The Reserve language is a little weak. 5 points is too small a change to the RAW score for a SC (I equate 1 hour of flying to about 2 points change in RAW score). Letting the company float RAW "bucket" sizes is equivalent to letting them float anything, such as the Reserves Required vs. Available. It rarely works well for us.

If a lousy trip is coming up, and I'm the senior-most on Reserve, and there are two of us available, the junior guy might have flown 1/2 hour more than me, and be in the next lower bucket. If 35 points was the size of all buckets, it means that, at the most, the next guy below me would be about a three-day trip away. If they have smaller buckets, it means that I might be up next if I've flown anywhere between 1/2 hr and maybe one two-day trip, less than the junior most guy. As you get closer and closer to the end of the month, if bucket sizes don't get bigger then I might have to go out on a lousy 4-day trip, over 1/2 hour differential, and hit 67 hours for the month, while the guy directly behind in RAW score sits tight at 45 hours (for example).

It's still a long, long way from a purely seniority-based Reserve system.

Still, it's step in the right direction. The return of the high and low yellows would be welcome. The problem is that there is still no meaningful penalty (to the company) or reward (to us) for overusing SC assignments.