of 7/2004 contract. 3 step process all the way to an neutral arbitrator which is binding same as ALPA.

Total pilot imdemnification will cover all costs of lawsuit arising from pilot duty up to 400,000,000.00 .

PTO can now be used to pay for health insurance until 62.

Pay protection. Trip gets pulled for IOE you get paid and get day off or you can pick up another trip and get paid for two trips. Trip gets cancelled and you get put on another, you get the greater of the two.

Block or better for pay.

Job protection. We have the FAA ASAP system in place to protect us from the company and from FAA action should we screw up any reg or bend something. (This system has been used and tested and has worked) Furlough protection for the life of the contract. The 3 step grievence section offers us an avenue should someone be unjustly terminated (this is new to our contracts which did not exist before and was company self imposed). Should someone purchase a majority of our voting stock or company is transferred we vest immediatly is all stock options and have a choice to take a years salary and leave or stay and ride it out.

All of these things were given to us and did not have to be fought for. These things you would not see in any other non union carrier. A union carrier would have to fight tooth and nail to get these benefits. The insurance alone costs thousands of bucks and must be factored into the compensation package. When some one asks when are we going to get a contract I tell them I have one, we all do. Its just not a collective one its individual one.
 
jetblue320 said:
To really answer your question without the rhetoric, no, we are not changing the minimums for the EMB190. As it stands now, the same mins apply as they are for the A320. I know we have close to 10,000 apps on file, well, maybe 9998 now because 2 guys here on this forum pronounced that they are pulling their apps because of the payrates. Ooops, I guess I used rhetoric! ;)

C yaaa

FYI, jetblue320 is a jetblue checkairman and company "Lap Dog".

2dogs
 
Flyingfarmer,

You are right, all us jetblue pilots are nothing but rejects from the "real airlines."
So, what do you expect from a bunch of losers, who could never attain your lofty position in life?

Your wiener truly is bigger than mine, you are better person, pilot, whatever you are just better.

So, I will just go resign tomorrow, because I would certainly never want to infringe upon your rights and livelyhood. I am going to work at Homedepot, where perhaps one day, you can deem me worthy, of carrying your purchases to your car.
 

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