AWAX,

You seem to be taking a harder line on issues in the last year or so... maybe that's an error in my perception, but I'm going to add a counterpoint because your take on this issue seems a little black and white.

You have two main points, one is not an argument for or against VB because it is your subjective opinion on how flying is doled out, not the implementation or even de facto policy of the union or company. The second point is that the policy is a "carve out."

The main point that you were making, is essentially that every base has the right to it's flying. When you express that a base's flying and G line mustn't change for a VB to be something you support, you are in effect saying that the flying belongs to a certain geographic area and that it should not be shifted around. Obviously that is not true and the point was made earlier. Furthermore, this would overwhelmingly be implemented on narrowbody fleets, which see a large amount of seasonal and mission fluctuation as it is (bar ETOPS stuff). Flying that is traditionally associated with certain bases is usually on the larger aircraft and would not feasibly be able to be done using virtual basing. So the 757 guys can keep their LIH, GRU, etc and the widebody guys can keep their girlfriends or boyfriends in Asia or South America. Given the nature of computer-generated schedules, I personally just don't see a lot of the same overnights month over month reliably in the pairings, I.E. "good flying."

I'm not going to go into the reality that commuters tend to be more senior and therefore it is more likely than not that most junior people would see their seniority go up percentagewise in base. That is my speculation and based on anecdotal evidence, however perhaps a union survey would help show our whole pilot group what the likely affected groups would be.

But, let's assume that a base has some sort of right to its flying and an obligation to keep things relatively steady. You allude to your main issue being carveouts. But I think that is a cable news type buzzword for a concept that is much more interesting and democratic. The bottom line would be, if a new section of the contract appealed to enough pilots, then the union would pursue it. Call it what you want, but if it was beneficial to both us and the company and more people fight for it than against, it would not be a carveout, simply a new policy regarding the staffing of "non-hub domiciles." I think that is an important distinction because the people who pursue this for us are elected. It is hardly perfect, but we have a much better track record than a lot of other representative democracy type organizations. If your representative continually votes for policies that benefit a small few, they probably will not last very long.

FWIW I live in base and have no plans of commuting, but the idea could help a lot of fellow pilots and I'd be more concerned with the effect it would have on our operational performance than "my flying." Just my take