Originally Posted by
sailingfun
I had the same thing happen once. Listened to a guy in the lounge telling everyone how badly abused he was on reserve. Started pulling up his schedules as he talked. Over the previous 7 months he had averaged working 8 days a month and 3 shortcalls. Several of the work days overlapped the short call days. Another favorite is for Delta pilots to quote their earnings but not add back in the 401k, 401 catch up, health account contributions ect.. thus understating their yearly earnings by up to 26,000 a year.
Regardless of whether pilots are giving an accurate portrayal of their life on reserve, it can be a good option for pilots and better than alternatives in a given situation. The past several years since the merger we have been overstaffed due to "capacity restraint". That will not be the case in the future.
If we allow the rules to be changed in the negative there will be a lot of pilots being abused with no ability to reduce the amount they fly. Also, as mentioned by others, GS, and premium pay for those wanting to increase income for minimally more work lose that ability.
Lets not continually cut off the options to tailor our QOL or income objectives. A pay raise alone or working more hours with crappy work rules is not the answer.