I did say Did I say that the specific loopholes I previously noted would directly affect everyone at our airline? No. However, when a senior guy bids reserve instead of a line it does affect many people below them. If reserve sucks and the senior pilot bids a line instead of reserve, she maybe snatches up the rare day trips that a few pilots below her had high hopes of getting. The next line of their PBS triggers and they settle for the 2-days that the next subset of guys had high hopes of getting. This dominoes all the way down the line. Not to mention that a lack of trips for people that want a line creates strategic issues for them when they're factoring in specific days off they want etc. etc. Like I said, reserve doesn't have to suck and it doesn't just benefit the reserves if reserve doesn't suck.

The weak staffing language that I previously noted also does affect everyone but maybe we want to be an airline that has staffing problems and red reserve grids, but creates lots of RSA/VDA opportunities (and cancels flights and loses customers). I can see why people want a staffing issue which creates those RSA/VDA's but I don't think it's a good long term idea. I'm not too hung up on this aspect, though.

I have always thought our TA suffered from a lack of strong language. I spoke to the things that affected me and you could talk to the guys next to you in the cockpit about the loopholes/unintended consequences that come to light and affect them in the near future. I'm sure you'll end up hearing plenty.