I have always thought that was the dumbest argument ever. Why do you want to pad the pilot roster? There are lifestyle pilots who want to drop down and there are guys that want to max out. Some months the roles reverse. It's not your job to man the airline. The company sets that limit based on block hours and crew manning requirements.

I can tell you from experience that the staffing formula does not rely on pilots picking up open time. That is a scheduling function that usually is set by negotiation. In our case it was 1% each month per seat and catagory.

There is a budget that is set for labor, like it or not. When you go in to negotiations you have an advantage when you demonstrate that you have a productive pilot group that can make a business case for more money. We don't want to see more money going to more people we want more money going to the individual pilot. Negotiations, especially when it comes down to mediation, are all about making the best business case.

The only time you should ever see a ban on picking up time is during the final close out stages of negotiations. That is the time when the company needs to see labor resolve. It sends a message that the pilot group is unified and usually leads to a quicker closeout of negotiations, unless you get idiots in the union overriding the negotiators and trying to get more items inserted in the contract at the end. But that would never happen here, right?