Are they honoring SC if needed preferences or so I just have to suck it up and bid for a SC time?

I'd prefer not to get SC at all, but if I do, there are certain times that I want to avoid. How best to handle this?

 

The if needed goes after the people that want first in line. So if you want a specific time you may not get it because if needed seems to be worthless or even ignored.

 

My strategy is to bid all my SCs as early in the month as possible so I knew I was on long call the remainder of the month. This may not be ideal for commuters but it was the only way to have some control over the times and eventually not have to worry about SC. A word of caution though, something seems to have changed this month and they are not giving SCs unless it matches the days of availability they are looking for. In the past I could have my SCs done by the 10th because they were giving them to everyone on RES. This month I bid for specific times and they went unawarded because they were supposed to go to the 2 day bucket and instead of giving them to the other buckets they didn't assign them. Thing are always in flux with scheduling's use of RES so you have to be flexible and roll with the whim du jour. The cat and mouse games seem to be on going since we inked the PWA.

 

The system is not designed to truly determine what total pilots are needed before it starts giving out SC times. Thus if, when the computer finally figures out that you are needed, your desired time slot(s) are taken, then you get whatever is left over. The only way to guarantee a SC time slot (to the extend your seniority allows) is to YS first in sequence.

 

Would that not be a PWA violation? I don't have the PWA in front of me for the exact verbiage, but I believe the SC award/assignment process is something like...

23S.1.f. 1) Pilots with YS matching the days of availability in the automated run
23S.1.f. 2) Pilots with a YS who have less than 3 short call credits

Again that's not the exact verbiage, but if you have less than 3 short call credits and nobody with the correct days of availability bids it I would imagine CS can't just ignore your YS. Even if you have 3 or more SCC you still fall into the ladder under step 4 I believe. As far as I know the only time they can bypass your YS is if you are in the 1 day grouping and have a hard non-fly day the next day.

 

I plan to STS it but I have a few RES related impasse slips already and unless there's a clear violation the company just kicks the can down the road and there's no recourse. I am waiting to see how many days they do this and am thinking about my next adjustment to the ever changing landscape. Schedule QOL is my priority over maybe eventually getting an hour of pay in the future at some point so the results matter more than the money for now. I have to get a case denial number and I wonder if I can just do it at the end of the month with a list of dates rather than hassle with it every day.

 

that reads like a contract violation to me.

 

That’s why there’s a grievance on the entire SC assignment automation.

 

Here’s a new one for me. Both pilots are on reserve.

Pilot A: 3 days available. Assigned 1 day trip as only reserve available.

Pilot B: Takes 3 day GS over same days aftwr Pilot A has their original assignment. 5 hours to report CS drops Pilot A’s trip and gives them pilot B’s trip citing obscure PWA reference to maximize reserve utilization. Sorry don’t have the reference. Pilot A was unavailable for this trip at the time of the GS assignment. Pilot B out of luck for PB days and rotation guarantee. Told to just grieve it.

 

crew assist then STS. They use “errors and omissions” wrong all the time