Originally Posted by
Check Essential
Long call is basically voluntary starting January 1.
No one ever has to acknowledge a trip until three hours prior to report and that means you cannot fly that trip. You can choose to acknowledge more than 10 hours prior if you wish, but no one is required to do so. It's strictly voluntary.
Management cannot rewrite our contract by issuing memos. If they want to clarify or change the long call provisions contained in our contract then they must either negotiate with ALPA or dock somebody's paycheck and force a grievance.
Until then they will just have to cover their open time using short call reserves, white slips and green slips.
Don't forget that a pilot will be required to have 10 hours of acknowledged rest prior to starting short call as well. The PWA says that you do not have to acknowledge a short call conversion until one hour prior to starting the short call period. Sooooo, if you follow the PWA and aknowledge one hour prior, you would not be able to start a trip until 9 hours after starting the SC period! But that's not really true either because: you can't even start the SC period until you have the required acknowledged rest, and again, you don't have to acknowledge an assignment to SC until an hour prior, which then makes you illegal to start the period as assigned, which means scheduling would have to change your SC start time, and you would not have to acknowledge said change until one hour to starting your new SC period, which puts you into a logic loop that could keep you from ever actually being on SC.
