The return of airport reserve?
Received this today …
Hi Guys, XX XX here, hope all is well. I’m writing to you today to discuss some potential issues developing in negotiations with the APA. It’s no secret that Parker wants Ready-Reserves on Airport Standby and hard call-out times, and it’s also no secret that line-holders don’t like the current Reassignment rules of their awarded trips.
The talk from the line-holders is; Give Parker his standbys & times, and take away our involuntary reassignments.
The problem is that the APA has never really viewed Reserve as something worth improving, their focus has always been on line holders. Their thinking is that junior pilots pass through reserve briefly and once senior enough, having paid their dues, move on to line holding nirvana.
As former Envoy pilots, we know all too well, how L-O-N-G “briefly passing through reserve “ can be (for reasons outside of our control) and how ready-reserve can be abused by scheduling. We all remember that horror story and who wants to repeat it?
Whether you’re currently a line-holder or not is of little importance to the state of reserve; a good reserve system benefits ALL of us. You may live in-base, like I do now, and actually choose to bid reserve for personal reasons. And certainly, You may find yourself back on reserve to get specific days off, or during a vacation month and assuredly when you upgrade. Either way, sacrificing one group for the benefit of another should not be part of the negotiations. Improving reserve might actually result in more senior folks bidding it, opening up more line-flying to junior/commuter pilots who want it.
I encourage ALL of you to let the APA leadership know that Ready-Reserve is a non-starter and that true reserve improvement is the goal. Use the “Sound Off” function in the APA mobile app. It delivers your message to ALL the APA leadership. It can be found under MobileLinks / Sound Off
...pass it on