Vacancy/Displacement

To answer some questions,

A friend of mine needed a laymen's explanation for what this 'bid' thing is.

We 'bid' for our positions as pilots based on our seniority, from date of hire. Generally, in order of preference, you want;

Seat (Captain or First Officer)

Domicile (City your flying is based out of)

Equipment (Which airplane you fly. Only 1 at a time (i.e. 737, DC-10))

Your Domicile can govern which equipment you fly. Chicago (ORD) for Eagle has 2 'types' of aircraft, one made by Bombardier, the CRJ-700, and the one that I fly, made by Embraer, Of which there are 3 variations, that one has the prettiest picture. (The variations are mostly # of seats. They all fly the same (bwaahahahahha.... kof kof... sorry... pilot joke.)

It takes a good two months of training to get checked out on another place, so usually, once you are in a specific aircraft, you do not trade around too often. They even make sure there is little incentive to do that, placing limits on how often we can change, making it 'non-reversible' (such as pilots who have transitioned to the CRJ cannot (with a few exceptions) go to the EMB,) and in the case of First Officers (FOs,) not increasing their pay with a different, larger aircraft.

Domicile does get tricky. They have shifted the CRJs around the system a few times, but generally they have been at DFW or ORD. Now we have them on the East Coast, too. But, if you want to fly it, there is no domicile (or base) in LAX, so anyone there would have to commute.

Seat, of course, is the big thing. Captain is where it is at. Pay is quite a bit more (there is an old saw about FOs getting paid for what they do, CAs getting paid for what they know.) The CA sets the tone of the trip, from start to finish. As an FO, you are constantly wondering "Who is the asshole that I am stuck flying with?" As a CA, you're the asshole! If you are outside aviation, it is really difficult to stress how the 'vibe' that a CA has on the flight deck effects simple things, like just the pleasure of our job. We have an awesome (full of awe) job (every seat is a window seat, Miami in winter, Ottawa in June, etc) and simply flying with a decent CA makes life nice. Flying with a real tool of a CA can make your life miserable, and we have a number of pilots that FOs simply refuse to fly with, mostly because they are not personable (I'm being charitable) in the cockpit.

There are trade-offs in here. In my own instance, I could have taken the upgrade to CA a few months earlier, but I would have had to commute to be based out of LaGuardia, because that was the only place open at the time for lowest seniority CAs. I traded the wild increase in $$ for better scheduling (based on my seniority as an FO,) and not having to fly to f-ing LGA every time I had to go to work. Not what I wanted to be doing with a new son.

Of course, some people commute nearly their entire careers. This is the airline/aviation world that we live in. I have friends who, for instance, 'commute' from all over California to ORD to fly. ORD is a lower seniority base, the scheduling makes life easier on them. It can actually be easier (I know people who do this, too,) to commute from Orlando to Chicago, rather than Miami. The schedules might be really bad for commuting in another city that is closer, so you fly further to make your life easier.

At any rate, there are surely dozens of ins and outs with regards to scheduling/domicile/equip, what the heck is a Vac/Disp bid?

Vacancy (open positions in Seat/Domicile/Equip)/Displacement (reducing other positions)

Vacancy

Every month or so, the company offers up a vacancy bid, saying "X number of seats are open for bid in position/base." So it would read something like "25 OCE START/XFR 12MAY12," Which you would read as 25 Chicago (ORD) Captain Embraer positions open, start training or transfer from current domicile date of 12 May 2012. There are a few ways they can make it look, but that is the basics.

Displacement

This is when they are reducing flying or even eliminating positions. Sometimes they enter a market and then decide it was not a good fit, so they change the pilot requirements for that base, etc. This comes in the same format, really. The only problem, is that this is a union job, and you are entitled to displace someone junior to you on the seniority list out of their equipment OR base OR seat, if you are senior to that person and they are the bottom of their list. That's just how it goes. Every system has it's +s and -s...

Eagle is reducing flying, actually, eliminating and entire aircraft from the fleet. The venerable ATR, which has been the workhorse of the Caribbean, Miami, and lately Dallas, is being retired as step #1 of our reductions because of the Nov 30th Chapter 11 filing.

So, the pilots (and F/As are going through the same thing, but they are cross-trained on equipment, so they lose the 'equipment' part of the above part of the post, but not the rest) who fly the ATR are getting dropped into the system, so to speak. They are allowed to basically 're-bid' their positions based upon the fact that what they are now flying is being eliminated. So, some people will elect to go to same seat/different base, different airplane; some will pick going back to FO but staying at the same base (if they have more than 1 airplane type there, which Miami and Dallas do have, but San Juan does not,) and a few other combinations. Because they are shutting down an entire fleet, it is a bit like trying to shove all 18 ozs of a porterhouse steak into your mouth and chew. It is a BIG movement. Lots of people going lots of places, and it will take quite a bit of time to get it all 'digested.'

In addition to that, there are quite a few pilots who have recently upgraded to CA, but will now be knocked back to FO, because more senior CAs will be 'bumping in' above them on their domicile/equipment list. For instance, a CA flying the ATR in San Juan is going to lose that position (no more San Juan base,) so elects to come to ORD as a CA on the EMB. If there is 'no room' (no openings) for him, that does not mean that he cannot bump in, that just means that he will be slotted in based on his seniority and the bottom guy on the list will be bumped back to FO, or to another base.

Eventually, we run out of positions and bases, and that is when furloughs start. After 9/11, if I remember right, I think we layed off 600+ pilots. I know it got very uncomfortably close to me. I was probably within 10 people of 'the street,' as we were laying off in blocks of 100 or so. I know people who were furloughed, then recalled, then furloughed again! (Hi Kim!) Then recalled again, eventually, too.

For the senior FOs, it means their time to Captain is increased (lower pay for longer, but better schedules, for now... plus, they don't get to log PIC (Pilot In Command, or Captain) time. This makes you quite a bit more 'marketable' in the airline world. Captain, after all is God and Goat, and PIC time is the most important flying time as a hiring quantity. 1000 hours of PIC time is the magic number. Doors open for you a little bit easier. OF course, it helps if airlines are hiring, which they are not really doing in any great numbers right now.

For the middle FOs on the list, it means their schedules may get marginally crappier, might lose partial 'Gregorian Calendar' weekends off (airline lingo-- 'weekend' is whatever days your days off fall on. We work in an industry that runs 24/7/365. My 'weekend' has been Tues/Wed sometimes,) or maybe even displaced.

For the bottom FOs, it could mean furlough, being layed off. It most likely will mean that, although not yet. Time will tell.

The Vac/Disp bid (now you know what that means!) was 'run' yesterday and today, and published tonight (well, last night, since it is 0122.) According to an email that I got yesterday, this is the second largest bid Eagle has ever run, second only to the displacement bid after 9/11. You could say this is a Big Deal. It is very disruptive for and to our lives. For 2 years after 9/11, I was displaced first out of ORD and the EMB to BOS and the Saab. Then to New York. Then to Dallas. I transferred to LAX, but that lasted exactly a week (commuting thousands of miles to be #3 from the bottom is a crap sandwich,) back to DFW, and then finally back to ORD.

The whole thing sucks. We have pilots who are perfectly qualified who are losing their positions at the company, positions they have waited on and trained for. Yes, I know it's a bitch all over, but ya see, when we go to another airline (first, they have to be hiring,) you start all over at day #1. Joe the New Guy. Even if you are Direct Entry Captain (hired right into being an asshole,) you are bottom of that respective pay list, and FOs who upgrade who were hired before you get slotted in ahead of you until your seniority catches up. Scheduling will suck for the forseable future. Pay will, too, unless you are very lucky.

As a Captain, the pay is substantially greater. They have not mentioned pay cuts, yet. So, imagine this... Getting moved from CA to FO (only 2 feet, but wow!) will probably (if there are pay cuts,) be about a 65% pay cut (when you factor in OT, etc..) Ouch.

That is the gist of it.

Seniority-wise, for right now, It looks like things are ok for me, but the have not yet announced the plan for aircraft allocation post-Chapter 11 yet. Things could get interesting, and not in the 'I just found that wine is a great hangover cure' way.

So far, I'm still the asshole I'm flying with.

Cheers!

Scott