That is correct. You can bid around your vacation, have the days off, but you won't burn any of the hours in your vacation bank.

But if you do that each time, you will only get paid for 40% of the total hours you had at the end of the year.

So you want to be absolutely sure you use at least 60% of your vacation HOURS each year.

 

I don't believe that is correct. If you have a Reserve line during a vacation month ... your R days will be reduced by the number of vacation days (you can expand additional R days up to the value of your vacation if you would like, 7 days vacation usually turns into 10 R days) and your R line will be rebuilt for the additional days you "owe" them.

I have done this many times ...

Any questions? Call your futures scheduler for details.


Mark

 

Not sure why one would 'owe' them....if the R days are knocked out due to vacation, then that's it isn't it? Please elaborate.

 

OK rat, I'll say this slower ... Let's say it's a 4 week bid month and you bid a reserve line during a vacation month. You "owe" the company 15 Reserve days. If you have 7 days of Vacation you still owe the company 8 'R' days.

You have the option of expanding your 7 vacation days to 10 days (at your option) but you would still owe them 5 'R' days.

I'm not sure that's any clearer ... if anybody else can say this better please speak up (or if TonyC want to quote the appropriate contract details).

Mark

 

I understand, thanks. The word 'owe' confused me (no, I'm not a Marine ). Basically, you just have the remainder of your schedule to work. 'Owe' makes it sound like you 'owe' them extra for burning vacation hours.

I'm getting my contract out to re-read the Vacation section. It worked out great for me last year. Maybe I'm thinking about this too hard this time. Where's my contract? Time to re-fresh....

Thanks again everybody for answering my questions.

 

I believe Mark is using the term "owe" to mean that you will still be required to serve 5 "R" days, in the example he speaks of.

 

Anyone who contemplates sliding, extending or expanding their vacation during a month of reserve needs to read CBA 7.G.3 Reserve Line holder (page 7-9 in the small dark blue book) and have this available when making changes during the Conflict window. The VIPS bid line adjustment section walks the pilot through the process step by step, however having the CBA handy will identify many of the pitfalls and save a CH or 2.

Anyone who likes the idea of a PBS type system needs to bid a VTO line next time they have vacation scheduled and see if PBS still sounds like a good idea. Oh yea, others have said on this board they liked PBS at other airlines, however I don’t imagine the other airlines had a vacation policy with as many pilot-friendly options as our current CBA.

Based on recent items in the Jetflyer, I feel an attack on our liberal vacation policy is the next battle we will face.

Hopefully, our Union will not proceed without determining the membership’s desires.

 

I never did understand the beef with bidding VTO during a vacation month. I did it in Dec., with a 7 day vacation, and I'm working 5 days.

Explain to me, what's wrong with that? Unless you're going to tell me that I used 42 hours of vacation.

BTW...I'm still adamantly against a PBS system here.

 

Busboy, OK here goes. Pardon the delay, I had to get out the little blue book and do a quick review of secondary line vacation stuff. So if I miss speak let me know, haven’t done the VTO/vacation thing in a long time.

Well yes you spent 42 vacation CHs for your 7 days of vacation and you worked 5 days during the month. Don't get me wrong that's great. However, (and remember, the following is all a matter of prospective)

1. While it is possible to slide a vacation during a VTO month, I didn’t see anything about expanding a vacation with a VTO line. My guess is ‘cause it’s tough to expand (spend additional vacation CHs) when you don’t know your VTO schedule. The VTO line is built after the vacation days are identified. You know your 7 vacation days; you just don’t know what lies on either end of your vacation and how close those days of work will come to your days off (until the VTO lines are published). Worse case, you get 7+4=11 days free of work. The +4 represents the two 48 hour duty free buffers on either end of the 7 day vacation.

2.Now with the right bidding it’s possible to spend less and get more days off. Classic (and simplest) case week on, week off line. Vacation knocks out 1 week of work, (cost: 35-38 CH), result 20-21 days off all in a row. Now that's a vacation.

Again these are round numbers and are highly dependent on the bid pack construction and where you bid.

Running out of time… It’s all a matter of options. IMO, with PBS, as a crew force will have fewer vacation related options. We may be able to retain the ability to slide a vacation, but never take a month off. I commute so I like options and FastBid was great at max’ing the days off to vacation hours spent ratio. Sorry to see it go.

This is just my perspective of our vacation options..everyone else's will be different. No better....no worse, just different.

Glad to see the VTO/vacation bidding is working for you and happier still to see you are against PBS. Hang in there…the fights brewing.

 

Gooch,

You're right. No vacation expansion on VTO line. So, if you can't slide it to get the right days off. Don't bid VTO.

As to "spend less and get more days off"...Can't agree to that. If you use a 7day vacation, on VTO, you'll be assigned additional trips or whatever it takes to get you within that month's BLG range. For this December, that's 68 to 77:12. So, take 42 hrs from that, and you get a possible 26 to 35 hrs of trips added to your VTO line. That's 4 to 6 days of work.

So, in a 28 day month, you end up with 22 to 24 days off. Me? I ended up with 23 days off. And, a BLG of 72 hrs.

You are correct that you are only guaranteed 11 consecutive days( 7 day vacation + 4 days of buffer), on VTO. Doing better than that, of course, depends on your seniority. And, I would argue that if you can't do it on VTO, you probably wouldn't be able to do better on a regular line.

Of course...I don't mind using my vacation hours, for vacation.

I'm totally with you on the PBS thing. It would certainly decimate the best section of our contract, for those that are not senior. By getting rid of the options.

Just my .02.