Originally Posted by
FyrePilot
Sounds to me like they just need to come up with a proper term and step of coverage for this
Call it whoever gets through first gets a premium trip.
Not inverse assignment to the most junior pilot who is forced to fly it. It may have been like that for 20 years but it still isn't correct and should be fixed. Sign another MOU that we don't get a chance to voice an opinion or vote on to do it.
The way I see it, there are three "versions" of IAs--two of them acceptable and the third (unfortunately what is almost all of them these days) unacceptable.
1. The "old school" where you were truly being forced to fly something on off days when you had no slips in, such as the example where a gate agent meets the plane after the last leg of a trip, and tells one of the pilots "guess what, you have been assigned this one day trip tomorrow, that you didn't want to fly." Double pay was a way of easing the pain of a forced assignment.
2. Major IROPS, pages of GS, in base, out of base, GS #2, etc. After all the GS volunteers have truly accepted whatever GS opportunities they could, yet there are still a few trips left in open time, the company then robocalls any pilot eligible to fly these few trips, and perhaps one or two pick up the phone and say "I hadn't even thought of flying a trip for premium pay, but what the heck I'll answer the call and fly one." In other words, the occasional IA, amid lots and lots of GS, is appropriate.
3. The current Hunger Games/23.M.7/Auto Accept (partially driven) free for all. It truly is an abysmal situation we have here. QS will fix a lot of this, I hope.