I get why people keep pushing for a JA or OT ban, but I think this post actually highlights why right now may not be the right moment for one. Too much emotionally charged chest thumping without calmly taking a look at the bigger picture.

Before the accident, I was very much pro-ban. At that time, the goal was not to make the company pay more for flying, but to make the flying not happen at all. Capacity was tight, demand was high, and if pilots collectively refused JA and OT, the schedule would break. That leverage only works when the company does not have realistic and plentiful alternatives.

Since the accident, the game has changed. The company now has several ways to move the boxes without relying on IPA pilots, with emergency authority and ACMI lift being the big differentiators. Increased management flying and aggressive use of revisions are also part of that picture, often paired with denied premiums to absorb flying at straight time.

If you are watching OT, the bait-and-switch trips are hard to miss. One leg out, long layover, then CML home. That layover is often just a revision window that keeps you operating inside the trip footprint without additional credit. That is a good reason to be selective about OT, but the larger point is that the company will still find a way to move the box. When it happens, ER it. Ensure OT trips are legal and document them when they are not. CRS is fully aware they are pushing non-contractual revisions and skeleton trips into OT, and their systems flag it even if ours does not.

In this environment, a broad refusal of JA or OT does not stop the flying. It just shifts it, and more of the work ends up with contractors or management crews.

I also understand the anger toward pilots flying JA or OT. I felt it myself looking at the JA list months ago, and I understand the “piggies at the trough” comments. That mindset made sense when refusing premium flying actually broke the schedule. Today, with a full rainbow of tails on the ramp and revisions soaking up flying at straight time, it feels incomplete. We either fly the work or watch it get chopped up and revised out of another back-end CML. The pay is a side effect of protecting scope and schedules.

There is also the union side. BT recently mentioned the possibility of a dues increase and repeatedly emphasized “fatiguing schedules” as a core issue. He did not allude to a JA or OT ban. Less IPA flying means less dues, which weakens the union when it needs to be well funded for negotiations, enforcement, and litigation.

That does not mean pilots are out of options. Honest fatigue calls matter. Paying attention to revisions and contractual compliance matters. Writing ERs for bait-and-switch trips, denied premiums, and changing company behavior matters. Those records give the union leverage with the mediator, especially if the company continues to drag its feet.

When it comes to mediation, who looks like the bad sport when the pilots are pulling their weight and the union walks in with a bucket full of proof that the company isn’t? I don’t think we should place ourselves in the “find out” stage, but I’m all for building a case to put them squarely in it!