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Tiny Tyke
PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 3:45 pm 
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Hi WestJetters,

With the possibility of the new regional airline starting up, I am wondering what the current system for accruing credit hours at WestJet is?

Most unionized airlines in Canada have managed to have some form of the following:

1.) Minimum/day (usually 4-5hours)
2.) All the flight time; OR
3.) Half the duty day (or duty minus 3 hours)
Whichever is greater.

This leads to 75-85 hours month. Which will give you typically 14 days off minimum/month.

I have flown with the regional side of things for many years now and the midday flying always seems to be lighter than the morning/afternoon stuff. Leaving a lot of long breaks and subsequently long duty days.

I have heard that both Westjet and Porter do not have any form of #3 above. Is that true for WJ? Perhaps that is something for the teal team to contemplate as productivity may not be as high as with the 737. IMHO rules of work are more important than money. If you have a proper framework it leads to happiness for employees.


Thoughts?


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Bede
PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 5:00 pm 
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We are paid strictly by flight time. There is no minimum per day. We are guaranteed 14-15 days off per month (depending on if the month has 30 or 31 days).

Previously I worked at Jazz which had minimum credit daily guarantees and a bunch of other counter productive work rules. I like our system much, much better.

For example, at the end of the pairing I am on, I do YVR-YYC. I get paid for 1.5hrs. But I'm done at 830AM. Pairings are usually optimized using a simplex optimization algorithm (see Wikipedia). If we used the Jazz parameters, the optimizer would see this pairing and say "we have to pay this guy 4.5 hours. It is inefficient for him to get 3 hours of pay for no work." So the optimizer would try to find some flying to add to the day to get the credit up to 4.5h. What ends up happening is that the optimizer finds something like a YMM or YQR turn, but it's after waiting 4 hours not getting paid. If you ask me, I'd much rather be done at 8AM and make $100 for the day than make $300 for the day and be done at 5 or 6 at night. It makes no difference how many hours/day I work because I'm covered by the min days off guarantee. If I only work 1.5hrs one day, it's because I worked 10h the day before.

Our system guarantees you either a productive day of flying or a great layover.

It is very rare that I say this but knowing what I know about optimization, I can't see any possible way to improve the scheduling at WJA.

For curiosity, I think it would be cool to see how the schedule would look if we went to a virtual base so there would be no commuting. I'm guessing there would be a lot of deadheading, sitting around and crew changes though.


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stickontheice
PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 5:04 pm 
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At what point do you "Rule" yourself out of a profitable company too?


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GVER
PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:11 am 
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Bede. Just a minor point but the days off thing was from our last agreeement. Currently we can be scheduled to fly 16 days of any month. The 15-16 days worked depending on a 30-31 day month went away with our last agreement. Small point but wanted to be clear on that.


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fundi
PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 1:36 am 
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15 or 16...splitting hairs, IMHO.

We still whine about it once in awhile, but we quickly stop when we remember what it was like at the "ol shop". I have to make note, the best thing about wj scheduling - for ALL - is the lack of seniority. We ALL pretty much work the same, except for those who have accrued vac time through the years of service.

There is no golden schedule, quit chasing it! Generally it is quit good, and occasionally it sucks a little, but that's still better than most.

Oh, and the types of requests you can put in your monthly bid, are almost too many.
-How long of a pairing do you want to work?
-AM or PM starts?
-Sleep in YHZ, YQT, YVR, CUN, or HNL...you choose!
-You can try to trade or drop or pick up trips!

Unheard of, for such a young work force!


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Tiny Tyke
PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 1:58 am 
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15 days off sounds pretty sweet. You wouldn't really need any credit restrictions/rules with that in place. Will that transfer to the regional?


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M. Essaie
PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 9:08 am 
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How many nights do you spend away from home on average? Is the number controllable by bidding or swapping, or does everyone more or less share that load evenly?


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WJ700
PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 3:25 pm 
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Just a quick point that no one 'has' to work the full days. You can drop trips and pay is adjusted accordingly.


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ahramin
PostPosted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 5:00 am 
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WJ700, I assume that in order to drop a trip someone else has to be willing to pick it up for straight time?


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McDoo the Irish Navigator
PostPosted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 1:45 pm 
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The above statement is correct. Straight time is eligible for ESP and contributes to one's profit sharing , overtime does not.


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fundi
PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 8:08 am 
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@M. Essaie- not very many if you are trying for 1 or 2 day pairings, or say if you live in Vancouver, you could prioritize layovers in YVR, and you'd be home...say, half of your overnights in a month.

Sample trips;
1 day; LAS or PSP or MCO turn or Mexico and back (PVR, MZT etc)
or alberta to BC, twice
2 day; YC-YHM, then next day YHM-YYC-YXX-YYC
3 day; YC-YZ-YHZ, HZ-YZ-MCO, MCO-YZ-YYC

really, there's a lot of variety. St John's, Newfieland to Comox, tree hugginland to City of Angels to swamp land in Florida, all the way into the deep SE'rn Carribbean maan to Mexico and all the way over to Aloha Hawaii.


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Intentional Left Bank
PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 7:59 am 
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Amen to Bede's post. I do not ever want to have minimum guarantee per day. For much of the year, I bid and fly only one-day pairings, but the months I choose to work longer pairings, day one frequently begins with one or two legs late afternoon, and day four or five ends before noon. If there is one thing I find exhausting above all else, it is the three to four hour waiting between legs that I used to experience at the previous shop. This is very rare at WestJet. If you're sitting, its at a nice hotel.

We have a very simple system, and my satisfaction level could not be higher.

And if you don't like your pairing, you can trade any or all of it away. I think approx 2000 trades/month between pilots, 20 000 (twenty thousand) trades/month between f/a's. You cannot technically drop a pairing or leg, because someone else has to pick it up, but because of a lack of seniority system when it comes to trades and bidding, trades are typically easy.


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