It’s here! PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers can access this week’s issue by clicking here.

Wednesday United Airlines announced that it and ALPA had come to terms on what it calls a “cost-neutral” contract modification.

The agreement, which still has to be voted upon by the ALPA membership, is an effort to primarily alleviate the pilot staffing shortages the airline currently is experiencing, and would most likely see grow worse as we move into the summer months.

Here is a list of the included modifications, as per the employee hotline message that was sent out to United employees.

Contract Modifications Outline



Trip Construction Items:

* LCO pilots gets the same trip and duty rigs as mainline pilots, however, the look back pay system goes away.

* Duty based rest system instead of flight time based rest system.

Schedule Construction Items:

* All pilots have an 89 hours schedule cap.

* Pilots may voluntarily increase their cap from 89 hours to any value between 89 and 95 hours (in no less than 30 minute increments).

* Minimum Guarantee for line holders is increased from 65 hours to 70 hours to equal the minimum reserve guarantee.

* Trip Trade floor is changed from 50 hours to 65 hours.

* Company may offer Surplus Reduction Lines at 35 hours (1⁄2 of minimum guarantee).

* PBS Construction floor increased from 65 hours to 75 hours.

Actual Operation Items:

* Line Guarantee for each lineholder – the pilot’s Pay Credit at the beginning of the month will be protected from being reduced by reassignments/cancellations, etc.

* The pay credit that is protected will increase and decrease with trip trading.

* If a trip or portion of a trip is cancelled the pilot will be permitted to pickup trips under 20-H or will be assigned other flying or telephone standby on each of the days the original trip was scheduled to operate. The Company must make this assignment only once during the cancellation, however, such assignment may involve all the days of the original assignment.

* The reassignment language in Section 20 is changed from 16 hours and 8 hours into a day off to 14 hours and 10 hours into a day off.

* 16 to 14 example:

If a pilot is scheduled to get home at 16:00 and he is reassigned, the reassignment must have the pilot scheduled to be home no later than 0600 instead of 0800.

* 8 to 10 example:

If a pilot is scheduled to get home at 20:00 and he is reassigned, the reassignment must have the pilot scheduled to be home no later than 1000 instead of 0800.

* If a lineholder falls one day below the minimum days off for operational reasons (not due to a reassignment) his schedule will not be repaired.

Training Freeze Items:

* All freezes for future LCO bids will now equal the freezes for the mainline.

* If a pilot currently has a freeze greater than 48 months, that freeze will be reduced to 48 months.

* The time permitted to get a pilot scheduled for training is increased to nine months from the current six months. The pay trigger associated with a new bid will remain unchanged at 62 days after the advertised effective date.

Miscellaneous Items:

* Pilots vacating their lines for OE training will be paid the line value plus three hours instead of cap plus three hours.

* Pilots will be given the option of doing some TK CBT training at home and paid at 2.8 hours per day (limit of eight hours per day)

* PC/PT required pre-study limited to 25 hours. Currently no contractual limit.

* All credit time above 95 hours will be put in the bank.

* Beginning in December of each vacation year if the company solicits, pilots may be permitted to sell some of their unassigned vacation. The amount subject to be sell back is subject to limits to reduce manpower implications. This will reduce the number of pilots that have vacation involuntarily bought back.

IAD-PEK Driven Temporary Wide Body Items:

* In order to reduce international “W” trips, reduce involuntary TDY, reduce 8-L-6 assignments, and reduce re-assignments, the following scheduling caps are temporarily increased through the October Bid month:

o 777 and 400 increased from 89 to 96 hours.

* In order to permit pilots to be released from flying to attend training for their wide body bids, the following scheduling caps are temporarily increased through the October Bid month:

o 767 increased from 89 to 92 hours.

* No changes to the 737 or 320 scheduling cap of 95 hours until November.

* All credit time in excess of 96 hours through October will put in the bank

* In November, all pilots will go to the voluntary Flexible Cap outlined in Schedule Construction Items above.

Any United pilots out there who would like to comment on these changes and modifications? Are these enough? Is this a good move on the part of the company? Let me know what you think.

Well, since last week when it appeared JetBlue was suffering from a weather-related meltdown of sorts — this story has certainly changed complexion.

Now we know it was not just a mistake to try and get those planes up and flying — the ones that ended up freezing to the concrete at JFK. We now know that this decision then kicked off what appears to have been a collapse of the airline’s crew and scheduling system. This collapse was then complicated by the fact the airline’s reservations system and customer call function were totally unable to handle the demand brought on by the airline’s shutdown.

Was the airline just deaf, dumb, and blind as to how to be prepared for such a situation?

From what I hear, no. But they were too slow in starting upgrades that are now in progress. Or, as someone said to me this weekend, “We just grew this damn thing too fast over the last two years.”

I tend to believe that. As I wrote over a year ago — JetBlue was moving “Too Much, Too Hard, Too Fast.”

I think that about says it all.

The airline has massive internal infrastructure issues to contend with here — this is just not a matter of leaving some planes off the gate for 10 hours. The problems are much deeper.

On the good side, as I wrote in PBB last week, as this mess was only beginning to show its really ugly ramifications, I had to give CEO David Neeleman high-fives for being out there in the public and taking full blame.

This week, he’s been out even more — and guys, that is not easy to do. And I can count on one hand the times we’ve seen other airline CEOs do the same thing.

I don’t think there’s any question that his personal efforts to numb the sting felt by their customers, by going out and taking the blame, and offering up the airline’s own version of a “bill of rights” for passengers is brilliant from a crisis communications standpoint.

Excellent decision on his part to get out there and take the lumps.

His YouTube video effort was also a brilliant idea. It appears to be unscripted. David is just David, talking as he normally does. It plays as though you’re listening to some guy in his house. Basement with a JetBlue sign behind him? Perfect feel. If they had trotted out some professionally produced slick piece of video, the effect would not have nearly been as positive. Good decision on someone’s part.

But in the meantime, the airline’s operations systems are in need of serious upgrades — and quickly.

Not to mention the stock. Down 7% on Tuesday when the markets reopened, I would have seen this as a buying op, if one was so inclined. And apparently many were.

As we conjectured about here last week, Northwest didn’t take much time to unload the expected heavy artillery — and aim it directly at Frontier’s recently announced expansion into Memphis.

Northwest announced Monday that it was going to increase its flying out of Memphis to Orlando, Denver, and Las Vegas. Duh. So are we surprised? These are the same three routes Frontier announced last week.

And on the Denver routes, (just in case Frontier missed the intent of the announcement) the airline really brought out the reinforcements as the airline will move from flying three fifty-seat regional jet flights a day to three A319s and A320s. You can do the math.

These changes take effect June 7.

Northwest also announced new service from Memphis to Seattle and Indianapolis as part of the same release.

Good luck to the folks at Frontier.

Ticker: (FRNT:Nasdaq)

Okay, enough bead catching, enough great food, and enough of watching celebrities look strange riding atop floats.

Case in point: James Gandolfini, aka Tony Soprano. “T” was chosen to be the King of Bacchus this year — a gig that not only lets you ride the King’s float in one of the biggest parades of the season — but you are asked to do a variety of charity meet and greets as well.

At times, James looked a bit like a fish out of water up there on his float, then again, sometimes he did look like he was having a hell of a time. I think maybe it had something to do with the tights.

And what was with the hat and the cigar? is this Tony or is it James?

Ah, the Bacchigator float. One of my faves. It can hardly make corners without taking people out behind it.

On the other hand, while I am not a big Taylor Hicks fan, I had to admit the man looked like he was really enjoying himself the other night as he reigned as the celebrity monarch of Endymion, one of the other city’s “super krewes” as they are called.

All in all it appears it was a good Mardi Gras for the city — larger than last year, and with few hiccups to speak of. One small step forward. For that we can all be thankful.

Just a reminder. While it may be the day after President’s Day in the rest of the world, it’s Mardi Gras here in New Orleans.

We’ll be back to the wacky world of airlines tomorrow!

(Besides, this will give JetBlue one more day to get its act together.)

Actually we’re still doing final tweaks, but hey, it’s Friday and I know you guys are antsy to read. PBB subscribers can access this week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter by clicking here. Be aware that the editing drones are still in there doing their thing.

We’re here. Look for this week’s issue to be posted this afternoon. (Just didn’t want you to think we’d chucked it all and run off to Mardi Gras.)