That is part of it. I called the guy, Ken Blessum (sp?), who ran manning for years. They'd announced reinstatements for displaced guys back to S80 CA DFW. First reinstatements after the long post 9/11 drawdown. No awards. Back then they were run monthly. Next month more reinstatements posted in DFW S80 CA...award had no reinstatements. I called Ken and said "you're killing these guys. They've had those reinstatements in for year (5-8?) because they want the job. Posting reinstatements and then not awarding them is like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown. He said he wanted to put the S80 CA training slots in DFW but unexpectedly BOS and DCA had a bunch of Captains unexpectedly bid out. Oops. "I needed those bodies more in BOS and DCA then I did in DFW so I used the training slots for those two months to refill BOS and DCA. But the DFW S80 CA manning is a higher priority now. I have to fill DFW first so if guys try to bid out of BOS or DCA they'll be withheld in the next bic vacancy award." That was a bit of a peek behind the curtain as to some of the detail we'd don't know, or see.

He also said he used to post amended vacancy messages years ago but finally stopped. "Do I do it for every change? Two fewer S80 CA's in DCA now? Or just the big changes? I finally decided that I'd just resend the generic message "make sure you double check your Preference bids in case 'things change.' He went on to say, during big changes, like furloughs, recalls, external events (market crash, 9/11, etc) marketing ("we're all responding to market capacity planning's moves") will sometimes make big changes a day or two before the closing so we're scrambling to figure out the new manning plan right before the award is posted."