TA Passed

[Apestogetherstrong]

Why $89k and not $90k?

Our team came with the magic number $89k through mathematical modelling. It is a reasonable ask based on Canadian aviation environment. Any company that starts off with this number will achieve labour stability and will succeed. It is going to be survival of the fittest in the next two years and lack of crew can drown companies. WJ and AC wants Flair to fail. Why not $90 you ask? Go with $100k and we will support you. We do think however that $89k is a fair number and it is easily doable. Anything more than that is a cherry on top.

“Apes together strong!!!” -watch planet of the apes where we got the inspiration to start our aviation movement

[MAX8 Driver]

Alright so here goes nothing..

First of all, there's absolutely no point attacking someone on a personal level. At all. Management or line pilot, doesn't matter. You can't attack a guy who is doing his job, you can certainly be of completely opposite opinions but remaining just a little professional goes a lot farther.

That being said, when it comes to the new contract at flair, in my honest opinion it is far from a good deal. But here's how it went:

1) 95 pilots actually employed by the company were working for flair in early summer '21. Those pilots were dealt the best hand. They were offered retro pay and 7000 shares each. In clear terms when it comes to negotiating, they were bought out for a price no one knows. Those shares could be worth 70$ or 7000$.

2) Captains that have spent the last year working here were very tempted to take the deal because of retro pay. It meant to them a good juicy check on top of better pay and they just went for it. A good majority of them that is.

3) Some young captains actually were very vocal in their disbelief at how bad the contract was. The fact that concessions were made didn't make any sense and increase in salary wasn't enough for the timing in the market where everyone else will make more in a year or two.

4) I would hope and believe that all or just about all FOs voted against it.

So how did it come to pass? Like my point 1 and 2 stated, a good number of guys voted because they saw sort term gains. But really, they were sold or bullied to vote yes. Here's the reality: MEC is composed of all (with maybe one exception) old timers at the company. Guys who've been with flair for years. The new contract reflects that to the last detail. It is incredibly one sided. Truth is without changing the situation in MEC, it would always have been bad. It should be noted that obviously this is my own opinion as there is 65% of the pilots that voted yes.

So where does that go from here? Every other company out there is going to get better contracts out, better pay and conditions. Better scope when applicable and/or better protection.

What is lacking in this new contract? Just about everything. Salaries are just ok on the left side, and on the right they should have had a larger increase. The MMG was already high at 80, now it is 85. Block window is way up there if scheduling ever rosters at 92 for a couple of months the pilots in the bottom half of seniority will see their life turn to shit. The commuting policy is a joke, requiring 2 options out of the 4 or 5 listed to then protect the pilots. Every single options listed requires 2 flights or 2 ways of getting to your base to report for duty. This means you need 4 options to get there or else you're not protected. Might as well say you need to be there 2 full days before your duty starts, which for a commuter is just unrealistic if he intends to spend a little time home between days of work. There are very marginal gains on pension plan/savings. And no gains on insurance. Scheduling in its entirety is a negative for this contract, seeing no decrease in capped days of work, increase in hours, more flexibility for the company, no increase in report time for reserve holders, no long call reserve added, and I could go on and on and on.

The bottom line is this contract isn't anywhere close to where it should have been. It was negotiated by company men, who won't see the impact on scheduling concessions because they are up the list, and they made sure to scare a lot of the membership that everything could be clawed back. And sure it could have been, but then everyone else would start seeing their MOA and LOU and BA get better and flair would have had no choice but to follow. With talks about the new TA being very heated within flair pilots, there even was instances of... Let's say bullying because that is the closest thing that comes to mind.

So here you have it. It was definitely more political than it should have been. Incredibly one sided. That is not to say that captains didn't vote against the new TA, many did. But for a lot of them the gains were enough and they started thinking about that big check coming in with retro pay. Lots of them got shares, and to some that meant a lot. Funny enough we don't know what that means money-wise. But the end result is as you know it now.

2 years from now the pilot group will go back to the table, this time around hopefully with new reps.

Insulting anyone here won't change the facts, and saying the flair pilots are idiots isn't justified. I'm one of them, I voted no but here we are. I'm not going to get into a fight with anyone here, I explained to the best I could how things went, and hats off to management for pulling this one, they did their job the union reps didn't (or couldn't do better). I hope the next one will reflect the severity of the shortage, and I hope all other pilot groups in Canada get twice our pay and better benefits.

Cheers

Well said. The MEC appointed the negotiating committee too...that must have been un-bias. So when is the current MEC's term up?

[FelixGustof]

t_n_g

I agree with a lot of your opinions, disagree with a few but I respect your calm clear perspective, it's rather refreshing. I personally know all the negotiating committee and I believe they offered us this TA with the intention of fixing the biggest problems with the Unifor CBA, namely loop holes you could drive a truck through, and left seat remuneration. As a flight instructor 20 years ago I learned that if you try to fix all of your student's problems at once, you crush their spirit and they can quit trying, the key is to tell them the one thing that if corrected would make the most significant difference to their training, and file the rest away for later, write it in their PTR and work on it once the big hurdles are done.

I also believe they gave the company the tools it needs to turn a decent profit over the next three years, while doubling the fleet size. I'm ok working a bit harder for a few years to build a strong foundation. I believe we are on the right track for what is essentially a 3 year old business model in Canada, and by the end of this short CBA I believe we will be looking well past F50, at something more like F75 or F100. I believe we will have a publicly traded company, with a healthy profit margin, and will be in a great position to make improvements to the areas that are lacking.

A pilot that wants to donate his pay to company profits

This stuff is just comical

[tbaylx]

t_n_g

I agree with a lot of your opinions, disagree with a few but I respect your calm clear perspective, it's rather refreshing. I personally know all the negotiating committee and I believe they offered us this TA with the intention of fixing the biggest problems with the Unifor CBA, namely loop holes you could drive a truck through, and left seat remuneration. As a flight instructor 20 years ago I learned that if you try to fix all of your student's problems at once, you crush their spirit and they can quit trying, the key is to tell them the one thing that if corrected would make the most significant difference to their training, and file the rest away for later, write it in their PTR and work on it once the big hurdles are done.

I also believe they gave the company the tools it needs to turn a decent profit over the next three years, while doubling the fleet size. I'm ok working a bit harder for a few years to build a strong foundation. I believe we are on the right track for what is essentially a 3 year old business model in Canada, and by the end of this short CBA I believe we will be looking well past F50, at something more like F75 or F100. I believe we will have a publicly traded company, with a healthy profit margin, and will be in a great position to make improvements to the areas that are lacking.

A pilot that wants to donate his pay to company profits

This stuff is just comical

A professional that realizes that the health and profitability of the company is beneficial to their long-term prospects and compensation is a refreshing alternative to the posters who don't care at all and whose sole goal is to work as little and inefficiently as possible for the most money.

[JHR]

Why would you want to work more for less??

[cdnavater]

t_n_g

I agree with a lot of your opinions, disagree with a few but I respect your calm clear perspective, it's rather refreshing. I personally know all the negotiating committee and I believe they offered us this TA with the intention of fixing the biggest problems with the Unifor CBA, namely loop holes you could drive a truck through, and left seat remuneration. As a flight instructor 20 years ago I learned that if you try to fix all of your student's problems at once, you crush their spirit and they can quit trying, the key is to tell them the one thing that if corrected would make the most significant difference to their training, and file the rest away for later, write it in their PTR and work on it once the big hurdles are done.

I also believe they gave the company the tools it needs to turn a decent profit over the next three years, while doubling the fleet size. I'm ok working a bit harder for a few years to build a strong foundation. I believe we are on the right track for what is essentially a 3 year old business model in Canada, and by the end of this short CBA I believe we will be looking well past F50, at something more like F75 or F100. I believe we will have a publicly traded company, with a healthy profit margin, and will be in a great position to make improvements to the areas that are lacking.

A pilot that wants to donate his pay to company profits

This stuff is just comical

A professional that realizes that the health and profitability of the company is beneficial to their long-term prospects and compensation is a refreshing alternative to the posters who don't care at all and whose sole goal is to work as little and inefficiently as possible for the most money.

You’ll be CEO in no time, by the way, that is most peoples goal! Work as little as possible for the most money possible, duh!
When the companies stop passing around the profits in raises for the management after getting their pound of flesh from the workers, maybe we can have a rational conversation.
I would work more for less if I stood to gain at year end like they do, until then, I will work as little as possible for the most money possible.

[Tbayer2021]

I guess the company extracting the most labour for the least pay is perfectly fine though lol

[tbaylx]

I guess the company extracting the most labour for the least pay is perfectly fine though lol

I'd say a new hire pilot at Flair is doing just fine in comparison to other airlines. Add in the lifestyle benefits of multiple bases, no commuting, home every night, relatively high seniority quickly etc.

10 Year Pay Comparison.jpeg (292.84 KiB) Viewed 2989 times

[co-joe]

A pilot that wants to donate his pay to company profits

This stuff is just comical

It's called an investment. The more money Flair makes, the more money they will have to pay pilots in 2 years and 11 months when the contract comes back up for negotiation.

[Sharklasers]

I guess the company extracting the most labour for the least pay is perfectly fine though lol

I'd say a new hire pilot at Flair is doing just fine in comparison to other airlines. Add in the lifestyle benefits of multiple bases, no commuting, home every night, relatively high seniority quickly etc.

10 Year Pay Comparison.jpeg

I’m having some trouble with that chart.
I added up step 1-10 flair salary at 85 hours and got 1.799 million assuming you were DEC and spent your whole career in the left seat. Do you get 2.3 with 2% raise or something? And if that’s the case wouldn’t it be proper for the Air Canada 737 to factor in those same 2% raises and not just the 2021 published numbers?

[tbaylx]

I guess the company extracting the most labour for the least pay is perfectly fine though lol

I'd say a new hire pilot at Flair is doing just fine in comparison to other airlines. Add in the lifestyle benefits of multiple bases, no commuting, home every night, relatively high seniority quickly etc.

10 Year Pay Comparison.jpeg

I’m having some trouble with that chart.
I added up step 1-10 flair salary at 85 hours and got 1.799 million assuming you were DEC and spent your whole career in the left seat. Do you get 2.3 with 2% raise or something? And if that’s the case wouldn’t it be proper for the Air Canada 737 to factor in those same 2% raises and not just the 2021 published numbers?

That chart included normalized MMG and incentives. Updated to provide an equal comparison on base MMG without COLA and include YOS carry over where applicable to airlines. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Timetoflyagain]

I guess the company extracting the most labour for the least pay is perfectly fine though lol

I'd say a new hire pilot at Flair is doing just fine in comparison to other airlines. Add in the lifestyle benefits of multiple bases, no commuting, home every night, relatively high seniority quickly etc.
10 Year Pay Comparison.jpeg

…the Porter RRSP match starts at 4% and rises to 9% at year 9. Big difference….

[the_new_guy]

t_n_g

I agree with a lot of your opinions, disagree with a few but I respect your calm clear perspective, it's rather refreshing. I personally know all the negotiating committee and I believe they offered us this TA with the intention of fixing the biggest problems with the Unifor CBA, namely loop holes you could drive a truck through, and left seat remuneration. As a flight instructor 20 years ago I learned that if you try to fix all of your student's problems at once, you crush their spirit and they can quit trying, the key is to tell them the one thing that if corrected would make the most significant difference to their training, and file the rest away for later, write it in their PTR and work on it once the big hurdles are done.

I also believe they gave the company the tools it needs to turn a decent profit over the next three years, while doubling the fleet size. I'm ok working a bit harder for a few years to build a strong foundation. I believe we are on the right track for what is essentially a 3 year old business model in Canada, and by the end of this short CBA I believe we will be looking well past F50, at something more like F75 or F100. I believe we will have a publicly traded company, with a healthy profit margin, and will be in a great position to make improvements to the areas that are lacking.

I also believe we raised the ULLC bar, and clearly Sunwing's reaction, Lynx's pledge to match or beat our pay, Encore's pay raise MOA, WJ's upcoming negotiations, and lastly AC's upcoming bargaining will show we were the catalyst to raising WAWCON for all 705 pilots in this country. Imagine this little upstart doing that in 3 short years.

I like your analogy teacher/student. I have to say though, respectfully having never been an instructor, I would believe while trying to fix the biggest problem your student had you wouldn't want him to focus solely on that while ignoring the rest of the skill set required. And you wouldn't want to see the rest of it regress. That's only my assumption. So to put that in terms of contract, the pay was a huge problem that's true, and had the company fixed it without touching the remaining articles regarding scheduling first and foremost, I honestly wouldn't have had a big problem with the new contract. I, personally, would still think in this hypothetical scenario that the salaries would still be too little but I could have found it acceptable for the 2-3 years period.

Put simply, we're now going to have to fight for concessions we made on this contract just to get back to where we were scheduling wise on the next one.

There's so much that is already behind in salaries and benefits and scheduling, and the gap will keep increasing as the rest of the market adjusts in the next couple of years. Don't get me wrong I'm well aware that there will always be someone further behind, we can't all be at the forefront and leading the pack, but it seems to me that the losts are at pretty close to equal to the gains made this time around.

I'm glad you can tell me that most of our reps really did the best they could as you know them personally, and if that's so, then I shouldn't feel left in the dust. I don't know them, I come from a place where shady stuff happened way more than it should, and I can only tell you that it unfortunately feels a little like that again. Not to the same extent, but still. I've heard older guys that have been with flair for a little while say "we built this company, we deserve a piece, what did you do to deserve those shares?" and to this I say the company before the end of '21 was nothing compared to what it is right now. Foundations were laid by the ones that have been here for the past 3 years when the ground work really started, but you would not have walls and a roof on that shed if it weren't for the guys coming in the last year/year and a half. Those guys came at a time where the market opened up again, taking the gamble on flair instead of going to westjet or AC (or others). Those guys have taken the risk most of the old-timers didn't. I believe the old guard sure deserves its shares, but so does the new guard.

All that to say what I said previously: it was very one sided. And shares is the smallest issue I have with our new agreement, and even though it is, I can easily defend my point of view on it. Day in, day out. Same goes for other issues stated previously.

It's now on to the next one in my mind. But between here and there, we will loose more guys, and some if not maybe most of them could have been convinced to stay if the new agreement was a more inclusive one, all together better, and not so heavily one sided favouring way more a handful of pilots.

I hope you don't take any of this as offensive or abrasive, it really isn't meant that way. I respect each and everyone's opinion, and hopefully this stays a healthy discussion in the future.

[the_new_guy]

Alright so here goes nothing..

First of all, there's absolutely no point attacking someone on a personal level. At all. Management or line pilot, doesn't matter. You can't attack a guy who is doing his job, you can certainly be of completely opposite opinions but remaining just a little professional goes a lot farther.

That being said, when it comes to the new contract at flair, in my honest opinion it is far from a good deal. But here's how it went:

1) 95 pilots actually employed by the company were working for flair in early summer '21. Those pilots were dealt the best hand. They were offered retro pay and 7000 shares each. In clear terms when it comes to negotiating, they were bought out for a price no one knows. Those shares could be worth 70$ or 7000$.

2) Captains that have spent the last year working here were very tempted to take the deal because of retro pay. It meant to them a good juicy check on top of better pay and they just went for it. A good majority of them that is.

3) Some young captains actually were very vocal in their disbelief at how bad the contract was. The fact that concessions were made didn't make any sense and increase in salary wasn't enough for the timing in the market where everyone else will make more in a year or two.

4) I would hope and believe that all or just about all FOs voted against it.

So how did it come to pass? Like my point 1 and 2 stated, a good number of guys voted because they saw sort term gains. But really, they were sold or bullied to vote yes. Here's the reality: MEC is composed of all (with maybe one exception) old timers at the company. Guys who've been with flair for years. The new contract reflects that to the last detail. It is incredibly one sided. Truth is without changing the situation in MEC, it would always have been bad. It should be noted that obviously this is my own opinion as there is 65% of the pilots that voted yes.

So where does that go from here? Every other company out there is going to get better contracts out, better pay and conditions. Better scope when applicable and/or better protection.

What is lacking in this new contract? Just about everything. Salaries are just ok on the left side, and on the right they should have had a larger increase. The MMG was already high at 80, now it is 85. Block window is way up there if scheduling ever rosters at 92 for a couple of months the pilots in the bottom half of seniority will see their life turn to shit. The commuting policy is a joke, requiring 2 options out of the 4 or 5 listed to then protect the pilots. Every single options listed requires 2 flights or 2 ways of getting to your base to report for duty. This means you need 4 options to get there or else you're not protected. Might as well say you need to be there 2 full days before your duty starts, which for a commuter is just unrealistic if he intends to spend a little time home between days of work. There are very marginal gains on pension plan/savings. And no gains on insurance. Scheduling in its entirety is a negative for this contract, seeing no decrease in capped days of work, increase in hours, more flexibility for the company, no increase in report time for reserve holders, no long call reserve added, and I could go on and on and on.

The bottom line is this contract isn't anywhere close to where it should have been. It was negotiated by company men, who won't see the impact on scheduling concessions because they are up the list, and they made sure to scare a lot of the membership that everything could be clawed back. And sure it could have been, but then everyone else would start seeing their MOA and LOU and BA get better and flair would have had no choice but to follow. With talks about the new TA being very heated within flair pilots, there even was instances of... Let's say bullying because that is the closest thing that comes to mind.

So here you have it. It was definitely more political than it should have been. Incredibly one sided. That is not to say that captains didn't vote against the new TA, many did. But for a lot of them the gains were enough and they started thinking about that big check coming in with retro pay. Lots of them got shares, and to some that meant a lot. Funny enough we don't know what that means money-wise. But the end result is as you know it now.

2 years from now the pilot group will go back to the table, this time around hopefully with new reps.

Insulting anyone here won't change the facts, and saying the flair pilots are idiots isn't justified. I'm one of them, I voted no but here we are. I'm not going to get into a fight with anyone here, I explained to the best I could how things went, and hats off to management for pulling this one, they did their job the union reps didn't (or couldn't do better). I hope the next one will reflect the severity of the shortage, and I hope all other pilot groups in Canada get twice our pay and better benefits.

Cheers

Well said. The MEC appointed the negotiating committee too...that must have been un-bias. So when is the current MEC's term up?

I'm not aware of current term limits (are there any?). We have a good year to see how the company behaves, how our union defends when needed and how transparent this all will be. I'm saying one year because after that if we need new elected members the process could take time and you want well trained, well rounded representation for the 2 year mark when negotiations can start on the next TA.

We also need engagement at that point, but this is an unknown right now.

[FNGYYZ]

.

[Anonymouse]

Pilots can help a company save money by doing their job. Show up on time, don't abuse sick days, fly economically, don't waste time, that's how you help a company save money.

Taking a lower pay rate has very little impact on revenue compared to just showing up and doing your job well. There's no honour in taking a pay cut to save a corporation.

[co-joe]

Pilots can help a company save money by doing their job. Show up on time, don't abuse sick days, fly economically, don't waste time, that's how you help a company save money.

Taking a lower pay rate has very little impact on revenue compared to just showing up and doing your job well. There's no honour in taking a pay cut to save a corporation.

Nobody at Flair took a pay cut on this CBA though, so I'm not smelling what you're stepping in.

When we did take a pay cut is at the bottom of Covid, we agreed to half time pay for half a block for a couple of months to save the company That felt highly honourable, and likely there wouldn't be a Flair sub forum here if we hadn't.

[flyinhigh]

The fact we are here two weeks later discussing a crap deal with only a 6__% vote in favor says a lot.

Sure you got a pay raise, but you also boosted the MMG to 85 hours, meaning you will be working more so that pay raise is not a good as it seems.

Where is the life style aspects, like Trip and Duty rigs? Not once has that been discussed. How are they, what do they look like? That alone changes the context of the contract.

[bradleyscotts]

I guess the company extracting the most labour for the least pay is perfectly fine though lol

I'd say a new hire pilot at Flair is doing just fine in comparison to other airlines. Add in the lifestyle benefits of multiple bases, no commuting, home every night, relatively high seniority quickly etc.
10 Year Pay Comparison.jpeg

A couple of things I believe are worth mentioning.

Firstly, most pilots will look beyond 10 years when making decisions about which airline to go to.

Secondly, a pilot with 10 year seniority can hold the left seat of the 767. According to the last equip bid a march 2019 pilot is holding 767CA. A 767 Cargo Captain makes about $227 blended rate + $24/hr for nav/over seas pay (as of 2022) If this pilot chooses he can make more money on RSV as it Pays DBM - 2hrs. Not only would he make more money, he would also work less for it.

Thirdly, I did not see any mention Of AC' share purchase program. I pilot can contribute up to 10% of income for a company match of 33.3% up to a max company match of 10K a year.

Lastly, to compare a 10 year old contract, voted after back to work legislation and arbitration with brand new contract negotiated during a time of shortage and demand for experienced pilots shows a bias.

AC's contract is up for renewal Sept of this year.

[daedalusx]

I don’t necessarily disagree but keep in mind that’s it’s a shit schedule to be WB junior captain at AC.