Originally Posted by
iaflyer
But with the current reserve, almost all of pilots can commute to reserve. Sure, there are some who live on the opposite coast who can't, but they are flying past a number of bases to choose their base to be on reserve at. Those guys couldn't sit LC at home anyway (I'm thinking west of Kansas City for say, JFK)
Maybe 2/3 of the reserve pilots get a bit better schedule, but at the complete trashing of the 1/3's schedule who end up on SC all the time.
I disagree. People that have more SC aren't "trashed". It's the constant mix-and-match of SC and LC that hurts everyone. The people that get a LC, get it sandwiched between SC, so it has no value. The people that sit SC don't get any monetary value for it. You're "more ready", but not better paid.
I'd probably bid (more predictable) SC duty. It could actually pay to be in-base, and handle the SC. I think you're making the mistake of assuming that junior people are more likely to commute.
I don't agree that sitting SC means you don't fly - I know that has been your case the last two weeks, but I think that's because there have been lots of cancellations, resulting in 23K recovery flying.
I've sat reserve most of of the 2009:
April - sat six SCs, flew 2 trips or so.
May, June, July and August, every time I got SC, I had a trip by the time I commuted to JFK.
Sept, Oct, Nov, assigned 3 SCs or so a month, flew on 1 or 2 of those SCs.
I'm not flying in Dec, so I can't comment on this month's flying.
If they're tight, they will sacrifice a SC to cover a known trip. During the busier times, you'll be more likely to go to SC, to a trip. No argument here. But that doesn't mean that the original idea is bad: everyone flies, but the person that got pulled to do a trip from a SC, on shorter notice, would have some offset for this lesser notice. And when times are slow, the LC truly gets to sit LC (doesn't commute in for alternating LC/SC days), and the SC person is rewarded for being more readily accessible.
For me, as a middle of the pack reserve, my QOL has been pretty good. I can't see being on LC the whole month as improving it much.
The current LC system wouldn't do much since you'd have too little ability to pick trips. It's too unpredictable.
I don't want a system, be it within the line holders, overall pay, reserve or vacation where the top half of the group (be it overall seniority, relative category or whatever) gets huge benefits and screws the bottom half of the group.
I agree. I want a
graduated system where the most seniority equates to first choice in assignments: LC, SC, or pick the trip. Just like monthly bidding. I'm not trying to create classes of pilots.