SWA to speed up Airtran integration.....article

[Lear70]

I believe SW runs far below what other majors run for reserve coverage. I'd say it's down around 12%.

We got the breakdown for Jan from Russ M a couple weeks ago. I'm reading from your CBA 5-7 and it looks like a Blank line is still a mix of reserve, which I would still consider a reserve line if your trip dropping/trading ability is the same as a pure reserve line?

For trip dropping/swapping purposes, the total people on reserve on any given day are the main factor in our type of system and it's hard to tell how many of each would be available once your Blank lines are built. I'd have to see how many people are on reserve on any given day, on average, AFTER your Blank lines are final to see what the true reserve coverage looks like and we don't have that data.

Based on that, here's the breakdown (rough averages):

BWI:
CA RSRV 10% + Blank 9% = 19% total potential reserve coverage
FO RSRV 10% + Blank 8% = 18% TRC

DAL
CA 9% + 8% = 17% TRC
FO 10% + 9% = 19% TRC

DEN
CA 10% + 11% = 21% TRC
FO 11% + 12% = 23% TRC

HOU
CA 9% + 8% = 17% TRC
FO 9% + 8% = 17% TRC

LAS
CA 10% + 8% = 18% TRC
FO 11% + 8% = 19% TRC

MCO
CA 10% + 10% = 20% TRC
FO 11% + 9% = 20%

MDW
CA 9% + 10% = 19% TRC
FO 11% + 8% = 19% TRC

OAK
CA 10% + 10% = 20% TRC
FO 10% + 8% = 8% TRC

PHX
CA 10% + 9% = 19% TRC
FO 10% + 8% = 18% TRC

As mentioned, I just don't know what your true daily reserve coverages are without seeing how many reserve days are added during Blank line construction in each base. Could be just a few, could be half your line, don't have that data, so reserve coverage could be as little as 10-12% or as high as 17-18%...

Also, the premium awards are in the process of changing to random system. I don't usually even look at premium trips, but that might change.

How was that changed? Wouldn't that require a pilot vote?

Valid point about being overstaffed when things are complete, but an open drop system could work with both overstaffed, as well as 'right staffed' as long as the protections were there for both pilots and company.

That's what I believe too, just have to get it negotiated for...

 

[Lear70]

Lets try to get something positive here, just how does the "drop a trip" at straight pay work, and are you paid when you drop it? Or is it just the ability to drop a trip for no pay?

No, you don't get paid. You drop the trip, you drop that credit. That's why people look for other trips in other bases in most cases. You may just need that day off for something but still need the time back.

My contention is that will never work at SWA. SWA is not manned to allow folks to drop a trip, paid or otherwise, and have other folks fly that trip. Thats why you are hired, to fly that trip. Sick calls are covered by reserves.

Again, 90%+ of the trips that people drop into open time (back to the company straight drop) are picked up by other LINE HOLDING pilots. The system works quite well in that there is VERY little that's not picked back up and, therefore, would require reserves to cover.

As an example, I just looked and I have over 60 FLICA alerts for dropped trips for 737 F/O's system-wide at AirTran for January since Daily Open Time opened back on the 21st of Dec. Of those 47 dropped trips, there are only 3 left in open time. 2 in MKE towards the end of the month, and 1 in ATL on the 19th.

Of everything that was dropped, more than 90% of it has already been picked back up and only 3 reserves will be needed to cover dropped flying FOR THE WHOLE MONTH for the ENTIRE system, the rest can be used for sick calls.

Pretty sure that wouldn't overburden the reserves even at Southwest with a similar percentage of trips. Not to mention, with your higher pay, people tend to be more incentivized to pick them up.

It's like any industry, if you worked at a sandwich shop, and want to drop a day of work, someone has to want to work that shift, or you get to work that shift.

But that's not how the airline industry works. In truth, more airlines allow straight drops than not without an artificial "minimum duty periods required" per month constraint.

Please explain how the company would ever want to entertain getting involved in taking flying from guys and then have to pay someone else to fly that line?

Pretty simple, actually

If there are 40 uncovered trips for MDW F/O for instance when the month starts and 432 Line Holding F/O's to pick up that flying (2,000+ system-wide) or one of the 32 reserve F/O's on one of their 5 reserve weeks have to cover it (152 available weeks for 40 trips seems pretty "adequate"), if a line-holding F/O wants to drop a trip on one of those blocks of days with adequate coverage, the company doesn't have to pay him to fly that trip, and thus saves that money by flying a reserve on it.

The reserve is going to get paid guarantee in all likelihood either way, but the company just saved 20-25 TFP by not paying the line holding pilot to fly the trip.

On the flip side, if another F/O anywhere in the company picks that trip up, now the company doesn't have to cover it with a reserve AND it's even money for the company.

The minor variations in longevity pay equalize - sometimes it's a senior person flying the trip, sometimes it's a senior person dropping and a junior person flying.

Again, this system has worked successfully here and at other airlines for decades. Southwest's system is truly... ummm... "unique", and I don't mean that in a good way. The system could be a lot more pilot-friendly.

On a brighter note, we would like something akin to that trip drop, but only once or twice a year for family needs. Not on a recurring bases.

I bet more of your pilots than you think would "like" to have that ability on a regular basis.

To get this, we are going to pay for it. So please, please explain how the company would see to allow trip dropping?

It's actually a money-saver for the company, especially in low-flying months. Pilots don't get paid for what they drop and reserves get paid the same regardless (guarantee).

In the high-flying months, on many days the threshold for required reserves is such that you can't drop the trip anyway, so it doesn't cost the company a dime.

Heres a tidbit on SWA efficiency in schedule, we use a 8-10% reserve manning, sick calls go about 7-8%, so there is some room in there, but not much. Now Add in other things, trip pulls, diverts, etc, and the cushion evaporates day to day. Worse, on bad days, instead of having more reserves, they online reroute, and are very efficient at that, to the tune of getting 10-15% more flying out of the guys on the line than if they didn't and just used more reserve coverage. This is especially tru while we are fat on pilots.

Your sick call rate is nearly double ours... If your people didn't have to use sick calls to get the trips they need off (especially the junior people), your sick call use would likely decline. That's what has happened here as people can more easily manipulate their schedule with the new CBA we have.

As for the other, yeah, that re-assignment thing sucks, no doubt about it. Do you have limits on yours? We do. If it goes over a certain number of hours past your initial release time, you can decline for personal hardship, like you can't get home and you have child care responsibilities, prior commitments, etc. Same thing on being extended into a day off or junior assigned on a day off if you were stupid enough to pick up your phone.

Like I said, I prefer our system over yours. It's not about not wanting to fly, we all still like our paychecks and need the hours, we just prefer to have more control over our flying lives than you guys have and hope that you can see how well our system worked for our people and work to move in that direction.

 

[redflyer65]

Yea, I was talking pure reserve lines. Most Blank Lines are flying. Very, very few reserve blocks in them. Most of the time it's a full line of flying, typically over the weekend because that's the overlap flying that drops out. The blank lines can sometimes be like gold, but you never know until later in the month. Min contract reserve is 8%. I'd say 8-12% is accurate (without blank lines). I wouldn't add the blank lines in to show total reserve coverage. That wouldn't even be close to accurate from what I've seen.

Yes it did require a vote. And it went to random instead of seniority based.

 

[wood pecker]

The main thing is both sides look at the best of both before saying no. For ex, something just popped up on my schedule on a day I was suppose to be on a 3 day.

We can go to Flica check the reserve grid which for that day was green meaning I am able to drop my trip with out pay for that trip or swap for a trip that starts 1 day later for same pay give or take. A few clicks = done and now some one else took the trip I put in open time.

Eventually those trips that are in open time will go to a RES if no one wants them. If we had a better premium pay system then our RES would not fly as much I 'm guessing but that's above my head.

 

[Lear70]

Yea, I was talking pure reserve lines. Most Blank Lines are flying. Very, very few reserve blocks in them. Most of the time it's a full line of flying, typically over the weekend because that's the overlap flying that drops out. The blank lines can sometimes be like gold, but you never know until later in the month. Min contract reserve is 8%. I'd say 8-12% is accurate (without blank lines). I wouldn't add the blank lines in to show total reserve coverage. That wouldn't even be close to accurate from what I've seen.

Good info.

In that case yes, the threshold for having adequate reserve coverage might be problematic. It would likely have to have test months in off-months like Jan/Feb to see what the fallout was on average, how much sick calls were reduced (I guarantee you they would be, we saw it here almost immediately), and with the increased reserves on hand towards the end of the integration, it might be a good time to experiment and see if it's feasible.

It may not be, in which case nothing changes. But if it IS feasible, it would sure as heck make a lot of people's lives easier.

Yes it did require a vote. And it went to random instead of seniority based.

Interesting. When does that start and how will it work? Same for POT/HOT and all the other run-downs or just for certain categories?

Seems a lot more fair for everyone to have a shot at it based on first-come / first-served.

 

[Lear70]

The main thing is both sides look at the best of both before saying no. For ex, something just popped up on my schedule on a day I was suppose to be on a 3 day.

We can go to Flica check the reserve grid which for that day was green meaning I am able to drop my trip with out pay for that trip or swap for a trip that starts 1 day later for same pay give or take. A few clicks = done and now some one else took the trip I put in open time.

Eventually those trips that are in open time will go to a RES if no one wants them. If we had a better premium pay system then our RES would not fly as much I 'm guessing but that's above my head.

The company actually loves the mix of what they have now.

Reserves don't break guarantee and average 50-60 block hours per month, Line Holders are right at guarantee, and very, very little goes Premium because,,, well, it doesn't have to. People pick it up at straight time unless it's a Red-Eye return or CDO.

Why pay more premium time if they don't have to? WE might like it, but they sure as heck don't want to...

 

[madjack]

Other issues, line guarantee at SWA is 89 TFP (AAI 75 hrs?)...also AAI hub system vs point to point at SWA...impact on easy splitable/geographically desirable trips...

 

[redflyer65]

Good info.

In that case yes, the threshold for having adequate reserve coverage might be problematic. It would likely have to have test months in off-months like Jan/Feb to see what the fallout was on average, how much sick calls were reduced (I guarantee you they would be, we saw it here almost immediately), and with the increased reserves on hand towards the end of the integration, it might be a good time to experiment and see if it's feasible.

It may not be, in which case nothing changes. But if it IS feasible, it would sure as heck make a lot of people's lives easier.



Interesting. When does that start and how will it work? Same for POT/HOT and all the other run-downs or just for certain categories?

Seems a lot more fair for everyone to have a shot at it based on first-come / first-served.

To be honest, I'm not sure when it starts. I think some of it has already been phased in. We just had too many of the same actors getting ALL the premium flying. Like I said, I don't usually look at it so I'm not as in tune as other would be.

Just pulled some blank line info for Jan. Which is one of the slowest months. But just a simple sample becuase I didn't want to pull up every base.


BWI CA. Total blank lines 31. 9 lines with one week of reserve. No full reserve lines.

BWI FO. Total blank lines 27. NO reserve at all on any lines.

MCO CA. Total blank lines 29. 10 lines with one week of reserve.

MCO FO. Total blank lines 29. 4 lines of FULL reserve. 15 with one week.

MDW CA. Total blank lines 36. NO reserve at all.

MDW FO. Total blank lines 31. 20 with one week of reserve.


As you can see, it's very rare for the whole line to be reserve...but it could be. I'd say there is probably less reserve in the blank lines during the high flying/high vacation months during the summer.

 

[scoreboardII]

We got the breakdown for Jan from Russ M a couple weeks ago. I'm reading from your CBA 5-7 and it looks like a Blank line is still a mix of reserve, which I would still consider a reserve line if your trip dropping/trading ability is the same as a pure reserve line?

For trip dropping/swapping purposes, the total people on reserve on any given day are the main factor in our type of system and it's hard to tell how many of each would be available once your Blank lines are built. I'd have to see how many people are on reserve on any given day, on average, AFTER your Blank lines are final to see what the true reserve coverage looks like and we don't have that data.

Based on that, here's the breakdown (rough averages):

BWI:
CA RSRV 10% + Blank 9% = 19% total potential reserve coverage
FO RSRV 10% + Blank 8% = 18% TRC

DAL
CA 9% + 8% = 17% TRC
FO 10% + 9% = 19% TRC

DEN
CA 10% + 11% = 21% TRC
FO 11% + 12% = 23% TRC

HOU
CA 9% + 8% = 17% TRC
FO 9% + 8% = 17% TRC

LAS
CA 10% + 8% = 18% TRC
FO 11% + 8% = 19% TRC

MCO
CA 10% + 10% = 20% TRC
FO 11% + 9% = 20%

MDW
CA 9% + 10% = 19% TRC
FO 11% + 8% = 19% TRC

OAK
CA 10% + 10% = 20% TRC
FO 10% + 8% = 8% TRC

PHX
CA 10% + 9% = 19% TRC
FO 10% + 8% = 18% TRC

As mentioned, I just don't know what your true daily reserve coverages are without seeing how many reserve days are added during Blank line construction in each base. Could be just a few, could be half your line, don't have that data, so reserve coverage could be as little as 10-12% or as high as 17-18%...


How was that changed? Wouldn't that require a pilot vote?


That's what I believe too, just have to get it negotiated for...

Don't use these few months as an example, blank lines have never had reserve lines inside them until we became overmanned, i'll adress your follow on post later, gotta do some honey do's.

Plus, the company is evidently loving the food fight, or lack of food fight now that we are overmanned, very little premium pay to go around.

 

[Lear70]

Other issues, line guarantee at SWA is 89 TFP (AAI 75 hrs?)...

The main issue is block hours.

If you converted our reserve guarantee of 78 hours to TFP (*1.167 as determined by SWA management), you come up with almost the same exact pay (91 TFP) or line holder 75/76 hours (28-30 day month or 31 day month) 87.5/88.7 TFP.

The question is whether the trips that were straight dropped to the company would be picked back up at straight pay (I'm betting they will be when POT almost disappears when SWA absorbs all our pilots and is overstaffed for a while). And if not, whether the reserves would start breaking guarantee having to cover the few trips that didn't get picked up.

That's what trial periods are for.

also AAI hub system vs point to point at SWA...impact on easy splitable/geographically desirable trips...

Not sure what you mean... do you mean it would be easier or harder at SWA vs AAI?

Here we can't split trips, so you either pick up the whole thing or you don't pick up anything, which actually makes it more difficult for Scheduling to get rid of the trip.

If we could split our trips up that are in open time, you would NEVER see trips going to reserves. Adding a single day of flying onto your 3-day or 4-day that was uncommutable on one side anyway would be awfully tempting... Can't get home? Go make some more money, stay in the hotel on the company dime, get home the same day you would have anyway. Same thing on the front end... have to commute down the day before for an uncommutable a.m. show? Take the 2nd part of that trip that starts late and comes back into the hub early enough to get your next leg outbound.

We've mentioned this to them but they haven't wanted to try it. They say Scheduling is too overburdened to try to manage that kind of system and FLICA isn't automated to split trip requests.

That said, even with unsplittable trips, they still get snapped up when people drop them into open time.

Or did you mean something else?