First, I'm not defending these guys or flight mana.ement. I'm only trying to point out what the contract says.

25.L.1.a .***A pilot shall have the ability to submit for a bid line adjustment through VIPS at any time during the bid period.* Submissions for bid line adjustments shall be processed within each type of adjustment (e.g., PMU,
make-up, open time trades, etc.) in the order in which they are received.

So time stamps only apply within a category. All PMU are processed together, all MUV togethet and all open time trades together etc.

So an open time trade with a time stamp of 0001Z cannot be compared to a PMU request with a time stamp of 0002Z.

The question now becomes, in what order are requests processed. Here is all I can find:

25.G.3.b Open time not assigned as provided in Section 25.G.1. (above) shall be assigned in the following order:

i.****SUB, RAT or PMU;

ii.***Make-up:

(a)*CMU

(b)*M/U

(c)*MUS* (includes both MUS and MUD)

(d)*MUV;

iii.**AFB;

iv.**RSV;

v.***VLT;

vi.**DRF.

Note no mention of open time. My guess is that CRS policy (since it is not spelled out in the contract) is open time is processed after MUV on the list. That way they cover the max amount of trips.

So if at the beginning of the month I drop my entire line and then hawk open time my MU request will always trump an open time swap every time. And I don't necessarily have to do trip specific with a time stamp. I can have a general makeup request in the system that will also trump the open time request

Not saying it is right, just the way it is.

Of coure real time trip trading solves all of this.