Originally Posted by
Bluedriver
So drop all the trips I used my seniority to hold during the bid, and then drop them to pick up straight time from the CRAP trips sitting in open time?
At Blue, there is very little premium trips, and the ones that drop are only realistically going to be picked up by someone who lives within an hour of the airport, same goes for premium VDA (a call list you can put yourself on).
As for dropping, the grid would need to be green, and even if the grid starts out green at the bid open, after the first few guys (at the top) exercise their drops, the list is no longer green. For scheduling flexibility, id definitely like to see drop to xx, maybe 50 hours (without using PTO), but I don't see the widely available utility of drop to zero, especially if we need to give up something or give up a gain in something that could benefit a larger proportion of the group to get it.
I'm sure the guys who live within an hour of base would love drop to zero...
The grid goes green all the time if you watch it enough. I know brand new relief line pilots who have dropped to zero.
The fact that we can do premium pay without making up the credit we dropped is unmatched. It’s definitely needed in the JCBA.
The way our contract handles premium pay also forces the company to give out probably more premium than they would like.
Why are we talking about giving up anything? We can sit here and operate as separate pilot groups as long as JetBlue would like. Just costs them more and more money the longer they hold out.