The WS mafia, as some call it, is a senior group that bids good trips that are then placed on the swap board for straight pick up (or just PDd) and then their schedule is clear. Supposedly down to 0. Then they go back in and pick up good WS trips with low block and full credit. They want trips with the most CR and min TAFB and put themselves on short short call to get them. I've had 88As explain it to me, 88Bs are kind of coy about it when asked.
They WS until it becomes apparent that they should've GS'd but then they WS anyways. There is a lot of this.
A good day or two day trip comes up in open time you'll see it go very senior and very quickly. Ive talked to Captains who do it, their joke is if they get injured their spouse has been instructed to go back and pick up as much as possible before telling the company.
So yes, WSs are senior, in seniority order if they meet credit requirements. And guys will do it day after day back to back because their schedules are wide open. I think they, in times of no GS, can still score 100+ hours with little block. Are they playing with fire? Sure, at the end of the month they'll pick up less than ideal WS trips if short.
You do see that a lot but if you want to try it you better be senior.
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I don't think this WS system was in the calculation when they said the GS system is better than the 1.5x system because the former spreads things out between more pilots.
GS are not "spreading the wealth". Most go out on the weekends, you need to be senior to get weekends off. I have all weekends off and I bet I could get GS #4 before a junior guy working weekends ever gets #1. In my experience, GSs still are a senior thing. Want proof? Just say you want GS to be on a rolling 3 month look back instead of just within the month, bet you won't find senior takers on that one.
Besides, what happens when GS type trips are just picked up on WS by senior pilots? And is it it really spreading the wealth if someone junior in the meantime has PBS lines to 90 hours for basically straight pay while someone senior gets 100 hours on 40 hours of block?
To me
it's always worth looking at 1.5x pay twice if we're trying to figure out how to increase pay without consideration to section 3.
But if we were to add 1.5x, I want to see a cap and the GS system to stay as is.