No, full credit will not make everyone happy. It's a violation of our COS that requires J-class PX on company aircraft. PX is also abused beyond belief to save the company a lot of money at great inconvenience and discomfort to pilots. If all you have ever done is a quick PX to your home base, or a 1-hour PX to go rescue a stranded aircraft, then you do not understand what is going on with the freighter fleet - which will soon include the 777.
There won't be much if any PT on crazy foreign carriers. CX and KA fly to almost everywhere in the Asian region that the freighter goes where PX is used, such as stopovers to EUR including DEL, BOM, DXB, as well as long duties that need extra crew (ICN, HAN, DAC, PEN, etc.) where patterns can be modified anyway. The only reason PX is used in all of those cases is because it is cheaper (50% credit/no hotel/no allowance/more free O- and free R-day availability, not occupying a revenue J-class seat, etc.) and it is more convenient for the company - not because it is required or necessary.
Within EUR and NAM, the airlines used are fine. International flights require J-class (as far as I know) as do domestic flights more than 3 hours (only in US/Canada). Anyone can handle 1-2.5 hours in Y class, with just 0.5-1.5 hrs of cruise time anyway. So what?
ANC is the big exception. So what? Change the mentality: All they have to do is operate more crew from NAM into ANC (3-man operating crew from JFK/MIA/LAX/etc.) which means 8% less credit (2-man 15% more than scheduled/actual, 3-man 7% more) vs. PX 65% less credit (!!) and 2 hours of in-flight/in-bunk rest in the middle of the night. So what? And they can operate 4-man crews to/from HKG with 7% less credit (vs. PX 57% less credit), and good in-flight/in-bunk rest, if they need more people going to/from ANC - which they don't. They just like the cheap overmanning of a/c to prevent overtime, and free reserve at ANC and free HKG EXBs. Same applies to India and DXB and everywhere.
As for guys getting to/from ANC to/from NAM, or anywhere, so what? Now you will operate with over 100% more credit than you currently get (that's more than double the credit), get plenty of in-flight rest, and though this may add a day to your pattern some of the time, it also reduces your R, EXB, O and A days by the same amount, and you're not killing yourself with 20- and 30-hour duties (or more?) on board the aircraft.
And while PX cannot be changed to PD, PT tickets can: You simply tell CC to change a crappy routing/timing into the one you want to the airport you prefer, usually at no cost to you, but even if you have to top up the cost a bit to go where you want more conveniently, so what? You'd be paying that anyway to go home from the CX base anyway after a PX, in most cases.
No freighter PX means better patterns and more efficient rostering, not worse. In some isolated cases now and then, it will mean an extra few hours of travel or a night in a hotel with allowances to obtain proper rest between duties rather than driving the body into the grave with ridiculously long duties. So what?
Is this "consent" even being considered by anyone? Seriously....signing an open-ended, one-way, irrevocable, unknown waiver of whatever the company chooses to waive/include/dismiss/change/re-interpret is just crazy, specially when you take 1 second to consider who are you are making a deal with.
Last edited by Iron Skillet; 11th May 2012 at 04:20.