Originally Posted by
The Cavalier
Sorry but that's a load of BS as well. The "full" number is prorated based on the number of days off and the adjustment is far from 1 for 1 credit. That's about as valid as saying that vacation is 7 extra days off in a reserve month. Acting as though it is easier to reach "full" status in a vacation month is not reality. It's the same and on avg it's now harder to fill up. I sat 5 years of reserve. Pretty much equal amounts under both systems. While pay is better under the new system (good thing obviously), filling up was much easier under the old system. Furthermore, the pilot was left with the choice of whether or not he/she wanted to fly over the full number. Anytime we take QOL options away from pilots it never ends well for us.
You say "it was easier to fill up"...even in a vacation month? I would disagree with that. Yes it is not a 1-for-1 substitution, but under the pre C2012 contract vacation did not apply against your reserve obligation at all!
You could have had two weeks of vacation before C2012 and still owed the company up to the ALV worth of flying. That can't happen now. While I was not thrilled with giving the company the ability to assign a reserve pilot up to ALV+15 the number of those instances I am guessing is a whole lot less than the number of reserves in vacation months who are now flying less than they would have in the old system.