[QUOTE=Roadkill;1713364]Herman and Sailingfun two posts above... poor logic.
The fact that senior guys can now make out well on reserve (and thus bid it) has nothing to do whatever with the fact there was a concession that cost pilot jobs. You (sailing) seem to constantly attempt to use rhetoric to misguide and obfuscate the conversation, and attempt to drive home an agenda of "Everything is awesome, there were no concessions whatsoever".

1. It is a fact the airline used to have to be staffed heavier for summer flying, because you couldn't force guys to fly above 72ish hours.
2. It is a fact that failures in staffing during IROPS and at the LIMITS of requirements when things went wrong, are what drove min required pilots.
3. It is a fact that NOW the company INSTANTLY CAN PLAN ON 99ish hours from their reserves WHEN NEEDED FOR IROPS/BAD TIMES.
4. While this high use of reserves is seldom used, almost never, and while the AVERAGE reserve time for guys is much much less than this upper limit...It is still a fact that the company's ABILITY TO GO TO THIS UPPER LIMIT gives them a new LIMITING FACTOR worst-case planning limit that is about 43% more productive than what they had.
5. It is a fact that this seldom-used ability to force guys up towards 99 hours when needed is a huge scheduling/staffing boon to the company, and it allows them to essentially staff the airline for winter flying levels and boost up when rarely needed for summer/irop/bad-times flying.

Either you are much much less intelligent than I have been led to believe from your writing, OR... you are knowingly trying to guide attention away from this and misguide folks with your unending parroting of "Very few folks have been flying to 99 hours, so therefore it wasn't a concession!".

Again, I'll play and jump in to remind you, and all the others reading this that you're trying to misguide and bamboozle, the concession wasn't how many folks ACTUALLY end up flying 99 hours... it's the fact the company can staff for that uncommon summer weekend/irop need now with much fewer pilots.[/QUOTE


Road kill,

I agree with you that these are two separate issues. The fact that reserve goes more senior system wide basically means reserve is now perceived to be better. This does not mean that the ALV+15 was not a concession - it was, but I have to agree with Sailing on this issue, I think it is a relatively minor concession.

For one thing many categories are often short on reserves in the beginning and middle of the month, not to mention the IROP issue which you bring up and that can occur anytime during the month- ALV+15 provides no help here at all and might even make things worse. If the company tries to carry fewer reserves thinking they will fly more hours they may run out of reserves more often earlier in the month.

Second, as Sailing mentioned there were some offsets that help to minimize hours flown.

Finally, as I have repeatedly stated this concession only affects a small portion of Reserve Pilots, themselves a small portion of all Pilots.

Where we really got our clock cleaned was the 30 day summer months. If you want to talk staffing, this in my opinion is the 800 lb gorilla in the room. Using 3.3% of only 10,000 pilots was and is an instant 330 pilot concession on our most demanding staffing months.

It amazes me how many guys are more concerned about ALV +15 which in my opinion is not even the same league as the 30 day months when it comes to staffing concessions.

FWIW I am a 73N FO and I bounce back and forth from line to reserve quite a bit.

Additionally I think the 5:15/day and paying the reserves the same as line holders will also help out.

In summary: I agree that ALV 15 is a concession albeit a minor one.

Just my opinion.

Scoop