Originally Posted by Iceberg

You’re being overly dramatic and dismissive. Obviously, they need pilots to operate the airline. The point was, coverage shouldn’t be all the way up the list. If there are any non-holiday days that not a single reserve can have off, they need to fix the staffing or lower the setting for coverage.

Originally Posted by Herkflyr

2. The company rarely changes things in our favor "just to be nice." Sometimes they do (short call window reduced to nine hours, new hires finally getting hotels for all of initial training) but never count on it.

Originally Posted by LumberJack

Are we pretty confident the next AE will be in October?

Originally Posted by LumberJack

Coverage for reserves is a huge hole in the contract. There's no reason I should need to PCS an X day onto a coverage day. The fact you can turn right around and do that is proof that it's unnecessary and purely there for their convenience.

The worst is when you can't do that because of the more strict X day move requirements with PCS. Those are the times they're forcing you to work when they don't actually need you. No amount of bidding prowess will save you from this scenario if you can't hold a line. And if you can hold a line but prefer reserve, it's an unnecessary QOL hit.

Originally Posted by Herkflyr

No we aren't complaining about "pilots" in general. We get it. We are complaining about super senior pilots, up to and possibly including the #1 pilot in the category, not being able to hold a particular day off via a reserve line. Pre-PBS, when reserve lines were pre-built (and to be fair, the rules for reserve sucked FAR worse than today, as I've documented numerous times on this forum) I am pretty sure that the most senior guy bidding a reserve line was able to find one that had an X day where he preferred it.

But the other comments are valid as well.

1. Right or wrong, the contractual language is what it is. The key to prospering in this career is understanding the contract and working within the language accordingly, while always striving to improve it.
2. The company rarely changes things in our favor "just to be nice." Sometimes they do (short call window reduced to nine hours, new hires finally getting hotels for all of initial training) but never count on it.
3. Understanding these two points, guys bidding reserve, which includes me occasionally (including this month in fact) always "hope for the best and plan for the worst" with the "Prefer Off XX, Else Start Next Bid Group" as your default position.

I'm out.

Originally Posted by LumberJack

Coverage for reserves is a huge hole in the contract. There's no reason I should need to PCS an X day onto a coverage day. The fact you can turn right around and do that is proof that it's unnecessary and purely there for their convenience.

The worst is when you can't do that because of the more strict X day move requirements with PCS. Those are the times they're forcing you to work when they don't actually need you. No amount of bidding prowess will save you from this scenario if you can't hold a line. And if you can hold a line but prefer reserve, it's an unnecessary QOL hit.

Originally Posted by notEnuf

Short calls being reduced to 9 was a benefit for the company. It allows much earlier windows the following day and ultimately put more useful SCs into the earlier part of the day when coverage is more critical.

New hire hotels were a competitive advantage every other airline had over Delta when new hires were evaluating multiple offers. Many of them are taking a pay cut the first year to come from other airlines, even a regional, and a $2500+ hotel bill was a real consideration for them.

Originally Posted by Scoop

You are misrepresenting this change - the company got nothing it didn't already have and pilots benefit greatly from this change. Scheduling could always, and frequently did, end SC early if they needed you the next day. It happened to me frequently and as far back as I can remember. Now Pilots can much easier plan on commuting in and home on the same day for SC.

Using your logic should we just ask for 16 hour SC assignments where they can only DH us at the end of our window? If shorter SCs are detrimental that would be a big win for the Pilots, or was 12 hours the perfect length and any change longer or shorter is a Pilot screw job?

Look - the company routinely screws us enough - we don't have to invent imaginary screw jobs out of good deals. Maybe we should "concede" to 6 hours of SC in section 6? Imagine what we could get for such a huge productivity gain for the company!

Scoop

Originally Posted by Scoop

You are misrepresenting this change - the company got nothing it didn't already have and pilots benefit greatly from this change. Scheduling could always, and frequently did, end SC early if they needed you the next day. It happened to me frequently and as far back as I can remember. Now Pilots can much easier plan on commuting in and home on the same day for SC.

Using your logic should we just ask for 16 hour SC assignments where they can only DH us at the end of our window? If shorter SCs are detrimental that would be a big win for the Pilots, or was 12 hours the perfect length and any change longer or shorter is a Pilot screw job?

Look - the company routinely screws us enough - we don't have to invent imaginary screw jobs out of good deals. Maybe we should "concede" to 6 hours of SC in section 6? Imagine what we could get for such a huge productivity gain for the company!

Scoop