You could have "moved" x days provided they didn't break the grouping rules and the days you were asking off had even worse coverage than the days you are trying to move. This often works if say you are trying to get the third weekend of the month off, as the first or second week begins the upcoming weekend coverage will often get worse and worse, so then you can move your off days from the upcoming weekend to the future weekend, BUT the "contractural time limit" will get you about 4 days out as I believe the moves have to be done 96hours ahead (not sure about the time but it's in the PWA).

 

I've heard the term "bad day worse day". For domestic, as long as you're leaving a 3 day block and the new reserve day is worse coverage, it should work. You could try calling ALPA or your rep for immediate assistance.

Sorry but I don't know the timeline for how close in you can do it. Less than three days out might not be possible anymore. (Edit, answered below)

 

If coverage is black then a PD will not work. You can IVD or APD a day as long as you have at least 25% of the required reserves available.

The last chance to make an X day swap is the 2200 run on the 4th day prior. So tonight (Tuesday) at 2200 is your last chance to make a swap that affects Friday. You can no longer make a swap that afffects Thursday. Assuming that you are not dealing with a holiday blackout period, you need to find a way to swap into worse coverage when the day you want to swap out of is black. So if that day is 22/25 (-3), then you'd need to find an X day that is adjacent to a LC day that is -4 or worse and the swap will go through assuming you are not reducing your original LC block to less than 3 days in a row on a NB.

You can APD/PD/IVD a reserve day as late as the 0700 PCS run the day prior, HOWEVER, that only works if you do not have an assignment that touches that day. Once you've been assigned a rotation or SC you can no longer drop any of the underlying reserve days.

 

I appreciate that info!

 

copy/paste to the srh. Nice summary

 

Can't find it in the SRH, but is there any way to post a reserve-assigned trip to the swap board? Seems like it is prohibited since I start the day on reserve.

 

The swap board is for REG pilots only, both to post and pickup.

 

Swap board is now for RES as well, if swapping X days. But yes, no trip swapping as RES.

 

would be curious to learn the history of how that rule came about and also any unintended consequences of allowing a res pilot to swap or drop out of a rotation. It’s not like the company is using reserves for their originally intended purpose nowadays.

 

What do you mean they're not using reserves as originally intended? If you mean all the SC, I'm shocked they never did this before, we give them almost no reason not to.