Originally Posted by alfaromeo

It is actually more basic than that. The company was going bankrupt and the MEC decided to give concessions to try to prevent bankruptcy. (didn't work but at the time they decided to try) The first areas to look at were those where pilots got paid for not working. That was the reason for the change to recovery flying. Same reason why the reserve system is designed to equally apportion reserve flying to minimize reserve guarantee paid. That's how you save the trip rigs and quality of life, especially for narrow body pilots. We came out with narrow body pilots flying 13-15 days a month rather than 18-20 like at some other carriers.

Now is the time to start looking at some of those hard choices that had to be made in the tough times and the MEC will decide which problems need to be fixed and in what order. It is a marathon and not a sprint.