That reminds me, I need to pick up a carton of Egg Beaters on the drive home from SC in my airport Miata.

Wait, no I'm on LC tomorrow. I'll pick up real eggs on the way home from the racetrack in my Corvette.

 

Narrowbody is 3 days min on call. Widebody it's 4 days min. There are some caveats on either side of CQ/certain on pre-posted events, and the last day of the bid month, where you can have less than the min number above. You'll learn them as you go.

 

Is that only for the initial construction of the schedule? Can you stick a PB day into the middle of a stretch of LC if the day is blue?

 

That's for line construction and moving days around during the month. However, you can personal drop below the 3 days on Narrow bodies, but you can NOT PD to drop below 4 days on the Wide bodies.

There is also something called "minimum separation" for certain WBs. For example, for a while, the A350 had a min separation of 9 days. You could build a reserve block below 9 days (but greater than 4 days) during line construction. However, if you had PBS build you a block greater than 9 days, you could not then personal drop a day that would drop you below the 9 days. I don't think any fleets have min separation right now but they can pop up from time to time. I think that change may have to be run by the union...not sure if that's accurate, but I think I remember hearing and/or reading that somewhere.

Another thing we have is a max number of OFF day blocks. It's 5 off day blocks for NB and generally 4 for WB aircraft. Sometimes it can only be 2 for certain WB aircraft, but we don't currently have any with that limit. The last aircraft that had that lime was the 350.

 

There’s a way to bid to be first to get SC, that way you can do them all in a row. Can’t remember how, been a hot minute.

 

Kinda true. I took this advice in my first month and it bit me bad. You can only volunteer for 2 short calls. After you get two, every other eligible pilot must get 2 before you can get 3-6. It is that was for voluntary and involuntary assignment

 

Correct. As it currently stands there is no real benefit to volunteering for more than 2 SC periods (other than 1 hour towards your reserve guarantee for each period). Now in the next contract it sounds like there will be 1 hour paid on top of guarantee for every SC. That might incentivise more local people to volunteer for it while commuters would potentially get fewer of them assigned.

 

Don't put in a yellow slip without restrictions to be the first to fly on your first day of reserve unless you're already planning on commuting in the night before. You will get burned by it eventually.

 

Or just put in a time qualifier.

 

Made that mistake once. Once. Caused me an extra night in the crashpad and likely meant someone didn’t get a GS.