WRT to the bucket system, the original intent of it was to bring "seniority back into reserve." But seniority had never left reserve. When I used to sit around #5 or so on reserve out of 80-110 pilots, I wouldn't fly to week 3 or 4. Reserve definitely was definitely involved.
EXCEPT in one place - Short Call. SC was worth 0. It was assigned haphazardly and was a very frustrating system to plan around. I'll say what I've said from day 1 of the bucket system, it was SC that needed to be fixed. When guys complained about it, the senior guys, it was about SC.
And it was. The fact SC counts now towards RAW, the fact you can demand SC and request times or not demand it but still put in times in case they assign it is great. Love it. Well, I'd love it more if scheduling actually would abide by it. I call more often than I like to point out they didn't actually read the requests.
Around the time the buckets came out or before it things got a little cloudier on reserve because they changed the staffing formula to basically no pilots available on the weekends. Great, we all get weekends off but man if you don't, you're flying. The only way to solve that is to change that formula. Bet that won't be popular.
Anyways, when they fixed SC they also created the 80 RAW bucket. That's ridiculously high on low flying months and here is why:
Say you have a 4 week month, the first pilot on LC on Monday of week 1 gets a 4 day and a 44 raw.
On Monday week 2, same pilot gets another 4 day and thus has an 88 raw and is in bucket 2.
On Monday week 3, same pilot has 0 SCs, so they get SC and a 4 day and now have a 137 raw.
On Monday week 4, same pilot gets another SC because they've only sat 1 and everyone else sat 3. So they go out on a low time 3 day.
Said pilot ends the month with a raw of 170 and say 70 hours.
Someone senior flies 0 hours, 0 RAW, 0 SCs.
To which someone would say, that's okay, they're junior. They deserve it. That's the way the system works, blah blah blah.
What is junior? What is senior? That example I gave doesn't have to be between pilot #1 and pilot #110. It can in theory be between pilot #35 and pilot #34.
IMHO; drop the bucket thresholds by 20-30 points each and SC assignments need to be computerized.