Netjets jumpseat agreements?

[FL450]

"But maybe not. After talking with the airlines, we then had to approach Netjets with the proposed agreements. Santulli's answer: NO! Why not, we asked. Because, says he, since the planes are actually owned by people other than Netjets, we'd have to approach each and every owner and ask permission to let some stranger ride their plane for free, the same plane which we charge them to ride around in.

Hmm. Sounds like a good response from ol' Santulli. Except for one thing. Our written company policy (now the FOM) already said we could take anyone we wanted on an empty leg, all we needed was program manager approval. Heck, I had given friends a ride a few times. We were already letting people ride free on the planes. It was WRITTEN POLICY. And no owners were complaining. "

Very true. He is against it. Funny, though, the FOM does address this issue as you point out. Also, is Marquis cool with the owners because they "pay" for a ride? Interesting.

Another point, owners would have no say with who rides on a "core fleet" aircraft, would they?

Just more smoke and mirrors BS, unfortunately.

 

[650 driver]

With no airline agreements with NJA, that was one of the reasons I declined there job offer a few months ago.
I was looking at a 4.5 hour drive to DAL or a roundtrip ticket of $200.00
With the starting pay so low I just could not afford the extra expense.

650

 

[apcooper]

So therefore if I flew for NJ, myself or my immediate family couldn't fly standby for free on any of the major airlines. Is this correct?

 

[Guitar Guy]

Not unless you rack up enough frequent-flier miles.

In reality, there are a lot of airline employees that are paying some sort of charge to fly for standby on their own company planes.

 

[NJAowner]

Jumpseating

Whether we like it or not, the NJA agreements allow NJA to use the plane and fly others on it when the owners are not in the plane. The various agreements with the owners do NOT prohibit flying people just because they are not getting paid for it. Many planes are used for demo flights for prospective owners. Like it or not, it is a non-negotiable portion of the NJA agreements. However, if NJA abused it contractual rights, the owners would be pi$$ed and may not renew or may go elsewhere. The issue has nothing to do with compensation.

As an aside, I have heard a story from 2 different pilots when I was hanging my head in the cockpit chatting of bring other pilots on board, who then proceed to empty many of the little bottles, ate nuts, cookies, Pringles, etc, and then blew cookies later in the flight. I have no evidence of this other than hearing it from 2 different pilots, both of who heard it from other pilots. It came up in a general discussion about cleaning the interior when I apologized (and helped clean up) the fact that my kids dropped a few (okay, maybe more than a few) uneaten Pringles, which then got stepped on into a million pieces. The pilots said, not big deal, "another crew once had a few pilots form another airline who ......"

Fly safe.

 

[realityman]

NJAOwner,

You're 100% right. I think the owners would be very upset to discover that NJA was abusing their contractual rights. However, the point made to Santulli was that how often would an airline pilot, looking for a jumpseat ride, actually get a ride from the terminal to the FBO in search of an NJA plane that MIGHT be flying empty to the place they're hoping to go, with the full understanding that our planes are frequently diverted to other destinations while on a ferry flight. We thought it would be unlikely that we'd have more than 2 jumpseaters a year! We already give more free rides than that every year to family and friends of employees.
A letter from our chief pilot formalizing a jumpseat agreement would have been more a ceremonial thing than anything, and would have given our pilots a tremendous amount of flexibility, and possibly eliminated (or reduced) one of the more contentious issues in our current contract negotiations (that of gateway airports).
Netjets continues to make things hard for themselves in order to spite the pilots.

 

[NJA Capt]

...if I flew for NJ, myself or my immediate family couldn't fly standby for free on any of the major airlines. Is this correct?

Correct...sort of.
Jumpseat and ID90 are two different animals. Even if we HAD jumpseat agreements with every airline, there still wouldn't be any ID90 tickets for your family.
I think buddy passes are a thing of the past, and over-rated by the carriers. Sure, you can get ID90s and jumpseat....but:
There are 40,000 employees senior to you that have priority boarding,
The planes going to "vacation" destinations are oversold,
The planes in general are packed with very little room for non-revs.
If you successfully non-rev....you still have to pay for the hotel.

I would much rather collect my airline miles and hotel points like we do now, and travel "space positive" anywhere I go with the family (free) and stay in a hotel/resort (free).

 

[FL450]

A letter from our chief pilot formalizing a jumpseat agreement would have been more a ceremonial thing than anything, and would have given our pilots a tremendous amount of flexibility, and possibly eliminated (or reduced) one of the more contentious issues in our current contract negotiations (that of gateway airports).
Netjets continues to make things hard for themselves in order to spite the pilots.

Jumpseating and Gateways. Do NOT combine these two issues. They are separate. Jumpseating will cost the Company nothing, nada, zippo. There is no logical reason NJA management will not endorse jumpseat agreements.

I won't get into the Gateway issue here. That deserves several threads of it's own.

 

[realityman]

FL450,

You pretty much just made my point again, in that there is no logical reason NJA couldn't, or shouldn't, endorse jumpseating.
However, jumpseating and gateways aren't entirely separate issues. Okay, let me rephrase that. They WEREN'T entirely separate issues. Back when I was on the jumpseat committee, one of the reasons we were trying for jumpseats was to make life easier for our commuting pilots (back when everyone had to report to CMH). We were having a hard time attracting pilots back then, and a major reason was that everyone had to come to CMH for duty. That wasn't a very attractive prospect for a pilot living on the west coast when we had no jumpseat agreements. However, Netjets rejected the jumpseat idea, and shortly thereafter the gateways were born. In reality, the gateways are a much better deal for everyone, as jumpseating isn't always the most reliable way to travel. So that part worked out better for everyone. However, I believe that had we gotten the jumpseat agreements in place, gateways would at least be a smaller issue than it is today. At the very least, NJA would be able to argue against expanding the current gateway system because we would've had travel privledges on the airlines. Yes, I think it would be a less contentious issue today if we had jumpseating.
BUT, we do NOT have jumpseating, and so it goes. As of this moment in time, you are correct in that jumpseating and gateways are two completely separate issues.

 

[FL450]

FL450,

You pretty much just made my point again, in that there is no logical reason NJA couldn't, or shouldn't, endorse jumpseating.
However, jumpseating and gateways aren't entirely separate issues. Okay, let me rephrase that. They WEREN'T entirely separate issues. Back when I was on the jumpseat committee, one of the reasons we were trying for jumpseats was to make life easier for our commuting pilots (back when everyone had to report to CMH). We were having a hard time attracting pilots back then, and a major reason was that everyone had to come to CMH for duty. That wasn't a very attractive prospect for a pilot living on the west coast when we had no jumpseat agreements. However, Netjets rejected the jumpseat idea, and shortly thereafter the gateways were born. In reality, the gateways are a much better deal for everyone, as jumpseating isn't always the most reliable way to travel. So that part worked out better for everyone. However, I believe that had we gotten the jumpseat agreements in place, gateways would at least be a smaller issue than it is today. At the very least, NJA would be able to argue against expanding the current gateway system because we would've had travel privledges on the airlines. Yes, I think it would be a less contentious issue today if we had jumpseating.
BUT, we do NOT have jumpseating, and so it goes. As of this moment in time, you are correct in that jumpseating and gateways are two completely separate issues.

You were on the committee when I was.