IMHO, this particular issue is more of a thruput problem than a staffing problem. Some categories have enough pilots, but they’re not all reachable in time (without IA) in order to staff a trip to prevent a delay or cancellation. For example, ATL 7ER has over 400 pilots per seat. If a trip drops, how long is it going to take to get thru 400 folks with a batch size of 5? Someone within the group of 400 will be willing to fly it, but will the schedulers reach that individual in time to meet their operational needs?

This is definitely a management problem and not ours to own and solve. The solutions that come to mind are to either increase batch size limits to increase thruput, schedule trips further out (this won’t help on short notice or no notice requirements), or increase reserve coverage by hiring more pilots (takes time).

if they want relief from DALPA via batch and size increases, then DALPA shouldn’t just give this away. We should get something meaningful for it. Again, it’s management’s problem to solve, not ours. We should definitely get something in return if DALPA chooses to help.