Damn does that mean BobbyLees back on the market? I gotta start wearing my hat!

They stopped that months ago already.

Wasn’t it stopped almost a year ago?


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It was all technically still active but I've heard that the agreement says it has to work in conjunction with a live reserve grid, which we don't have, so technically they could have right seat qualified anyone but couldn't use them. Secondly once we're above 12.5 for staffing they have to stop right seat quals which we've recently achieved.

So seriously, did they ever really USE that?

Not being a CA, that was a little off my radar.

And now with ALL the new FOs, will that eventually morph into a (excuse the lame joke) Captain crunch, if they keep applying company mins to all the RATPs we recently hired?

I don't think it ever happened and I think it's pretty unclear if anyone actually got right seat qualified. The FAA said that we are automatically right seat qualified when we upgrade (since you did a right seat 12 month recurrent previously), and dequal once you hit your first captain 12 month. This is where you are supposed to be right seat qualified. However many sim slots simply don't have time so people I've talked to say they didn't get right seat qualified during their recurrent.

Again they can't use right seat captains until the reserve grid works in accordance to the contract, as well as when we're staffed above 12.5 per plane.

When it comes to captain crunch. Hopefully the company and recruiters hired people with lots of multi time so we don't have a bunch of RATPs that will get stuck once they are at 1000SIC. But knowing our company I'm guessing they didn't even think about that and we may have a shortage again in a year or so, that is if we still have a delta contract by then.

Let's say I've called in sick twice in past 12 months. Now my family member is sick and I need to call out to take care of them. Note that under California law, where I live and am based, accrued sick time must be allowed to be used for a sick family member (not fmla mind you). So..our contract doesn't seem to address this at all. All references to sick time reference only the pilot. On a 3rd call I need a Drs note. But I'm not the sick person. At previous employers, I literally just call in 'sick for family member care'. So how does this company address this?

I can speak from personal experience that the first paragraph is not true. You are no longer right seat qualified once you start upgrade training. Case in point: on one of my CA OE trips, my LCA had to call out at an outstation (his wife was in labor on the other side of the country. The chiefs knew about it and were cool with it). Rather than deadheading out a normal captain so I could sit right seat back, they had to deadhead out a captain and FO to operate the flight while I deadheaded back home.

All that said, I'm glad that the right seat CA shenanigans are over and we can focus on more important things. :D

This is coming from BW and our FAA POI. Like I said we can't use right seat captains even if you are qualified because we don't have a live reserve grid as per our contract. But according to the MSP FSDO once you do an FO recurrent you are qualified in the right seat for 12 months even if you are a captain.

It's not a sure thing that you will need a doctors note. I believe the language in the contract say "the company may require a doctors note". I know several people that have called out sick more than three times and have never been asked for a note. now if you are calling in over a holiday than I would make sure to have a note ready to go. I know that doesn't really answer your question of what to do if they do ask for a note but I don't know that answer to that one. I would say call in sick and if you get a call from the CP just explain the situation.