Originally Posted by dojetdriver

Open time is flight time not covered by a pilot. Can be for whatever reason. Guy calls in sick today, his trip will fall into open time tomorrow till a certain time, then scheduling will assign a reserve pilot to cover it, etc.

Say a guy gets his schedule for the month, then has something happen such as injury, whatever. His trips for the month fall into open time. Again, if nobody picks them up to fly, they will get assigned to a reserve pilot within a certain time of the show time for the trip. Or, during the secondary/fallout/relief/buildup/mix/composite line construction process there was simply more flying due to transition, training, vacation, attrition (when it existed) than there were pilots to staff it.



It has to do with the second part of the statement. Which could launch and epic bazillion page thread about the specific practice.

But like Junglebus said, the UAL MEC got their a$$es handed to them for "advocating" it. If I remember correctly, so did the NWA MEC before they went on strike for something similar.