Originally Posted by
ugleeual
Using the term “we” is disingenuous… fact is every one of our pilots has a different opinion on how reserves should be run and what weight of emphasis should be given to reserve work rules in the next UPA. I’ve personally sat reserve on NBs and WBs over my entire career… and have sat reserve the last two as a 756 Captain flying global and domestic… and it ain’t really bad if you live in domicile. I also commuted to global reserve for 9 months… it was busy and not great for QoL but it was self inflicted so I didn’t complain. I personally (remember I said every one of us has an opinion) don’t want the union to put too much emphasis and bargaining chips on improving reserves if it takes away from the overall improvements to lineholder work rules. We should not make reserves IMO so advantageous that senior pilots are bidding it… that’s a$$ backwards on what we should be striving for.
In general I am in agreement with this sentiment, but I would add one caveat. History has taught us that our industry can undergo long periods of stagnation. Is it fair for someone caught at the bottom of the seniority list during such a period to spend a decade or more on reserve?
Now mind you I'm just "spit balling" ideas here off the top of my head so perhaps there are good reasons not to consider such ideas, but I for one would approve of some system like what the flight attendants had. Don't know if they still have such a system, but when people ended up on reserve after a certain period of time then reserve went into rotation and senior people ended up on reserver once every 3 months. I would make the trigger period quite long as in 5 years or more, but none the less I see longterm sitting on reserve because of industry trouble as a real issue.