So hypothetically, if a category had an average reserve coverage of about 15% for the entire month with some days as low as zero, what kind of effect could someone expect that to have on their schedule or on the operation?

 

It would be bad.

 

Well if you're on reserve, expect to be used every single day until you're full. As a line holder you'd probably see more reroutes. Either way no one will be able to swap/drop trips or move/drop reserve days. Expect numerous GS, IA, OOBGS, and maybe even GSWC and IAWC.

 

If it is that bad, either be senior and get a good schedule from the outset, then fly greenslips on your days off as you see fit (if at all). Or...bid reserve and fly greenslips on your X days. Payback days change the narrative dramatically. If you have lots of flexibility with days off/on, then "Rolling Thunder" might be a thing--but manning has to be such that you *know* that you will get multiple greenslips, not *hope* that you might get one, if any. But we might be at that point in some categories right now, much less this summer.

One thing I want to emphasize is that there are lots of tools available to us to improve our monthly schedules. Some of these tools may only be used occasionally (IVDs) and some quite often (Swap Board, swap with the pot). Some guys just get a schedule, look at their trips and the reserve numbers and immediately proclaim "woe is me and the world." Yes at some point you are going to have to eat some crap, but that doesn't mean that your original PBS schedule is your destiny. Lots of opportunities to make things better--even if there is a finite limit to that.

 

The reason I even looked into it was because my swap with pot requests hadn't been executed after a couple days. So I checked the PWA and saw sufficient reserves is a requirement to do a swap with pot. Then I checked the reserve levels and they are non-existent. So some of the common tools are just not available when the staffing is this bad.

 

If you dig a little deeper, you can actually swap with the pot during completely negative coverage, as long as you are swapping into days that are more negative than the days you dropping your current trip onto. You may have to be patient and wait till closer in when reserves start getting assigned trips that drop the available numbers even more.

 

Part of the issue in some NB categories right now is 90% of the bid package is 3-4 day trips.
that makes it MUCH harder to get rid of crap trips for easier/shorter trips

 

Ah the good ole Bad day Worse day trick. Epic way to help clear your schedule

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk

 

Welcome to NYC 220.

 

Thread deleted