Originally Posted by atooraya

Picture this:

You have 1 week of vacation. Lets say it lands on September 10-17. You bid 60, so you have to bid 60 lines. One of your last choices (worth 80 hours) has 1 day of a 4 day(22 hours) on the 10th and 1 day on a 4 day on the 17th (22 hours). A real contract with real work rules would dump both trips and pay you line guarantee.

However, because of Alaska's outstanding work rules, your 7 days of vacation are worth 21.5 hours. Your awarded 80 hour line has lost 44 hours because of trip drops to 36 hours, and add on your 21.5 hours of credit, which puts you at 57.5 hours. You now have to rebid for open flying trips in 2 rounds, trying to find open trips to get you back up to the line minimum (75). If you can't, then scheduling gets to try and find things for you to fly. If they can't find anything, you get a chance to opt in, or opt out. If you opt out, you get paid 57.5 hours. All because you used your one week of vacation.

If you try and bid a reserve line, you can try to find a line that has 5 days that work over your vacation. Some have 6 days of a reserve in a row. Minimum is 12 days off for reserves. If for some reason, you end up getting a reserve line that has 5 days off over you 7 days of vacation, you don't get any extra days off. You now have 14 days off for your vacation month on reserve by using 7 days of vacation.

Originally Posted by KnockKnock

Vacation days are worth 3.5. 7 days is 24.5 hrs of vacation pay. I know how our system works. I’ve also worked at an airline that had pay protection for conflicts including vacation. Yes, I agree, our system is junk and needs improving but I can’t imagine still having to fly 16 days. Even in your scenario, you have 60.5 hrs after the vacation credit is added. You need 15 hrs if the min is 75. A crap 3 day added back puts you working 11 days. Two 4 days and a 3 day. Even adding back a 4 day gets you working 12 for the month. Why would you add back both 4 days?

Originally Posted by NewGuy01

Imagine. Just for one moment. You’re not super senior. None of your trades go through for step 1. Second step you get crap and wind up with crap. But it’s better than negotiating with scheduling via email.

I know empathy is hard but I believe in you. Unity 2020 and all...


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Originally Posted by KnockKnock

Vacation days are worth 3.5. 7 days is 24.5 hrs of vacation pay. I know how our system works. I’ve also worked at an airline that had pay protection for conflicts including vacation. Yes, I agree, our system is junk and needs improving but I can’t imagine still having to fly 16 days. Even in your scenario, you have 60.5 hrs after the vacation credit is added. You need 15 hrs if the min is 75. A crap 3 day added back puts you working 11 days. Two 4 days and a 3 day. Even adding back a 4 day gets you working 12 for the month. Why would you add back both 4 days?

Originally Posted by KnockKnock

Yeah, I know how it works but to use 7 or 8 days in one month and still have to work 16 days seems self induced. That’s 24.5 or 28 hrs credited to the month that you can drop. That’s most 4 days plus some. Most lines aren’t built to the min credit for the month so there’s usually a small buffer allowing you to drop a trip or two and not go below the min credit especially using that many vacation days. Even a 12 day off line has so many low credit trips crammed into the month, you should still be able to drop a few and not go below using 7 or 8 days. If you’re using less than that, say 1,2 or maybe 3 days, then yes, I can see having to pick back up after dropping a trip and working 15-16 days. All depends on how well you work the system I guess.

Originally Posted by cesnacaptn

Did this airline allow you to trade an unlimited number of your single vacation days with open vacation time and pilot-to-pilot?

Originally Posted by KnockKnock

So there are F.O.’s that are 2+ years on the list and they can’t avoid all nighters? Not long ago, guys used to spend years and years on reserve before they could hold a line. If it’s down to under a year, I’d say that’s trending for the better. It was a solid year n 1/2 before I could hold consistent lines.

Can you avoid night flying after 2 years at UPS? I don’t know but I’m told no and you can expect it for the majority of your career there. You won’t spend the majority of your career at AS flying WOCL unless you want to. Is that a reason to choose AS over UPS? Depends on the person and how they want to live their life.

These Vs. threads are pretty useless because there’s no way to know where someone will spend a happier career. Someone may enjoy day trips at Allegiant more than 7-14 days on the road at UPS/Fed Ex. There’s a lid for every pot.

Originally Posted by symbian simian

Never heard that expression in english, but LMAO half thinking in dutch. Lid is the polite dutch word for penis, pot is the dutch for dike (female version, not holding-back-water-device).

Originally Posted by KnockKnock

A “dick for every dike”??? :0 Not quite what I was going for. It’s also an old German expression meaning the more obvious and appropriate. “ there’s something for everyone”