New AirTran TA Thread

[Lear70]

PM me for stickers. Bag tags are someone else's baby, join up on BD's underground site and one of those guys will send you some.

Thanks for the support, guys & gals!

 

[boxlunch]

AAI SEC 8K states 2007 Non fuel CASM cost down 5-6%

I think everybody should take a look at Airtran's SEC 8k. Look closely to the proposed 2007 5-6% reduction in non-fuel operating cost on their powerpoint. According to their slides Airtran has the lowest nonfuel operating cost and are second to overall costs behind SWA. I would bet that this contract will reduce Airtrans cost at the expense of the pilots close to their expectaions stated in the SEC 8K.
The SEC 8K has to provide truthful expectations of company performance.
Some Bullets from the SEC 8K
Q207 demand continues to look good.
1) Non fuel operating CASM should be down 5-6% (That's with the new TA)
2) Expect record quarterly income.

Why do we have a concesionary TA with the above statements?

Every Airtran Pilot should read the 8k. Airtran put out a powerpoint at the end of the 8K. It is very interesting.

I will attached the link to the SEC 8K
http://www.pinksheets.com/quote/pri...Etxt&filepath=%5C2007%5C06%5C15%5C&symbol=AAI

If the link does not work. Goto www.pinksheets.com and type in AAI then filings.

 

[Phaedrus]

Man, I wish you guys all the best. KG and co. need a smack upside the head along with the NC that tried to put lipstick on that POS TA.

 

[Just thinking]

why do we not just get rid of the NC, votr this thing down, hire some professionals from a labor firm and start over from scratch. Current book is better than what the road show has been preaching was the best deal they could get. Kolski is laughing his arse off at the juvenile efforts. Our rookies got it handed to them and now they expect the pilot group to say thanks... may I have anolther. I wouldn't trust them to buy a crashpad car that would last a year if I gave then 5000.00! Get rid of the ALPA attorney... he certainly has not given them any advice worth a damn or they don't listen. I would rather work under current contract for another year than to cave in and give away everything that has been accomplished by so many. I had a pilot say to me that you don't negotiate for someone that is not on property. I also think that you need to plan ahead and control your destiny. DO NOT let our flying get erroded. Every single pilot from other carriers that I have spoken to about the average guaranty of 4.5 has said that it is a bad deal. Continue to engage and explain tol those that have still not read the TA. There are plenty out there that do not know. We can waste money courting the MEC from Midwest, put out page after page of hotel information, publish a damn newspaper and send out a bunch of worthless mailings to my home but we can't provide a copy of a proposal that WILL impact every single pilot and their family's life???? VOTE IT DOWN HARD! Nobody came here to work under these conditions and there is no reason that we should accept this. SEC filings say a lot about what we have accomplished as a pilot group working together with the FA's, gate agents and rampers.... in spite of sheduling's best efforts to screw things up. Lowest cost per seat mile and they want to drive it deeper by taking concessions veiled in convoluted language. The union has bragged about how much money they have in the war chest. Please spend it on some professionals... I promise you that Kolski's demeanor and conduct will be different... let's level the playing field at the negotiating table.... let's get a fair deal... That is all that anyone has expected.

 

[Green]

I don't see how the negotiating committee could agree to something like this that will totally hose the reserve pilots. quote]


That was a hoot and a holler....lol....Remember in the airline bizz sh#t flows downhill....

 

[Lear70]

why do we not just get rid of the NC, vote this thing down, hire some professionals from a labor firm and start over from scratch.

No doubt that's what most of the pilot group has in mind. I'm not advocating using this T.A. as a starting point by ANY means, don't get me wrong, but there are a few *ideas* in there that might be a point to *START* negotiating towards.

The vast majority of the T.A. *is* current book copied straight over into the new T.A., with the exception of the crucial 4: Scope, Compensation, Scheduling, and Retirement & Insurance.

From my study of the T.A., the following *might* be acceptable:

1. Remove the new sentences that have been added to current paragraphs here and there throughout the other sections (which change intent and meaning of crucial items).
2. Return to current Scope restrictions, or allow RJ's outsourced for a SHORT duration of time (12-18 months to evaluate profitability) then REQUIRE them to put those here on property to be flown by AAI pilots with VERY strict language that keeps them from shuffling the contract to another regional affiliate every 12-18 months to avoid putting them here.
3. Bind the holding company to the contract itself - make AirTran Holdings SIGN THE T.A. No crappy side letters with big loopholes that just say "we know you have a contract, good for you."
3. Remove the Small Jet pay section completely. This company flew 95-seat DC-9's at one point for the same pay that the 717 pays now; that is an excellent precedent if you have to go to Arbitration for a pay rate. Worst case is that we get the rate that's in the T.A. NOW imposed on us, as it is the average of ALL the regionals and majors who have those rates in their CBA's.
4. Remove 1st year F/O pay as an "industry average" moving target. I'm not selling the future new-hires under the bus for a few extra bucks. The senior guys here were staunch supporters of junior pilots in the last T.A., and we should keep that mentality as we go forward.
5. Level out the steep curve at the end of the contract. NO seat should have less than a 10% gain AFTER inflation is accounted for from the ammendable date and any work rule concessions, and all the seats should go up uniformly.
6. Retirement - this section was the one standout of a complete improvement with the exception of retiree healthcare. Put that back to current book with the 401(k) match.
7. Insurance - this section will have to be put back to current book with restrictions on copay increases. The premium increases should NEVER exceed the yearly increase of the CPI or inflation, whichever is higher. Require Association approval of the increases, not just "notification".

What are we willing to give up? We have to concede a few things, that's how negotiations work. As a starting point, however, the company absolutely MUST bring wages up to the equivalent inflation-adjusted hourly rate without us giving up a PENNY. If a company is consistently profitable, they can certainly afford increasing their wages, just like they have to pay more for non-labor items such as fuel, catering supplies, a/c and ground equipment parts, etc.

Should we give up core block? Absolutely not. This is the biggest single give-back that's hidden quite nicely by the NPA not having or not giving out the total POST-median calculation cut numbers. I don't trust the "average cut" without the hard data to figure what each and every published leg change would be and that data made available to us.

Should we give up door? Maybe. Depends on whether we give up "core block" or not. We definitely are above the industry on this, and if we don't give up core block, the cut is only 1.7% for "door close" based on our current amount of over-block we fly. I'd give up 1.7% for a 15% or better pay raise.

Should we give up the 13 hour day? Maybe. But not with a 4.5 hour average. Even Dave Asche admitted he hates that we gave up the 4 hour hard day and didn't think it was necessary to build these pairings (road show I attended and wrangled out of him on Thursday). IF they take our pay up to industry average, INCLUDING Southwest and jetBlue's blended rates, and leave the 4 hour hard day intact, we could possibly give them the 13 hour day, as they SWEAR it would allow the company to build more efficient pairings, thereby saving them on crew costs. Again, a give and take, but we put language in the contract that requires them to BUILD those better pairings.

Do you know WHY we got 2% out of the company in 401(k) match? It's because the senior 10+ year Captains (who are the only people who benefit from this T.A. and even they're not without risk), are having trouble with their 401(k) contributions. Remember, the IRS has several "tests" to determine the max you can contribute, one of them is the high-low test, and we fail it regularly because the junior pilots, as a rule, DON'T CONTRIBUTE TO THE 401(k) here!

The 1st and 2nd year wages are just barely livable with a family, and you can't really afford to contribute much until starting your 3rd year, there's NO INCENTIVE to contribute with no match, and guys are getting close to upgrade so they just think, "No big deal, next year I'll be on CA pay and can really start contributing". THAT'S why the 401(k) went up but not the B-fund. How do we keep that 2% increase? I don't know... I certainly know we can't sell out the retirees to get it, and that appears to be what they did. Maybe we can't get an increased match, we are already at industry average here, anyway.

Reserve pay? Yeah, we can give that back to the company, as we really weren't supposed to have it anyway under the original T.A., but they're going to have to pay for it dearly. Here's what we get back for it:
- Reserves CANNOT BE ASSIGNED MORE THAN 3 DAYS IN ADVANCE. PERIOD!!
- Reserves get 12 days off. Period. No movable days.
- Reserves get a 75 hour guarantee.
- Crew Scheduling begins using the Long-Call Reserve system that IS ALREADY IN THE CURRENT BOOK.
- They MUST build at least 25% of the reserve lines as long-call and they MUST have a trigger point of low regular reserve coverage to be able to activate one.
- Write a requirement that if they trigger that last regular reserve number and the trip is more than 12 hours out, the Long-Call Reserve gets the trip. If it's less than 12 hours out, the regular reserve gets it and the Long-Call gets activated to Regular Reserve.
- Change the language that allows the company to require a Long-Call reserve to check their schedule nightly (at 10 p.m. for example) and self-notify, then protect that person's sleep for 8 hours (10-6 as an example). This was why the company said Long-Call in the current CBA isn't usable - there was no way to make the long-call person usable on their first day if they couldn't self-notify and they lost a day each week of utilization. This would be acceptable with a REAL long-call system they actually used.
- Make the Reserve system a seniority-based bucket system like most other airlines, even the regionals (a.k.a. "industry standard"), with the ability to "pass junior" on the way DOWN the list, then they have to fly it on the way back up the list.
- Make the Reserve system transparent, i.e. a reserve pilot can look at the reserve grid at any time and see what trips are in open time, who was given a trip, and where they are on the callout list.
- Ready reserve at outstations on a VOLUNTEER basis. Some guys who don't live in ATL actually don't mind this provision, as they're either sitting in a crashpad or sitting at an airport on their laptop or reading a book and getting a couple hours added on top of guarantee. Make it a minimum 2 or 3 day sit, making it pay 12-18 hours for the company to use it. Company gets the flexibility, we get the pay.
- All other Reserve rules stay current book. NO J.A. on their day off. Allowed to drop reserve days through FLICA and not by "special scheduling approval" (in the T.A.).

Sorry to go off on a rant, but while everyone is looking at the concessions we gave and thinking what we really NEED in this T.A., you also need to look at what we might give back to get a few things. Negotiations aren't always one-sided, although the ball IS in our court with increasing profitability of our company and bright future outlook for the near future of the industry.

 

[Lear70]

Get rid of the ALPA attorney... he certainly has not given them any advice worth a damn or they don't listen.

Don't be so quick to fire Seth Rosen. That man is smarter in the ways of the RLA than ANY of us will ever be. It's not his fault we got what we got, he was there NOT as a negotiator, but as a consultant to analyze what we were offered. The word on the street is that he did NOT consider this a "good deal" compared to current book. The word is that he said the wage increases were "low, but acceptable", and said that "IF the pilot apathy is as bad as the NPA said it was, then that was the best we could do". That's the key phrase. If we're willing to get a lot more involved and support the new NC and BOD, including showing up to picketing events, etc, then we can certainly do better.

I had a pilot say to me that you don't negotiate for someone that is not on property.

Did you smack him? From an ethical standpoint, it is WRONG for a pilot group to sell out their future new-hires to gain a few bucks on the top end of the pay scale.

You would think we would have learned from ALPA's "eating their young" practices of the past several decades...

We can waste money courting the MEC from Midwest, put out page after page of hotel information, publish a damn newspaper and send out a bunch of worthless mailings to my home but we can't provide a copy of a proposal that WILL impact every single pilot and their family's life???? VOTE IT DOWN HARD! Nobody came here to work under these conditions and there is no reason that we should accept this.

Well-said!

The union has bragged about how much money they have in the war chest. Please spend it on some professionals... I promise you that Kolski's demeanor and conduct will be different... let's level the playing field at the negotiating table.... let's get a fair deal... That is all that anyone has expected.

There's a LOT that needs to happen with the way the NPA does business. This is definitely one of them. The more I read and hear first-hand about what the NPA spends money on and what they get in return, I sit back and think WTF?

Good post, thanks for the effort and support of our pilots. It's guys like you that make me believe this thing WILL die hard enough to give the new NC the ammunition to go in there and get us something worth voting on! :beer:

p.s. Sec 13 - grievance is now included in the full rebuttal document. We now have 5 guys helping with it, including several former NPA Chairs, Vice-Chairs, and department chairs! We're working editorial changes to it and should have it available as a "final" document by the end of the week, just in time for voting. The link to it is in my signature below.

p.s.s. Happy Father's Day! Time to go enjoy mine!

 

[EMBATP]

lear.
while i agree with most of what you say above, i disagree on the following:

75 hour reserve guarantee: while i agree this is industry standard, tell that to the reserve guy about to take a $20000 a year paycut....the company could pay an 80 hour guarantee and still save a bundle...

door close...no way...i wil not give them a way to nickel and dime me and thats where this starts....door to door only...

as far as mr. rosen, while i agree he is probably pretty sharp, take this into account...a member of the bod told me he asked seth what we were leaving on the table....his response..NOTHING!!! ...i find that hard to believe...

i also want to see some kind of improvement in the ready reserve system of sitting at the airport...no back to back sits, a max number of days you can sit...and no sitting at airports where we dont have a hub or crew room...and fix that orlando crap where we have to be escorted because we dont have an MCO badge...

and they need to improve the technology for trip trades etc...



we still have a long way to go...

 

[Lear70]

lear.
while i agree with most of what you say above, i disagree on the following:

75 hour reserve guarantee: while i agree this is industry standard, tell that to the reserve guy about to take a $20000 a year paycut....the company could pay an 80 hour guarantee and still save a bundle...

This is true. The question becomes how much are you willing to NOT gain?

All the improvements we want will cost the company *some* reserve productivity, so they'll have to staff additional reserves. That will cost them money. The more restrictions we put on reserves, the more it costs them. They will want to recoup most if not all of those expenses back.

Money improvements should not require concessions in quality of life, and some of the improvements SHOULD be born 100% by the company, but if you want a BIG increase, some of it will have to come from increased productivity. Our average pilot utilization seems to be around 5.5 hours a day - that's pretty low, I think SWA is in the high 6's. I don't want to work harder, but some guys do...

door close...no way...i wil not give them a way to nickel and dime me and thats where this starts....door to door only...

A very valid point. I simply said I'd give up a small cut for a larger increase because, what matters to me, is the paycheck on the 10th and 25th.

as far as mr. rosen, while i agree he is probably pretty sharp, take this into account...a member of the bod told me he asked seth what we were leaving on the table....his response..NOTHING!!! ...i find that hard to believe...

I find that hard to believe, too. If Rosen said that, it might have been in response to what he thought he could get with an apathetic pilot group. Context is important.

i also want to see some kind of improvement in the ready reserve system of sitting at the airport...no back to back sits, a max number of days you can sit...and no sitting at airports where we dont have a hub or crew room...and fix that orlando crap where we have to be escorted because we dont have an MCO badge...

and they need to improve the technology for trip trades etc...

we still have a long way to go...

Absolutely. That's why a thorough polling of the pilot group that asks the RIGHT questions is so important. Make it a web poll that EVERY pilot can participate in. Find the 80th percentile answers and go with those. Where the split is less than 80/20, do more polling until you find what the exact problem is and then put that fix in the negotiating committee bag.

It's not an easy process to find what 80+% of the pilot group wants. Everyone has different goals and desires. The problem is this NC and BOD didn't bring us that T.A., for whatever reason, and now we have a confidence problem in our union. That HAS to be fixed, the solidarity of the pilot group maintained, and then that energy put to use ASAP, or it will wane.

 

[PCL_128]

as far as mr. rosen, while i agree he is probably pretty sharp

Pretty sharp is a major understatement. Seth is the single most experienced, most knowledgeable RLA attorney in the country. The NPA is extremely lucky that they were able to get him, and they need to hold on to him as long as they can. There's not a lot of experience to draw from from within the NPA leadership, so Seth's experience is invaluable.

take this into account...a member of the bod told me he asked seth what we were leaving on the table....his response..NOTHING!!! ...i find that hard to believe...

Lear70's point is right on target. Seth is basing his strategic advice on the information that the NPA leadership gives him. The NPA has been pretty open about their belief that the pilot group isn't willing to fight, so I'm sure that that's what they told Seth. Remember, unlike his days in ALPA, Seth can't just call up Herndon and ask for the latest Wilson polling data results or ask for an analysis from the MEC's CommSpec. Seth is completely reliant upon the information that the NPA is willing to provide him. Garbage in, garbage out.