Originally Posted by
forgot to bid
I'm sure the system could stand to shed a few pounds.
But I'd say this, the chart with the max duty hours allowed given your show time makes things more complicated but its worth it to have that.
But by having different rules for domestic and international and 2-man and augmented crews and so on, it gets extremely fuzzy. Thank goodness for decision trees. I got that out of When Scheduling Calls. I'm looking through the Transition Working Group Notepad right now, thats pretty good stuff that I doubt many DALS guys know about. I highly highly recommend downloading CA 09-12 from deltapilots.org. I'm not versed in the contract, I just have this 1,100 page document on one single PDF file and use CTRL + F.
It'd just be interesting to hear from Alpha, Slow, Sailing, i.e. Slow Alpha Sailing (SAS) or ALPA upon what they'd like to change because they know or should know how it affects other stuff. Part 135 rules is 10 hours of rest. I wish Part 121 would follow that and whatever the rule changes are, if ever, that come down on rest then it'll be interesting to see what that does.
FWIW, I'd love to see a GS/YS/WS decision tree! Imagine how it ends: "PUT SLIP IN, YOU WIN" "PUT THAT SLIP IN AND YOU'RE SCREWED"
If you are talking about the reserve system, then the MEC has a choice to make. This system was not designed in any way to be a "commutable" system. I am not sure if any pilot group has truly commutable reserve or even commuter friendly reserve but if I would like to hear about if it exists. It seems about 95% of the complaints about reserve are about commuting issues.
If the MEC wants to make the reserve system commutable they should start from scratch. If you try to hammer the current system into something it's not, then you will end up with a kludge. Better to start from scratch and design it from the ground up.
If the beef is with Short Call assignments, then that has been chipped away at and should continue to be chipped away. The randomness of the system can be brought under control.
Fallacy number one is that there are "no cost" items. If you want something, the company will make you pay, just like we do when they want something from us. Also, many "low cost" items are deemed that by people that have never costed out a contract or even been involved in negotiations in any fashion. Some things seem low cost but actually cost a lot.
The final note, is that we have been massively overstaffed for a long time now. Some things seem easy to write into a contract when you have way too many reserves. When we finally get back to normal staffing, you will understand how "low cost" becomes "high cost".
My first preference is to add more hours to the reserve guarantee. 70 hours was back from the past when the cap was 75 and it really isn't competitive in the industry now. Since the reserve system is designed around pilots flying a target of 60 hours on reserve on average, if you raise the cap and also raise the target, you will cost jobs. If you raise the cap and leave the target the same, the cost will be higher. Again, that is a decision the MEC will have to make. Getting paid more, makes the hassles of reserve go down smoother.
Making reserve commutable will help some people but also probably cost a lot. One more choice the MEC will make in the future.