Originally Posted by
pilotgolfer
If you start a block of say 4 reserve days tomorrow, you can go into the open time and aggressively pickup a trip that suits your needs or desires. So if you are a commuter, maybe you will pick a trip that leaves in the afternoon so you have time to get there. Once you pickup a trip, you don’t have to worry about checking your schedule or answering your phone.
It’s a way to choose your own poison.
Has restrictions though.
In the example above you would only be allowed to pick up a 3 day or 4 day trip. This can be done right through the computer at 1055 am the day prior to the trip starting (or anytime thereafter), don't have to involve the crew desk at all.
If there is a 1 or a 2 day trip open, you can call the crew desk and ask to pick it up but they don't have to give it to you.
Aggressive pick up also can be used to pick up Short Call assignments for the next day. The crew desk gets to decide how many days those Short Call assignments are built for so, depending on what reserves they want to eventually assign them to, they can sharpshoot and build to target specific reserves for specific Short Calls. So if they have several reserves available for 3 days and several available for 4 days, they can build them as a 4 day Short Call and that way only a pilot available for 4 or 5 days could pick it up, so the 3 day guys are out of luck if they wanted a Short Call. There are very few restrictions on the company on Short Calls. What length of Short Calls (6 day Max), what time the Short Call starts, how many they can build for any given day, what time of day they actually build the Short Call (at least 10 hours before the start) are all at their discretion, so the Short Call games can be painful. Hopefully that will get "adjusted" in the next contract.