Originally Posted by
baseball
The company tells us to bid what we want, and don't bid what we don't want. Well, that works for monthly scheduling preferencing too. Maybe we just shouldn't bid at all, and let the company assign us every week.... NAH, I'd rather bid, and use my seniority to predict the quality of my trip. The quality of my trip is defined both in pay and in seat position.
The company can have the seat, it is theirs at the end of the day, they just need to pay me for it. They can FBO me, and buy my trip. I can then stay home, or decide if I want to pick something else up. But, sending me to Bunkie duty just for the convenience of the company is unsat, and any LCA that tries to abrogate my seniority is just a stooge for Howard.
Presuming someone in management is at least as smart as me ( pretty low bar), it won't be hard for them to figure this out.
They will publish only trips for FO's - No IRO trips. There is not such position in the FAR's.
The company can re-write the portion on the FOM and FM to change the term IRO to second FO.
The augmented flights will likely have two FO's, as required by FAR's.
They will be designated FO1 and FO2.
We did something similar in the Air Force on augmented trips. I think they were called First Pilot, Second Pilot.
Remember when augmenting started in jets. There was a flight engineer. So the "IRO" was a Captain qualified Second Officer- or vice versa, whoever the company could get to bid it. It was a distinct position that paid more than FO- less than captain. The IRO had to maintain currency in both seats.
I digress however. The blame for this all rests with the FAA. Util recently the IRO or Bunkie just didn't show for the trip when IOE was conducted. He was FBO'd.
It was the FAA who decided he had to stay on the trip, since the IOE guy was "not quailfied". The Union should have fought hard against this with the FAA.
If the IOE receiver is not qualified on an international flight, he isn't for domestic either, so ALL IOE flights should have a bunkie to relieve the Captain when he has to pee!
ALPA decided to remain silent on the FAA decision, figuring they would just lay it all on the company, so now we have this mess.
Wonder how it is done at DL and AA?