couldn't agree more
None of this negotiation makes any sense. The pilots already have a contract and could be perfectly happy to leave it as is. The company has the issue of trying to minimize its costs by eliminating bypass pay. This round of negotating has nothing to do with speed of training or crewing Cx planes and everything to do with cost cutting. Profitable growth of the airline is in everyone's best interest, but there must be give and take. If the pilots give up bypass, what do they recieve? If an S/O has to stay in the back seat for 2 more years, what is their benefit in the end?
Why does it take almost no time to train a direct entry F/O and so long to train an S/O to JFO upgrade? Maybe the training system can be revised to shorten these times and costs. Why can't new training Captains be made to replace those that retire instead of extending? Why should an extending Captain have to take a reduction in CoS to continue on to help the company expand faster?
I guess I just don't see the pilots being offered anything in exchange for having their career progression slowed by a few years.The Training Captains are already being extended. Eliminating bypass pay does not change the efficiency of the training dept. It only improves the companies profit margin, while slowing every pilots career.