Originally Posted by
Probe
The 10 am first day show was never negotiated, but a by product of our current contract, plus 117. It is very expensive for the company. It is just sheer, dumb luck that we have it.
The "fix" to reserve will probably be that this goes away in the next contract, as we are unwilling to spend the capital to keep it. The current contract extension keeps all the bennies of the current system, including the 10 am show on the first day.
I bid reserve about half the time, and fly with reserves about 1/3 of the time. The only pilots I hear complaining about reserve are on this board. The last one I flew with that complained about our system was back in 07 or so.
Hopefully no changes to reserve. Any change, will probably be for the worse.
"Wash out your Head Gear New Guy" (Full Metal Jacket). What reserves need is an independent audit of Short-Call Assignments built by the Crewdesk. The purpose of which is to identify the reason for the Short-Call assignments. Here's what I see and I see it a lot - Four reserves available and 3 are put on Short-call. I believe the crewdesk assigns crews to SC because at least these SC Pilots do not need 10 -12 hours notice for an assignment. It's easier to make a call to a SC and release them for duty and assigning a trip for the next morning. Here's another example; the last flight of the day for the 747 out of SFO is the Afternoon Frankfurt (departure time is about 1400) yet they continue to assign 1400 and 1500 SC assignments.
In short, these SC assignments are convenient for the Crewdesk and a major hassel for reserves who live out of base.
My recommendation is to throw the SC assignments for the month in the trip bucket and let reserves bid on them before the month starts. That way they will know when they need to be available and can reserve Hotel rooms in advance.