Totally get it & believe me, as a guy who occasionally bids senior RSV even under current book- I’m into it. Senior RSV all the way. I’m just saying as only around 20% of flying is RSV, it’s a partial solution. Fixing trip credit & quality is another partial solution. And I think pay is also a partial solution.

One face of this problem is that the disparity between rates is such that during good times, senior FOs- even on the NB- can match or exceed NBCA pay pretty easily. Yes, that’s not always available, but aggregated over time, a lot of senior guys can approximate captain pay in the right seat. It’s not that upgrading would land them on RSV, or that they’re unwilling to fly the trips they’d be able to hold, it’s just that it won’t significantly impact their bottom line. And I think that’s a shame. (Not that they do well from the right seat, I don’t begrudge anyone that- I just think we miss out on the benefit of their experience & their incentive to upgrade should be better.) Now, maybe better staffing planning will reduce PPU and solve that problem on its own, but again, I say why wait for that iron to cool?

Essentially, we’re talking about three partial solutions (RSV rules, lineholder QOL, NBCA pay) that address three different faces of the issue, and my argument is, rather than fighting over which is the right one, let’s push for all three (swiss cheese model) as all of them provide a mutual benefit to the pilots & the airline.