Pinnacle street CA again?

[acaTerry]

Heard from a buddy at Pinnacle that street CA's are in the near future again. What gives?

 

[dondk]

Not in the near future.. already happening... 1st one just finished, hired as a FO, offered CA the 2nd or 3rd day of class. He took it and I understand there are a more to come....

We got about 40 FO's who can hold it, but for various reasons (vacation bid, holiday's, closer to X-mas to get Dec off) have not bid it. Many think that the next vacancy or two will go back senior as those who are waiting will take the plunge. Add the lower time guys we hired back in '02 are real close to the time now.

Finally.. the main reason for going back to the street... Our planning department can't plan, fly guys at 95+ hours monthly since Feb and guess what? they time out.. some will be timing out in the next few weeks and it will be increasing weekly.

I feel for the guys taking off the street Captain positions.. 5+ years to hold a line, never more than 10 days off and they will be scheduling's #1 biatch the entire time.

 

[skippy767]

any chance

My current time is 3300TT 2800Turbine 1500Turbine PIC. Any chance of becomeing a street captain??? Or is there no way to wave the 3500 Total?
Also how many vacancies are there for OCT, NOV, DEC ground Schools!

 

[DoinTime]

My current time is 3300TT 2800Turbine 1500Turbine PIC. Any chance of becomeing a street captain??? Or is there no way to wave the 3500 Total?
Also how many vacancies are there for OCT, NOV, DEC ground Schools!

If there was a way to waive the 3500 hour requirement we wouldn't need street captains.

 

[skippy767]

Anyone know the Captain Vacancies? Coming up in OCT, NOV, DEC?

How many are they going to transition a month?
I am trying to decide if it is better to jump over there versus stay where I am at.
Thanks

 

[Lear70]

Didn't we just have this discussion? *sigh*

Things are pretty rough here right now, especially the QOL issues and the more junior you are, the more you're affected. Additionally, things are only going to get worse as we get further into negotiations and show no signs of caving to management, this we know and are prepared for - there are so many loopholes in the contract that you could slice it and put it on a ham sandwich.

Vacancies here come out whenever the company's "staffing model" shows the need for increased Captains and the vacancies take 20 days to finalize +/- a few days before they hit the board (an initial "tentative" award comes out first so people can correct errors and the company can increase the number of vacancies if needed), and are projected 90 days out.

For example: a vacancy that came out the beginning of this month (04-08 - year then vac #) just closed initially (on the 10th). It takes DW about 5-7 days to get the initial award out, depending on what else he's doing, and we usually see additional captains on it more than originally planned (due to training failures, more attrition than planned, etc). The number of additional captains varies depending on their model - no way to really project that, but since this vacancy only had 7 Captains system-wide and our attrition and failure rate is higher than normal right now, I'd say they'll double it to about 14 Captain posts. This vacancy is effective January 1st, which means the training cycles will be in the month of December (they are supposed to be on the line flying as a Captain on the effective date so they project training based on that date).

My prediction: most F/O's with the time to hold it are going to skip this one again for two reasons. First, many of them are going to time out as previously mentioned. Part 121 regs limit them to 1000 in a year and if you want to time out 95 hours per month is easily attainable as a line holder and still keep 12 days or so off, so 10.5 months (mid October) and they hit 1000 hours and get the rest of the year off, WITH PAY (75 hour guarantee). Why mess up having to go to training (not to mention studying a month before hand) in the middle of December?

Second, many of them don't realize that since they can't conduct training on Christmas or New Year's, they'll automatically get those holidays off. Unfortunately, they'll probably train right up to the last second - good luck getting home on Christmas Eve! I don't think I'd do it either.

I think this one will go very junior again with street captains for those reasons. Now Vacancy 04-09 (next month) is a different animal because the training will happen in January for a Feb 01 effective date and that's probably all they'll need. Vac 04-09, 04-10, and 04-11 will probably take care of the fence-sitters. The rest will probably be half and half people getting the flight time and street Captains. That's just my guess, which together with about $4.00 can buy you a cup of coffee (yeah, I like Starbucks).

As far as coming here? Not with 2,700 hours, you'll never reach the 3,500 hour requirement in time to upgrade (assuming 95 hours per month) unless you already have 500 hours in type and there are no waivers and you can't project your time out to bid a vacancy (in other words, if you're 100 hours short and you know training won't start for three months and you'll have the time, you still aren't allowed to bid for the slot - pretty stupid but them's the rules).

If you have the time, don't mind being treated like a saloon whore on reserve for 5 years or more, and want less than 10 days off (sometimes as few as 8 or even 7) each month with no home life but flying only 40 hours or so per month (after New Year's)... sure, come on over. Did that for 3 years and it's getting worse now than it was,,, I DON'T recommend it.

Coming here as an F/O? If you have nothing better going on and it's a step up for you, we're short on F/O's so they're going to be hiring a LOT, the crews are (mostly) fun to fly with, and the trips aren't half-bad (most F/O's average 14 days off after being here 8-12 months). Plus, negotiations are going to take a LONG time after our last delivery, so when job action comes, you'll be WAY off probation by then.

Good luck!

Edit 1: Skippy, realized that with the jargon you might not have caught that I answered your question but not directly. Vac 04-09 will come out in Oct (eff date 01-FEB-05), Vac 04-10 will come out in Nov (eff date 01-Mar-05), Vac 04-11 will come out in Dec (eff date 01-Apr-05), and should be almost predominantly senior F/O's (fence sitters). Vac 05-01 through 05-03 will go junior and that will pretty much finish up our delivery schedule for CRJ's as Vac 05-03 would be effective 01-JUL-05. All that is assuming they follow the same pattern they have for the last year and a half and come out with a vacancy every 3 - 5 weeks.

 

[T-Gates]

Did that for 3 years and it's getting worse now than it was,,, I DON'T recommend it.

Didn't realize that was possible! I always loved when TM, PD, and MG woud come up for thier meetings and get bombarded with "You wouldn't believe what Crew Scheudling tried to make me do!" from the usual Ready Reserve crews....

 

[Lear70]

Well, in all fairness, some things HAVE gotten better, but we don't know for how long.

They elliminated ready reserve and simply assigned the home reserves to a.m., p.m., or late home reserve. The reason isn't for our benefit, the reason is because they were running into duty problems with the a.m. guy sitting for 8 hours, then they need him for 7 more hours (an out-and-back and an overnight) but they couldn't legally assign more than 14 hours of duty per contract so they did this to save duty time problems; they can keep someone on call without starting their duty clock. They did it to help THEIR short-staff situation but it ends up benefitting us which is rare and very cool.

The bad part: there's a new policy out for Junior Assignments and Extensions because people were refusing Junior Assignments. Now, if you refuse an extension, you can be officially terminated on the spot unless it's an "excusable refusal" (which isn't defined), and even then the "excused extension" gets added to your "events" and counted as part of the discipline process anyway. Junior Assignments are treated similarly with some provisions (if it's inside 36 hours and you have plans such as child care or have been drinking, or whatever, the refusal doesn't qualify you for IMMEDIATE discipline, but it does count as one of the "events" in the overall attendance policy.

The really, really fun part which the Association is fighting (not as aggressively as I would prefer of course), is that THEY SAY IF YOU REFUSE AN EXT OR J.A., YOUR PAY WILL BE DOCKED FOR WHAT YOU WERE ASSIGNED. That's right, if you don't fly it, they dip into your pay.

Number one, this isn't legal and violates several tenants of labor law, specifically one that says if you work a certain number of hours and your pay rate is a certain dollar amount, they can't just not pay you for hours worked which is what they'd essentially be doing by docking your pay below what you've actually worked for an event you never flew. For this reason alone I believe our Association should have IMMEDIATELY filed an injunction in court (the RLA doesn't apply if a company policy violates state or federal law) and stopped it before it even started, also sending a message to the company that ALL negative company policies will be dealt with swiftly and harshly to the maximum extent of ALL available avenues, both commonlaw and RLA.

But, we're still playing our pu*sy-whipped grievance game which is, sad to say, going to take years to fix unless the company backs off. There's many of us (as usual) working outside the MEC with divisions of the government to force the company into compliance with federal law on this one so again, just like when they tried to take pay from the F/O's for three year's worth of mistakes (about 25% out of each F/O paycheck for six months), a group outside the MEC is taking care of business. Very, very sad...

Expect more policies to continue, especially as we don't have enough Captains in October to cover and in Nov and Dec the number of Captains timing out is more than 10% of our total Captain pool. Can you say "Compensatory day denied due to staffing?"

 

[justmeinmsp]

they can keep someone on call without starting their duty clock.

That's not true. Even when you sit at home on call, that is duty time and does count for leagality. About a year ago I suggested that they split the home reserves up so they don't run into these duty issues for overnights and more specifically high speeds.

By the way, I am not trying to take credit for that move, it fell on deaf ears when I brought it up.

 

[Lear70]

YOUR interpretation is, ufortunately, incorrect.

FOM Chapter 4.7.4, page 36:

In addition to the terms and conditions of reserve duty outlined in the Pilot's Working Agreement, reserve pilots are subject to the following.

A "rest period" is a period free from all duty or the requirement to be available for duty. ALTHOUGH NOT AN ACTUAL DUTY PERIOD, AN "ON-CALL" RESERVE PERIOD IS A PERIOD WITH A REQUIREMENT TO BE AVAILABLE FOR DUTY SHOULD THE NEED ARISE. Therefore an "on-call" reserve period does not qualify as rest.

Home reserve has ALWAYS been exempt from duty time provisions. We've been arguing this for 3 1/2 years but the FAA sides with the company on this one and ALPA agrees - it's the "grey area", neither rest, nor duty, but an "on-call" period. Call Mike Garvin and ask him if you have further questions, as the Ready Reserve ellimination was driven purely to maximize duty time (also see our discussion on our private message board).

Ready Reserve is a different animal, and is always considered duty since you have been required to show, at the airport, in uniform.

Sorry to be the one to have to tell you.

--------------------------

Edit 1: Also should mention that there IS a limitation on duty when on home reserve - it's 16 hours. Why? Because reserve is not rest and you have to have 8 hours of look-back rest prior to beginning your assignment. So if you've been on home reserve for 10 hours, they can still assign 6 hours of duty which would bring you up to 16 hours since the end of your last rest period, and although it seems that would exceed 14 hours of assigned duty per the pilot agreement, it does not because you were not "on duty" per the FOM.

 

[justmeinmsp]

How is my interpretation incorrect? From your own quote, "Therefore an "on-call" reserve period does not qualify as rest. " I never said per the FARS. It is not rest and is duty per the FOM which is a legal FAA document. I am not going to argue with anymore on this because I know you will never shut up about it.

 

[ex-dc9drvr]

JUSTMEINMSP;

No, you are not wrong. Back in, I believe, late 1999 or early 2000, right after the AA Little Rock accident the FAA finally started enforcing reserve rest requirements rules that have been on the books since 1985.

Before the Little Rock accident, a domestic crewmember could be on reserve 24 hours a day and be called to work at any time. There was no way to plan rest. You could be called at 11:00 PM to start a 10-12 hour duty day. That all changed in late 1999/ early 2000. It was actually December 1999.

Now you can only be on duty for 15 hours and must have nine hours off. Your duty clock starts when the company assigns you a reserve period. Must companies, i.e., NWA, AA, have something called RAPs. RAP stands for Reserve Availability Period. The company can only use you during that RAP period. The maximum length of a RAP is 15 hours. Your RAP cannot be changed once it has started. It can only be changed before it is started.

The company has to give you nine hours duty free. The company can only attempt to contact you once during your duty free period.

I believe once called to duty your RAP can be extended to 16 hours, but then the Witlow (sp) Letter applies, i.e., 16-hour day.

Below is a link from ALPA that explains this much better than I can.

http://cf.alpa.org/internet/projects/ftdt/backgr/newfaa9pg.doc

If Pinnacle puts you on reserve at 0730 in the morning you are a pumpkin at 2230. Period. That is the law. It has nothing to do with where you sit reserve, at home or at the airport.

Hope this helps.

 

[Lear70]

I suggest that both you gentlemen contact your status reps with this question. If you refuse a trip based on your current beliefs, you're going to be doing a carpet dance with Terry, I guarand*mntee it. If you need the numbers for your reps, PM me.

JustMeinMSP: how convenient that you left out the first phrase of the bold print that is straight out of our FOM. "Although NOT A DUTY PERIOD..." Plain English evidently isn't good enough.

Obviously you won't shut up about it either... I'm still waiting for someone to show me, IN WRITING FROM THE FAA, where I'm wrong on the points I make on our message board. So far, no one has stepped up to the plate. If you'd like to discuss it further, feel free to contact me on our private board where none of us can hide.

DC9, nearly ALL your statements are incorrect about Pinnacle. Do you actually work here? If you do, I would suggest you forget what you did at Northwest - nearly ALL your limitations were more restrictive than the FAR's because of your contract.

1. 15 hours does not exist as a FAR limit. 16 hours is the drop-dead number per FAR 121.471 and further defined by Whitlow (I keep a copy of it with me in my kit bag), 15 1/2 hours per the contract as follows:

Section 12.B.1, page 32: A pilot will not be required to be ON DUTY in excess of fifteen and one-half (15 1/2) consecutive hours, without the concurrence of the pilot.

2. The company does NOT have to give you 9 hours off unless you are a pilot released in domicile and then they must give you 10 hours off, reduceable to 9 if you were delayed for weather or mechanical (P.A. 12.B.3) FAR 121.471 allows the company to SCHEDULE 8 hours of rest as long as they call it reduced rest to begin with and SCHEDULE compensatory rest for the following night. I've fought this one for a year and the FAA, our POI, our management, and ALPA are all, unfortunately, in agreement. All you have to do is look at our trip construction to see that our company regularly schedules less than 9 hours of rest on nearly every multi-day trip we do.

3. The company can call you as many times as they d*mn well please during your rest period. The "one call rule" has been argued here for many years before you or I ever came; a few months ago there was a ruling handed down saying that you could put your name on a "Do Not Call" list that prohibited them from calling you during your rest period, end of story. We all started flooding the SOC with faxes and certified letters, but then our management said they wouldn't honor that list and started disciplining people for "resetting their rest period" after the 2nd call. Two pilots were fired for it (maybe more, but those are the only two I know personally - still slugging it out in court 8 months later). The FAA has done nothing. Bottom line, if you're dumb enough to not unplug your phone and turn off your cell phone and you answer a call when it rings, then it was your choice to do so. That's the management and union stance as well.

I'm not saying I like any of the above, believe me. If you ever read my rants on our private message board about fighting company interpretations of legality you'll know I'm against most of these interpretations, but unfortunately management is doing it, ALPA says they can, and the FAA isn't doing a d*mn thing to stop it.

But please, I again suggest you contact your status rep who can point you in the right direction, specifically ALPA's guide to flight and duty time (which can also be found on the ALPA site) or who can get you in touch with our POI in MEM. For that matter, I talk with him once every week or two, if you PM me I'll give you his name and direct-dial phone number.