Originally Posted by Herkflyr

Hard to say. We have so many categories, there will always be one that is overstaffed (bid reserve and stay home) and another that is grotesquely understaffed.

We still have tools available to mitigate most of that pain. Some applies to the entire seniority list, like the TLV. The company can't just run 84-85 hour ALVs all the time, even if they wanted to. Lots of other contractual tools out there to make things better as well, if pilots would just avail themselves of them.

And don't forget one VERY important point. We may not have been "flying as much" but we also had crappy rules for min pay guarantee. Every trip ending in a redeye, or dh-only duty periods, or 30 hour layovers, etc, did not get the equivalent of our ADG. Nothing like flying a three-day trip ending in a redeye, and it only paying 11 hours and change!

And of course reserves didn't get paid the same as regular lineholders like they do now. In fact on occasion I will ask newer guys, why do we have separate lines on our rotation printout for regular and reserve, when they always pay the same? Most don't know, until I inform them that until a few years ago they didn't pay the same--and often by a lot. I usually state something like "don't believe anyone when they wax poetic about some mythical good ol' days that truly weren't.