Originally Posted by
forgot to bid
If RES increased by 1 minute on average that does not mean the staffing formula immediately required more pilots. We were not bumping up against the staffing formula.
So going from 40 to 41 minutes on average is still far from 60 but now it's fewer pilots required not because pilots are now flying to 99 hours but because they're flying entire trips that once could not have been assigned to them.
Now with the threat of guys timing out gone you need far less coverage.
You do need less coverage if you can use each pilot more. The explanation at the roadshow was that this is how we paid for the increase in reserve guarantee.
However, the staffing formula, which is applied each month, considers the total amount of reserve flying in a position. To the extent that reserve pilots were averaging less than 60 hours per month, the staffing formula was requiring incrementally fewer pilots in each succeeding month. if that average increases, the required pilots going forward also increases.
We certainly are bumping up against the staffing formula during the summer on a number of fleets. Look at the Bid Monitor report.