Scenario:

Given - No JS available.

Pilot has a 1000 sign in out of ATL. Puts himself down for a non-rev seat on a DL mainline flight that departs at 0730 and arrives at 0830 in ATL. The night before the flight shows open seats, but when boarding starts it shows oversold and he isn't able to get on the flight.

So he goes to his back up flight which is scheduled for a 0830 departure and 0930 arrival into ATL. This flight showed plenty of seats available the night prior. He talks to the gate agent and the gate agent confirms there should be plenty of seats remaining (for this example let's say 20) and the pilot should be able to get one of those.

According to the policy the pilot supposed to call crew scheduling now and get PS.

The memo says this should be a rare occasion ("Rare is defined as a few times during a pilot’s career."), but the mandate to call if you miss the primary flight (even if the back up flight has plenty of seats available) appears that it may not be as rare as one would think. I've had to commute on my back up flight on more than one occasion.

Additionally, I don't see any mention of a requirement that there actually be open seats 24 hours prior to the flight. If that requirement doesn't exist can you safely assume that it could be used against you when speaking to someone with company? e.g. "Well, what did you expect, you saw there weren't any seats available on your primary flight the night before. You should have come in the night before." <--what I normally do if I don't see seats on my primary flight, BTW.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the new policy; I like the fact that I have assurance I can get PS on the back up flight if it's required. That's much better than sweating it out and wondering if you're going to make it or not. But it seems the sweat factor now is going to be "Do I call and get PS or do I take a chance and see if I get a seat since there appear to be plenty available--I don't want to get on the bad boy list as I called for PS in situation like this about 18 months ago."