You got this all wrong. As you noted, LAX works different. When a 3-day pops up, the senior guy does not get it.
Neither does the junior guy..
Alaska gets it.
For the rest of us, in all seriousness, it works just as you said but I believe you end up with the same result as Jesse was talking about
: Days of availability > bucket > seniority.
I know the buckets will be adjusted by category but it might not. Hence, the push back. From my interactions nobody has told me that we'll adjust it different than it is now. Not even a "in March we'll evaluate and redo it per category based on the results of February and adjusted for block hour changes." From the emails I'm getting their is no intention to change it.
I guess it boils down to two questions:
1. How is it fair that there is not a system that gives top X% of regular pilots an SIL worth ALV but yet there is one for reserve?
2. The pay tables have incremental increases from years 1 through 12, but why not just have a flat pay rate from year 1 to 11 and then spike it at 12? There's a reason obviously, so why have a system that says if pilots schedules are identical then it's okay to have one pilot fly 0 and the pilot one number junior fly 50-60 hours?
That's my beef on the construction of the bucket systems if RAW sizes are not adjusted to a rational number per category going forward.