Originally Posted by
SomePilotDude
Bingo. As confirmed by the email today. You do not have to preference. You can take the displacement and make the extra money. They’re trying to save money because of a problem they created. I would highly encourage anyone who wants the extra money and is more than a year from flow to avoid preference bidding. You’re giving up free money for something that is going to happen one way or another. Don’t fall for the “preference or it won’t happen” rhetoric. It will happen. This last bid was tiny. Don’t let them fool you into preferencing for the next one.
I'm just guessing, but maybe the union was there for this vacancy bid, and maybe they saw the raw data of this bid. And maybe they saw a few FO's who just delayed their flow because they wanted to displace when no displacements were happening.
Just a hunch.
The union doesn't have anything to gain by suggesting pilots to preference if they want to upgrade.