Originally Posted by
Pro2nd
Thanks,
Maybe I'm delusional with what I'm looking for. some of this may be a long shot and may indeed make reserve a nice way to work at United. I don't know why reserve has to be a poor qol. I guess simply because it has always been in the past, and none of us like change. If I was senior, while living in base, I wouldn't mind bidding reserve for the long term if it gave me more days at home and the reserve rules got straightened out giving me qol.
I think getting rid of RDO days would force them to staff the global fleet properly. They have absolutely no incentive to now. At the vary least why are we not compensated at all for rolling our days? This seems insane to me coming from a lowly regional airline with reserve rules far superior. There is no excuse to need more days available from a pilot than 18! And RDO days are basically more days on call. I still can't believe that was even allowed in a major airline contract to begin with.
Anyway, it will be what it will be. I'm voting no, as is my wife. If it passes, like it most likely will, I will make the best of it and could very well see a shiney new sports car in the garage in February to releave the stress of getting my days off rolled for the next 3 years.
Happy new year UAL brothers and sisters!
The difference is that regional flying doesn't really need the ability to roll days off. Worst case is you fly a couple hours away from a crew base. Much easier to staff than a 6 day 747 trip that gets no closer to home than NRT. It would require a MASSIVE number of reserves to cover it effectively. Not saying that wouldn't be GREAT for us, but the company would cost it enormously. And given the RLA, there wouldn't be a whole lot we could do to change it without spending a TON of negotiating capital. I agree that the FDO for basic flying is crap. There are enough crew bases around to handle it.
Reserve QOL can be rough. It can also be amazing. I ran into a 747 Captain the other day who I know and he was headed back to DENTK for landings. Think about that. If this TA passes he's making north of $300/hr to fly less than 1 trip a month. Obviously a 756 FO is going to have a different experience. But believe it or not, reserve is a LOT better than it used to be; for LCAL prior to the merger, and for LUAL prior to about 2005 or so when there was no such thing as long call.