Careful with the Trip Rigs
There's been some discussion about trip rigs, duty rigs, free reserve, min guarantee, CMP coming. I think it's important to understand again in light of this that there really are two different companies we work for, either AB or BO. Two completely different types of flying will make it challenging to have in place a system that provides efficiency for both fleets.
Having worked in the US, under the system that appears to be coming, a line bid system that is bid for, understanding how our trip and duty rigs were calculated, knowing how our lines were built, may I humbly say that I don't think our membership has the foresight to prevent a massive slaughtering when the time comes for negotiations for the RP's under the CMP. If you think you're in a place now where you work lot's for little credit, wait till you see how much smoke and how many mirrors are involved with this system of rigs. It's absolutely incredible. Our credit was based off of the higher of either 25% Time Away Base, 50% of Duty, or Block or better. Our lines were ALWAYS based off of TAFB. We had on average trips that were in the 90 hours TAFB with 18-20 credit hours. There were 25 or 30 reserve lines for a group of 110 pilots, we were paid 2.86 hours credit for 10 hours of reserve. You should be paid 10 hours of credit for 10 hours of sitting around, but that will NEVER happen. You think you're doing free reserve now, wait till you do it 5 or 6 days a week, 4 weeks a month, 12 months a year. Think about it, the company looks at that and says, well, they're on the clock but we're only paying them for 25% of the time, how awesome is that for them? It's a unit cost, and that's the cheapest. You want rigs, you will get hosed. Unless, our membership is ready to "go to the mattress" which they're not. The only rig for TAFB that prevents sitting around is a 3 to 1 rig, and that's not going to happen. Not only will you lose a min guarantee for the month, but you will see yourself gone longer for less pay. And if you think CX is crewed up enough now or ever will be crewed up to be able to have a flexible system of dropping trips or moving them around, you're in la la land. It all hinges on having enough pilots. Wonder why they're saying implementation is 3 years away? It's a pipe dream folks. It's too complex for any GC to manage, any pilot group to manage. I say hang on to the 84 hours. Simple is better.