Originally Posted by
DuckLips
In theory this could happen but that’s a little extreme. To be honest most of this blossomed out of decades of line bidding. CA’s and FO’s flew together all the time, carpooled from Terminal G. FO upgrades and can’t hold summer vacation anymore to take little Johnny and family to the San Juan’s over the summer so said CA gifts his buddy new CA a week of his summer vacay. I’m like Shy I don’t really see anything wrong with this. I like our current system just want more allocations during those 3 low months.
A big improvement in the last contract was vacation any. I believe it’s extremely under utilized by this group but can add good flexibility in your vacation months.
I agree, the AS discount which arbitrarily restricts summer vacation slots - needs to go. All summer long I asked every OAL jumpseaters, how long it took them to hold summer vacation at their shop. Either seat at SW/UA/DL it was a fraction of the longevity to achieve it. Sad reality and currently at AS, most can hold summer vacation when it doesn’t matter anymore. I.e. your kids are all grown up. RN this doesn’t affect me, but it might some day. Just like being on reserve again as a junior CA. I fly with enough naive goodjet types who never saw how lousy it can be when you’re junior. But the few who have senior friends that snag them a week or two of summer vacation for them are doin just fine.
Not to mention a week of vacation allows a junior pilot to bid RLL and skip being on reserve entirely during the worst possible months to be on reserve.