Jetblue Will Try Anything

[Daedalus]

It has long since been disputed whether or not it is safe to fly past the age of 60. Some say it is safe, some say it isn't.

It can also be argued that jetBlue's proposal to seek a specified exemption to the 8-Hr rule will not reduce safety limits either and perhaps enhance it. At this point, you and no one else knows for sure and jetBlue will evaluate that claim. If it is found to be a problem, as so many of you "experts" claim that it is, then you can be assured that they will toss it away and remain with the status quo.

Either way, DW is still a hypocrite and a political has-been.

Also, if you are an ALPA member then should be ashamed that DW has taken this sad position to prevent furloughed members from participating in this so-called poll. This proves to me (and many other furloughed ALPA members) that this once proud organization has become a joke and will only be a marginal entity in this business for many years to come.

 

[luv2fly]

It can also be argued that jetBlue's proposal to seek a specified exemption to the 8-Hr rule will not reduce safety limits either and perhaps enhance it.
Either way, DW is still a hypocrite and a political has-been.


Please show me where the 8 hour rule has been long diputed. As far as I know, the 8 hour rule has just recently become an issue, and so far it has been confined to JB.

Also, if you are an ALPA member then should be ashamed that DW has taken this sad position to prevent furloughed members from participating in this so-called poll.

Disagree with..., yes. Ashamed..., no. Big difference. First of all "DW" is not responsible for determining whether or not furloughed pilots get to vote. That is why I referred to ALPA's bylaws and constitution. Your disappointment is misdirected. It wouldn't matter who was leading ALPA right now. DW did not arbitrarily decide that furloughed pilots would not be polled.


This proves to me (and many other furloughed ALPA members) that this once proud organization has become a joke and will only be a marginal entity in this business for many years to come.


It is all too easy in these times to be frustrated with a labor organization. The post 9-11 world has decimated most of organized labor. As a recently recalled pilot, I am well aware of those frustrations, but as I stated earlier, your current argument is with the very constitution and bylaws that were in effect prior to this poll. I disagree with those rules and I would support a change to the bylaws.

 

[Bear96]

...the productivity is awesome and would allow a 10 day month. 

[post="260685"][/post]​

Not once jetBlue starts Phase II of their Grand Plan to Increase Productivity and convinces the FAA to let pilots fly 50 hours per week, 200 hours per month, and 2000 hours per year...

 

[ualdriver]

You're wasting your time Bear96. You're dealing with a group of employees in the honeymoon phase of a rapidly growing, successful company. Most of the people on this forum correlate unity/unionism with economic failure because Airline X is near or in bankruptcy, and ALPA (or insert other union here) is at Airline X, therefore ALPA (or insert other union here) is the root of the airline industry's problems. They have payrates for a 100 seat jet at PATHETICALLY low payscales that all 737/DC-9 operators will soon be matching in a few years because we'll have to in order to stay competitive, and they're about to probably bring about a change in FAR's that will be twisted and turned and abused by just about every airline management team (and the ATA for that matter) in a few years more. I can already hear the ATA in front of the FAA a few years down the road......."But JetBlue does 2 transcon legs in 10 hours of flying and a 16 hour duty day and they're doing OK. How about we just do a "case study" and try for 3 legs? Or 4? It's just one or two more legs and it's safer than doing an all-nighter and those are legal....." Even if the pilot group agreed with my above statements, they are literally powerless to do anything about it anyway for fear of being a squeaky wheel with the end of that 5 year contract just a few months away.......

And that's just starters. Pray to Orville and Wilbur that JetBlue doesn't get a widebody aircraft someday, although it's just a matter of time. What do you think their widebody aircraft rates are going to be? Or workrules? Do you think the bar will be raised as high as it was with the EMB190? I can already hear Neeleman......"You know guys, I realize widebody captain rates just about anywhere are in the high 100's but, you know, we only netted 300M last year and these planes are really expensive so these widebody payrates are going to seem a little low but I'll give you time and a half above 70 hours even though they're about 30% less than industry standard but we have to stay competitve and there's nothing you can do about it anyway so........And you guys don't need a crew rest area on this thing. You're already doing transcon turns back in the US so why don't we just plan on doing Moscow turns? It's only a couple of hours more than you're doing already. Don't worry about changing the FARs, I have my chief pilot working on setting up a case study right now......." Then the collective sigh will be heard throughout the industry again and the spiral will continue. Maybe someday we'll look to this pilot group for industry leadership, but unfortunately that day has not come.

And before you JetBlue drivers see my screenname and say, "well we pay better than UAL does," I say, we're in bankruptcy, and we came DOWN to your payrates and work rules in order to be competitive. You guys had an operating income of 112M and a net of 47.4M for 2004. What's JetBlue's excuse for continuing to set the bar lower?

 

[luvn737s]

. It has long since been disputed whether or not it is safe to fly past the age of 60. Some say it is safe, some say it isn't. I personally believe that modern medicine has diluted the arguments of the age 60 proponents.

[post="260864"][/post]​

When the rule came out in 1958, the average life expectancy for a male was 67 years old. The Age 60 rule provided a 7 year "buffer". Now the average life expectancy is north of 78 years. 18 years is more than an adequate "buffer", in fact it's downright discriminatory. Also, the FAA didn't poll ALPA when it enacted the rule, so I'd say ALPA's poll shouldn't carry much weight now.

The FAA should announce the rule change effective at some future date (say 2 years so folks are able to prepare) with waivers available for those wishing to extend in the interim. The Age60 physical would include some additional age-related testing (just like the EKG that's required of 35 and 40+ year olds) and those who wish to continue flying can, and those who don't can make other plans.

 

[LIFlyer]

To all those pilots who are against transcon turns, I pose the following question:

Which would you rather do?

Scenario A: Fly an 8:00am to the west coast, arrive at noon, get your ten hours required "rest" (how much quality sleep will you get in the middle of the day in an unfamiliar hotel room? lucky to get an hour or two nap!), and then show up back for work at 10pm, fly all night, arrive at 7:00am, and be a basket case for the next couple of days ... or, for the same pay...

Scenario B: Fly an 8:00am to the west coast, have lunch, fly back to the east coast to arrive in time for dinner, and then take the next couple of days off with no disruption in circadian rhythms...

It's a no brainer. Give me scenario B any day.

 

[Bear96]

Actually, I'd prefer Scenario A (which, by the way, would pay MORE than B if you had proper duty rigs). Under B, I would have to get up at 3AM, and "back in time for dinner"? I wouldn't be home until around 10-11 PM. And that is IF there are no delays. (And why do you think you would get the "next couple of days off"? Once they get this out of the way, they will go after legal rest and monthly flight time provisions, and after your eight hours off, you'll be good to go again in their book.)

Also, you are making an unfair comparison, using a worst case scenario in A and a best case scenario for B.

 

[luv2fly]

When the rule came out in 1958, the average life expectancy for a male was 67 years old. The Age 60 rule provided a 7 year "buffer". Now the average life expectancy is north of 78 years. 18 years is more than an adequate "buffer", in fact it's downright discriminatory. Also, the FAA didn't poll ALPA when it enacted the rule, so I'd say ALPA's poll shouldn't carry much weight now.

[post="260922"][/post]​

I never meant to imply that the FAA polls ALPA, but many of the FAR's regarding safety of flight issues were inacted due to ALPA's lobbying efforts. I think the two books, "Flying the Line I and II", give a detailed look into the progression of safety issues that have faced the airline industry.
There have been numerous accident investigations and safety studies done by the FAA and NTSB that have involved ALPA accident investigators and safety volunteers, so I beg to differ on your opinion that ALPA's position won't carry much weight.

 

[CaptianBoomer]

Bear:

I don't see any scenario where situation A pays more above "if we had proper duty rigs".

The west coast transcon would pay lets say 11+00 hours for a JFK-LAS-JFK turn.

Under the other scenario, where you get up fly to the coast, take 10+00 hours off and return pays exactly the same under any "rig" I have ever seen.

1 for 3 trip rig doesn't even kick in. 1 for 2 on the back side of the clock doesn't kick in either.

Oh thats right. That $2 /hr perdiem nets you $ 24 extra bucks.

Could you elaborate? Or are you telling tales out of school?

Hell, maybe JetBlue can get an exemption to fly the damn things with only one pilot and a student pilot at the controls, or better yet a pilot and a dog (or maybe a cat for you cat lovers out there!) Everything with you guys is taken to the extreme to make your point.

I don't think they (JBU) will get the exemption for several reasons. (ALPA's strong worded letter aside) The 30 in 7 and monthly hours limits will stay the same. This makes the 11 hour transcon thing almost inefficient from the standpoint of day trips unless you back it up with a 7 hour trip to the carribean where the max is higher per 7 days.

Boomer

 

[Bear96]

Bear:

I don't see any scenario where situation A pays more above "if we had proper duty rigs".

Oops -- in this scenario you are right. My mistake.

Everything with you guys is taken to the extreme to make your point.

??? And situation A isn't "taken to an extreme to make your point"? That type of trip would be very, very rare, at least at UA. Why not pick a more common example -- like a one leg transcon, 18-24 hours downtown SFO or NYC, then a one-leg transcon back home. I have done trips like that very frequently at UA. (Or at least we used to, until they started decimating our schedules, to compete with the jetBlues of the world.)

If scenario A is how jetBlue commonly schedules now, then work to change that with your internal scheduling procedures. Don't do something that will screw the whole industry because you can't convince your management to schedule a particular trip more humanely.

The 30 in 7 and monthly hours limits will stay the same.

Why do you think they would stop with the transcon rule? Especially now that they see how easy it is to get you on board with that. Why don't you lobby to get rid of those silly 30/7 and monthly and yearly inefficient rules too. Then you can cram all your monthly flying in in the first seven days of the month, or get all of your annual flying in by Feb. 15, right? I am sure jetBlue won't mind having you sit idle the other 10-1/2 months of the year. Or, in this scenario, I am sure jetBlue wants to do this so you can work one or two days a week and sit around the other five or six days. Sure, they won't want to do anything else to increase your "productivity" those other five or six days, right?

If y'all want to have internal policies that don't affect anyone else, fine. And maybe your management is enlightened enough not to take advantage of relaxed scheduling rules (although I am highly doubtful that will be the case over the long term, but we'll see). However, when you start messing with things like this that will make life worse for everyone else in the industry because they know darn well the relaxed rules will be taken advantage of, they will try to fight it. And they should.

 

[boeing787]

My comments get yelled at by the moderators and by all the Jetbluers. But my comments are factual, reality based and obviously supported by those of us who still take pride in our flying jobs. Stop busting age old rules you'll just hurt yourself in the long run...now thats a guarantee!

 

[CaptianBoomer]

Bear:

I think most everyone is missing the point of the exercise here.

JBLU management, nor the pilots here, are out to screw anyone. This "experiment" as we will call it will hopefully shed some new light on the scheduling provisions as far as the regs are concerned.

In case you don't know what is going on, there is a baseline being established using "normal" trip pairings. Then a comparison will be done with data that is taken from the transcon out and backs. Hopefully some information will come out of it to get more minimum rest added, as I think the rest requirements are likely due for a change.

However, it is being done to be more productive on all sides of the operation. A pilot could fly three days per week instead of four or five. There would be savings to the company in terms of the number of hotel rooms and overnights. All these things will be balanced against what can and cannot be changed at the FAR level.

I for one am all for the productivity enhancements. Every day I can be at home and not stuck in a hotel room 2000 miles from home is a blessing. For that, I am grateful that JBU management is willing to spend the $$$ to hopefully save them some money and me some days on the road.

I personally don't see anyone messing with the other rules. Those limits are pretty sound to me, although I could see them bumping up the weeekly limit to 32 like the international crews. (I think its 32)

The rest rules are inadequate right now. Hopefully this study will bring that issue to the forefront.

Obviously this is a very sensitive issue right now (productivity) as well as this age 60 thing. Rest assured, the only guarantee in this business is change itself. I have no idea what it would do to the staffing models as far as headcounts, but since most carriers don't have much if any "soft" time in the pairings, it wouldn't have much of an impact.

Boomer

 

[LIFlyer]

OK, so maybe I exaggerate a bit with the "home for dinner" with scenario A. But even if you did get home by 10 or 11, then yes, it has been a long day, for sure (although not as long as you project; I'm not sure how you have to get up at 3am for a 7am show, unless your crash pad/home is 3 hours from the airport). However - at least you are not damaging yourself physiologically by working opposite sides of the clock within a 2 or 3 day span.

In my previous life with a major airline which was considered to have one of the best quality of life contracts, yes, we did the traditional transcons with a 24-hr. layover and a red-eye return to the east coast the next night. Let's break that trip down: you are burning 3 days of your life instead of one long one, and even with good duty rigs, such a trip is still among the least productive; that's why it is typically a junior trip. Also, you return on the morning of your third day of work coming back on a red-eye flight, having been up all night, and if you have any kind of home life where other people are on normal hours (i.e., kids) you are going to be woozy for a few days. You just can't flip your circadian rhythms back and forth like that without paying a price, in both short-term and long-term health issues.

What I'm saying is, from a purely quality of life standpoint - and paycheck, as well - I'd take the 1-day transcon turn any day.

As far as my contention that you could take the next couple of days off, well, you do the math. 11 hours for one day's work means you would need to fly 8 or 9 days per month to achieve 90-plus hours of pay.

Now, it seems you are basing your argument on the conjecture that if we "let this one slide", then all other duty regs will soon fall like dominoes and we will be forced to fly until we drop dead from fatigue. Well - NEWS FLASH! - the regs as they are written right now are nearly useless. We all know how unreasonable a schedule can be - downright dangerous sometimes - and still be "legal." The only good development of the last few years has been the recent emphasis on enforcing the 16 hr. hard limit for duty time. It is now (finally) interpreted to mean that even if you are number 1 in line for takeoff, having endured unforeseen delays for wx, etc., you must return to the gate and call it quits if taking off will put a pilot past 16 hours by the time of landing, taxiing in, and going off duty.

That is a good development. But let's look at how even this safeguard can be rendered meaningless. Let's say you show up after a few days off (where you have been waking and sleeping "normal" hours). You were up at the normal time, 6 or 7 am, and spent the day with your family before reporting for work at 7pm for an "easy" 1-leg day, say, a 3 hr. flight to anywhere to be in a hotel by midnight and layover for 12 or 16 hours. Doable, right? Well, you arrive at work to find the weather has gone down the toilet and your flight now has a rolling delay, not departing 'till midnight...no, wait, not 'till 2am...no, wait, not 'till 4am...OK, you get the picure - you are actually "legal" to fly until 11am the next day, even though you have now been awake for nearly 30 hours! (this happened to me last weekend).

Sorry to have been a bit long-winded, but my point is that we should focus on what will ultimately give us the best quality of life as pilots and allow us to be truly rested so that we can operate safely. If this thing JB wants to do starts a conversation about achieving that goal, then I'm all for it. If the old regs go in the trash as a result, well, how bad can that be? We've needed new ones for some time now.

As far as the argument that any new leeway will be taken and twisted by unscrupulous operators into wringing even more flesh and blood out of us, well, that is a valid concern. SO we must have the appropriate safeguards in place. We have enough talented, experienced people among us to come up with some pretty good ideas - better I'm sure than what passes for "rest" requirements at the present time. After five airlines, including 1 commuter, 3 majors, and a widebody overseas charter, I'd be happy to put my 2 cents in.

 

[Bear96]

JBLU management, nor the pilots here, are out to screw anyone.

They are out to be selfish. The end result is, others will get screwed.

In case you don't know what is going on, there is a baseline being established using "normal" trip pairings.  Then a comparison will be done with data that is taken from the transcon out and backs.

JBLU's "normal" trip pairings and other data are being analyzed. A great system may evolve that matches JBLU's scheduling, route system, etc., as a result of all of JBLU's research about the impact on JBLU. But you have to dismantle current FARs to do it, which will have very bad effects, and none of the benefits, for other airlines that don't have JBLU's route structure, scheduling factors, etc. (That's the "selfish" part I mentioned earlier.)

Most airlines' route structures and schedules are unique enough that changing a particular FAR here or there would probably benefit that particular airline's pilots and F/As. But to keep these jobs worth having at all, sometimes it is worth considering the impact on your colleagues at other airlines, and consider the big picture.

Hopefully some information will come out of it to get more minimum rest added, as I think the rest requirements are likely due for a change.

You think as a result of this the FAA will improve min rest requirements??? Keep being hopeful...

BTW airline management probably thinks "the rest requirements are due for a change too." Just not the same way YOU think they ought to change! (Although, if you are JBLU pilot, you very well may think the current FAA rest requirements are too generous and lead to "inefficiencies." Four hours at the hotel instead of eight should fix that, huh? After all, if the plane only sits overnight from midnight to 5AM, that should be good enough for humans too.)

I personally don't see anyone messing with the other rules.

To some, it's pretty shocking to see THIS rule being messed with. I personally wouldn't have believed it a year or so ago if someone told me JBLU pilots are trying to get the FAA to mess with a basic rule like this. But guess what.

And once airline management sees how easy it is to change this, watch for a further land grab. (I can see the begging at the FAA now ... "The industry is in its worst time ever! Fule prices and all, y'know! We absolutely NEED pilots and F/As to be able to fly 250 hours! It's a matter of our basic SURVIVAL!")

Good luck to you. I left this business just in time. I never thought I'd see the day where an airline's own EMPLOYEES -- pilots! -- work to tear down rules that have been built up with blood, sweat, and tears over many decades for very good reasons, all for the sake of some short-term perceived gain for a very few.

It's sickening, really.

 

[Bear96]

As far as my contention that you could take the next couple of days off, well, you do the math. 11 hours for one day's work means you would need to fly 8 or 9 days per month to achieve 90-plus hours of pay.

But my point was, wait until the next phase to increase productivity kicks in, and suddenly the FARs let pilots fly 200 hours a month. How many 11 hour days would you have to work then?

Well - NEWS FLASH! - the regs as they are written right now are nearly useless. We all know how unreasonable a schedule can be - downright dangerous sometimes - and still be "legal."

Then do what other airlines' pilots have done over the years: Form a union, and negotiate better scheduling regs and legalities. But please don't do something that will have a negative impact on people at other airlines! What may seem to make your schedules better and less fatiguing may very well have the opposite effect on another airline's schedules.