Excellent points and ideas well-worth considering. The first-fly parameters now are a joke and in no way help a person effectively get a trip that shows up in open time.
It wouldn't cost anything to make a few other improvements as well. Why not allow a pilot to "pick up" another pilots R-days? Also, currently one must trade an entire block of R-days if there is an R-day swap for another pilots' trip. That's silly. The number of R-days in the swap should be at the discretion of the pilots trading the days. As long as the swaps don't create an illegal rest situation, why should the company care which employee number is in that R slot?
Also, the SIG should be able to have a little more input in the construction of the reserve lines. I'm told they get what they get and that's it. It would be nice to have some of those reserve lines be a little more commutable, or at least modifiable by those who would presumably have our best interests in mind.
And another thing....When we put in an R-day move request that is CLEARLY being unreasonably denied, the schedulers should be able to intervene with common sense and override the computer. Their claim now is that they cannot, regardless of the situation. I don't buy it.
Our reserve system could stand a LOT of improvements at a very low cost to anyone in terms of productivity or otherwise. All it takes is someone at the table making it a priority. I won't hold my breath, based on the "status quo" email I received this morning from FE. Hope I'm wrong.