Because we have line bidding, volunteering is helpful during transition and anytime there is a higher need for reserves i.e. holidays and weekends or during the summer, etc.

With line bidding they need to carry a significant amount of extra reserves to cover the transition. It has gotten worse with the new contract. Later in the month that extra coverage is not useful so they rather not have it. This was a problem with the old contract as well. You may only have 83.3 block hours per months on average but if you are putting out fires for scheduling, on a short notice, all the time, you practically became a rolling reserve coverage all year long. You get a pay protected drop during a day where coverage is higher, and get 200% for your pick up. Great! But you are basically always on call. Just think. It is like having a 30 day reserve line. In essence, you are doing almost 2 reserve's job all by yourself. (More like 1.8.) If you have 10% of the peeps doing this, you can run the company with little reserve coverage and never cancel. And they did.

Obviously seven planes went back in 2008. I am not saying everyone's job could have been saved. But the company did overdue the furlough big time. Then Monohan was trying to get some brownie points by running the company with minimum levels even though the company paid top dollar for all those 200-300% trips.

So the "I can block only this much" argument is completely meaningless with line bidding.