Originally Posted by
krudawg
"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.
Even with an audit nothing would change since there is nothing in the UPA that requires them to justify how many SCs they build or when they build them. They are complying with the UPA. As MoP said "Every time I think they are screwing me I learn that they are actually in the right,"
Most SC assignments are not for short callouts. As you say, they're just a modified long callout except they gain two hours on the callout--12 hours to 10 hours. It's a twofer--2 1/2 hour to show or roll to FAR rest to a 10 hour to show. How could they not put everyone on SC with that kind of rule. The negotiators put what they thought would be a deterrent to this by having them pay for extra SCs but this turns out to not even be a speed bump.