Originally Posted by Tummy

I believe you are falling prey to the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.

It would be better from a pilot pay perspective for the pilot group if FO's were either not released for OE trips or could not pick up extra time in the footprint of their original trip. Those FO's sitting on jump seats (or at home) would not be available for WS's to cover trips. A decrease in the number of WS's awarded to pilots would increase the number of GS's awarded to pilots. This would increase average pilot pay.

Pilots having to actually stay on the trip would make it harder for commuters to be in position for both normal and WS rotations. This would also increase the number of GS's, and it would increase average pilot pay.

By decreasing the number of FO's available to fly airplanes, it would force the company to hire more FO's. This would make people relatively more senior which would allow them to bid better schedules.

A change like this would change the pilot bidding dynamic. Most people would prefer not to sit on a jump seat for an entire rotation. The LCA trips would not be as lucrative if people could not WS or GS in the original trip's footprint, so LCA trips would go more junior. Instead of the top 10% of FO's being able to jump on the LCA trips, the greater GS opportunities produced by this change would be more evenly distributed among the FO's. This would create less incentive to camp out at the top of a FO category. This would lead to more FO's bidding higher paying positions which would create a greater training churn leading to even more GS opportunities and increased average pilot pay.

Releasing an FO for an IOE trip is less beneficial to the pilot group than forcing that FO to stay on the airplane during the trip, but in order to see that, one must look at secondary and tertiary consequences.