Still mostly new to the premium stuff, but dipping my toe into the pool. Can someone please educate me as to the benefits of Auto Ack and Auto Accept when putting in my GS request? Thanks.

 

Auto Accept is great to avoid unwanted ARCOS notifications for trips you won't get. It can gum up the system if everybody uses it, because everybody using it gets their 12 minutes to accept/decline before moving to the next pilot, but that's a system issue not a pilot issue. It means if your phone rings, the trip is yours if you want it.

I've never used auto Ack since it effectively removes the proffer aspect of an award. I'm not sure how it benefits you unless you will literally take ANY proffer you can get your hands on and don't want to be worry about getting to the phone in time (or you're in the middle of a flight.)

 

Awesome, that's what I was looking for. Thanks!

 

When I first started, I would create GS requests that were very specific to dates, times, and trip types I was willing to fly. Then, there would be no question that if ARCOS called, it would be for a trip I wanted. By using Auto Accept, it also guaranteed that by the time ARCOS called me, the trip had already been rejected by everyone senior to me in the batch. All I needed to do was click the thumbs up icon to acknowledge the trip and have it placed on my schedule.

Without Auto Accept, there are a few differences. First, you will receive more ARCOS calls, many of which for trips that you cannot hold. If people senior to you in the batch accept the trip, you will not receive any follow-up (ie. an acknowledgement ARCOS call). One major benefit of leaving Auto Accept off is that if there are multiple trips available, you will have the opportunity to sort them. Sometimes, the number of preferences in the iCrew GS form does not account for nuances between trips that only become obvious once they show up in ARCOS. With Auto Accept on, the system will sort the trips according to your iCrew GS preferences, and award you the one that most closely matches those prefrences. I have run into situations where I missed out on the better of two trips because I had Auto Accept on and could not manually sort them.

Auto Acknowledge is a more dangerous preference, because you are risking placing a trip on your schedule that you have not had a chance to review first. I occasionally will try to use this for specific trips already in in Open Time, when I know that I likely can't respond to an ARCOS call due to being on a flight, or if the ARCOS run will happen overnight (and I would prefer to stay asleep).

 

That's actually a really good use-case for Auto Ack. Use it on a GS/WS for a specific trip(s) that you've already had a chance to review in open time and you know you want it. Note to the original question, in this case you would want to check both Auto Accept and Auto Ack to fully automate that specific award if it gets to you.

Checking only Auto Ack (but not Auto accept) doesn't really have a use-case that I'm aware of, unless you just like clicking fewer buttons during the award process.

 

That's a great point!

 

This may be outdated information but for short in assignments (8ish hours or less IIRC) auto-ack was not valid. They still had to get a verbal or icrew acknowledgement.

 

Correct, it’s within 12 hours.

 

Doesn’t assigned rest extend your non fly day? Say coming of one x day they extend your rest 6 hours for 30/168. (Notified during previous LC) So, 0600. Is the earliest you can start now 1600, if on schedule by 1800?

sorry, if this is somewhere buried in these pages. Just when I think I understand, they assign something I thought they couldn’t.

 

If I’m understanding you correctly then yes those numbers are correct. For anyone else reading though just a reminder that rest has to be prospective so if you hadn’t been notified of that rest before going off LC they couldn’t tag 6 hours onto your one X day and call it a 30 hr rest.