Ladies and Gentlemen,

My Apologies. I should have been more clear and specific. i was looking at this from the perspective of Reserve. Now as we all know, in the current TA, you can not be given an assignment while on Reserve that terminates more than two hours into your day off. Yes, I know that once you block out, you can be operationally extended, even while on Reserve, but I am focusing here on what the company can do to you while you are sitting at home or in your crash pad - not while on your trip.

Now, in some domiciles (like Anchorage), Hotel Standby is almost exclusively assigned to pilots on Reserve (usually R24 but not always). It will normally be something like two or three periods of Hotel Standby somewhere inside your block of R-days. I will submit that with this new verbiage (that in the current TA only exists when referring to operational extensions), the company can circumvent the two hour limit associated with Reserve by simply putting you on Hotel Standby and immediately assigning you a trip that extends up to 84 hours (internationally) into your days off.

You think that important family engagement a couple of days after your block of R-days is safe because all the trips in open time terminate beyond two hours into your time off? With this concession, think again.

How do I know? The company tried to pull this on me a couple years ago. I had a week long block of Reserve, they threw in a two day period of Hotel Standby, and after the second day (while in crew rest, going back on normal reserve, and sitting at home), they tried to "operationally extend" me to block out the next day on a trip that terminated over two days into my time off. I called CRS and told them "hell no" and they backed off and put me back on Reserve. This new verbiage is loose enough for the company to abuse and get away with doing just that.

I too am a "no" voter and I didn't have to get much further than pay rates and bonus to make up my mind. Still, it behooves everyone to read every bit of this TA to sniff out some of the more hidden concessions flying under the radar that no one seems to be talking about.