I am not a pilot, and I am unsure what the company's objective is when they furlough pilots out of seniority. Could someone explain why they would do this. No smart comments/remarks please.
Here's what happens. When U parked the 737-200s, F-100s, & MD-80s and furloughed by the bottom of the seniority list there were many furloughees that didn't fly these planes and many non-fuloughees that did fly them. I don't understand exactly how the permanent bid process works, but I can tell you that it too a full two years before the company was able to furlough any more than about 5% of their ground school instructors. It took a lot of time to get the non-furloughed pilots from these planes qualified in their new planes. There were pilots coming for initial training on an airplane that hadn't flown for 8, 9, 10, 11 or more months. They were being paid during that entire time.
Training in itself is expensive. Add to that cost the add'l cost of pilots sitting around waiting for training and drawing a paycheck. If U had furloughed the pilots that flew the above mentioned planes regardless of seniority, there is a very large amount of money (and time) that they would have saved. I guess that they just don't want to incur that expense the next time they bring about a large reduction in their fleet size and composition.
I am not a pilot, and I am unsure what the company's objective is when they furlough pilots out of seniority. Could someone explain why they would do this. No smart comments/remarks please.
You basicly live or die by your seniority number.(a little harsh, but true) This dictates equipment (pay) and time off. (holidays, etc) It also dictates who is the first to get furloughed. It's supposed to anyway.
When you are hired at an airline as a pilot, the day you start ground school you are given a seniority number. Say it's a class of 20 pilots. Generally, (some airlines do it differently) the 20 pilots are given their own number in order of age.
The oldest pilot in the class is number 1 of the class and the youngest is number 20 of that class.
Now the class is tacked on to the bottom of the airlines seniority list. If there are 5000 pilots at said airline. The oldest pilot in the class of the above mentioned airline is 5001 and the youngest 5020.
As the airline grows or as people retire you begin to climb the seniority ladder and get the better equipment (pay) and time off (holidays) and protection from furlough....hopefully.
If there would happen to be a furlough of say 2000 pilots....very common these days at the "majors"....the bottom 2000 of that 5020 pilots is now furloughed.
This creates a training nightmare since number 2500 was a captain on the 737 and now is a first officer on the 320. And so on it goes every pilot changing equipment and seats due to the furlough. Bump and flush is what it sometimes referred too.
The out of seniority furlough that people are talking about is the possibility of USAirways getting rid of all the 737's. The company would like to just furlough the 737 crews to stop the above mentioned bump and flush. Saving the company lots of money but screwing the entire premise of a seniority system.
If this were to happen, some extremely senior 737 captains, say in the top 20% of the airline would be out of a job while some first officers on the 320 in the bottom 2% of the airline would still have employment. ie. seniority number 200 a captain on the 737 would not have a job, but seniority number 3000 would.
That's it in a nutshell! Any more questions, feel free to ask!!
First of all, there's no way on this planet that U ALPA could agree to out of seniority furloughs. The company could try and get it in court, but any pilot that shows up for work under those conditions deserves, and should get, the scorn, disdain, and ridicule of airline pilots everywhere. There's a noun that describes the character of that kind of person. I think Lakefield knows that. He's playing a very high stakes game and doesn't have the hand to back it up. I doubt if even a CEO "friendly" judge will be willing to go that far. It doesn't matter what the plan is, these clowns don't have the moxy to pull it off. It's pathetic desparation.
I am not a pilot, and I am unsure what the company's objective is when they furlough pilots out of seniority. Could someone explain why they would do this. No smart comments/remarks please.
The reason it becomes an issue and a nightmare of re-shuffling is that if you go by strict seniority, senior people whose planes have been grounded bump more junior people who fly different equipment.
With flight attendants this is not a problem; because at most airlines, every f/a is qualified on every piece of equipment the airline flies. Under FAA rules, cockpit crew can only be qualified on one a/c at a time. So, even if a pilot flew the S80, then moved up to the 767 or A300 series, then was bumped back to the S80, he would have to go through at least some S80 training again before he could be qualified to fly the S80.
