Wow, what a thread!

I have no idea how 6 FO's could routinely (and without cheating) beat the other 500+ MEM MD11 FO's to sweet Open Time trips. That just seems improbable and highly unlikely.

I remember riding the jumpseat back home with one of our senior union guys, who was talking about the pilots with bots being on the company's radar... and that they would be fired. That was about 2 years ago. Shortly after that came an FCIF from JB that called attention to it, but nothing ever came of it, that I know of. If they our guys are in fact cheating the system in that way, and screwing other pilots like that, they should be given 90 days off without pay as a final warning. I'm sure that would correct the problem.

After that is resolved though, it would be nice to have a better Open Time process. At a previous life, what most pilots considered a very successfully scheduled airline, the company would have all pilots participate in what we here call the view/add window. That way, not only guys with C/I conflict, but all pilots senior to junior, who just wanted to improve their line, would be allowed to drop/swap/add with the existing Open Time. After that first churning of Open Time, came the awards in seniority order, and a second view/add window which allowed all pilots to again participate in the new available Open Time pot to better enhance their schedule after vacation, training, carry-in conflict. Again awards were in seniority order. Then, once "daily" Open Time opened up, ALL trips were awarded on a first-come, first-served basis, fully computer-automated and checked for legality, and fully transparent as to who time-stamped the request, and when (results of drops/swaps/adds were available within 15 seconds).

I saw the system as a huge success, because you could talk to from the most senior guy, to the most junior guy and guys were overall very happy with their schedule. The senior line holders had what they wanted to begin with, but were given a chance to massage and improve their line, the mid-seniority guys did great in this system too, and even the junior guys could improve their schedule significantly. Then, when it came to "daily" Open Time, the junior guys would hawk it constantly and would be able to consistently turn lines into what they needed (commutability, higher pay, shorter/longer length of trip, etc...). Another feature that added to this scheduling success was that there was a company-provided trip-trade board (I look forward to using appDude's FxCal trade board when back in MEM).

All this kept the pilots happy (I know, hard to believe), and the company was happy that guys were covering the trips as needed. Win-win. Good schedules + scheduling control/flexibility/transparency = happy pilots = productive pilots. I sure hope the future-ratified CBA will contain at least some overall improvements in this direction.