Have you tried to drop a weekend trip in denver in the past 3 months? Our scheduling flexibility has always been based on the fact that folks live in denver, and everyone picks up open time. That is no longer the case. Chicago still has a great deal of flexibility because most of the pilots commute and rsv pilots try to aggressive bid as much as possible so there is no open time. The point I was trying to make was that this has nothing to do with work rules. There I really no language in the contract that gives us great flexibility, only the fact that our pilots historically picked up lots of flying which kept the pot empty so u could drop trips. In addition the DDL has not changed with the increase of block hours which further exacerbates the problem.
Zoo makes some good points but I would argue that having the ability to credit 1500+ hours and making less than a spirit pilot crediting 1100+ is nothing to be proud of. Just because you can get vja'd everytime you turn around; you're still spending the better part of your month at the airport.