It's important to remember that, first, the min day was only 4:15 and that matters. And second, TSA only had a handful of over 2 hour segments. When your fleet has an equal mix of 1-2 hour segments and 4-6 hour segments, CARMIN has a lot more flexibility to squeeze out credit.

 

Well that's the key to the whole thing - what should the guardrails be, and would the company ever agree to them? In general I think you've got to find a way to force some credit back into the trips. Maybe like where we have the TLV as a rolling lookback we need a minimum percentage of credit in each category on a rolling 12 month basis. So some months they could tighten the screws and reduce credit but they'd have to make it up in other months with more credit.

 

Right, min day would need to be in addition to better duty and trip rigs. It would be nice to add a sit rig as well. All of this would need to be in addition to increased control over rotation construction. Or do we just accept that crap we have now is all we'll ever have?

 

We aren't saying just accept it and be happy. We are saying, before we bring out the contract pitch forks lobbying for specific PWA language, we need to get access to CARMIN to see what effects would be caused by any rotation construction parameters. And we are frustrated by the people who are looking at our current pairings and saying "see, I'd be making more money here if we had a min day" as if the company isn't going to change anything in their pairing generator.

 

I think we're on the same page now.

But to answer your question, I never said that. I'm saying it could be a mistake to only add min day. Honestly I'd rather have the other protections talked about here before even considering min day.

 

Agree about Carmen, I even stated as such in one of my earlier posts. Everyone is frustrated with insanely crappy rotations and I think much more "tightening the screws," will not have the intended consequence the company is looking for. As was already stated, they've already had to back off on some things because it royally screwed them during an IROP. We all know it could be worse, it could always be worse, let's just make that a standard assumption. Let's also assume that anything we'd like to see is run through carmen to see how it looks.

 

It really can't get worse than it currently is. I'd rather get paid better if I'm going to be beaten each day/pairing/month.

 

Has anybody ever heard...."I never thought they would do that"?

The contract is always in a state of flux when negotiations arise. Sometimes the company utters those words.... sometimes we do. Things like scheduling and trip pairings have a wide latitude of unintended consequences.

Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you. The argument that, " We had that a previious airline" holds no water, because there are way too many variables.

JMHO

 

Of course it can get worse.

 

First off, it shouldn't be a Min Day vs Average Day thing. You realize you CAN have both right? Not either or.. SWA has both. Thats like saying Duty period rig or Trip rig? Umm..Yes!

Can I just say, I've worked at 2 regionals, both with Min Day. At one we had a 4:45 ADG, and we switched it to a MDG of 4:00. And it was a gain! All of the same controversy about how trips would change were speculated, debated. Demise of 30 hour layovers didn't happen, uncommutable trips didn't happen. Average trip credit DID go up. It was a win, and the reason our management fought us getting it.

Here is the thing we pilots seem to forget. They don't build the network schedule driven by crew scheduling cost savings. Marketing and network make the schedule, based on demand, fleet availability and hub banks. Its the customer/demand that drives the schedule from point A->B at xx:xx time aboard ship N1234. Redeyes, <2 daily flights to a city, irregular per day service, mixed fleet service into a city, long segments..all drive crew inefficiency. It was hypothesized Carmen wouldn't build 30hr layovers with MDG..but why does Carmen build them today? The reason is because it is an inherent scheduling inefficiency, and Carmen cant avoid it, but thanks to ADG, it can put 7/8 hr block days stacked either side of a 30hr and see no increase in credit. Magic! Carmen uses ADG to make network lemons into credit reducing lemonade. The same driver of long layovers still exists in MDG. All they can do in these scenarios is pay more or DH out when able but that is also inefficienct. Longer stage fleets would be even greater benefited by MDG, as they have less options for multi leg days.

One way or another, crew resources is going to feed Carmen the schedule network hands them. Inefficiencies will exist. ADG is used as a mechanism to equalize inherent low block credit days, and save system credit. It also prevents us from accruing overblocked legs/days etc..whole other topic where we lose $$ of potential credit.