Originally Posted by
PasserOGas
This is what we have at B6. PBS and no daily rig. What you end up with is an optomizer program building 20hr 4 days and 15hr 3 days. You will have very unproductive days with sits nested in the pairing (think 1 hr credit days) followed by absolute ball busters to get the average credit to be almost precicely 5 hrs. They will place the unproductive stuff at the beginning of the pairing to keep you from avoiding it by calling out sick. The only productivity will be day turns, so even senior commuters will be bidding them and getting real familiar with the crash pad.
The reason they do this (I think) is to keep you available for junior manning if needed. Otherwise I cannot figure out why max productivity would be avoided by them.
Ask me how I know.
I think you're on the right track. I saw this sort of thing at another airline. Bizarre scheduling practices which made no sense, until you started considering how such manipulation could enhance the productivity and flexibility of the pilots. Pilots generally like being productive when they're at work, but they don't like being flexible... especially on their days off.