Yeah, through several calls and some digging…they stopped the ARCOS process when someone called in about a WS. The scheduler admitted it was an illegal award and they would make a note on the senior pilots time card. ACE report submitted.

Makes you wonder how often this happens each day…unnoticed.

It doesn't make sense, but remember, in the past we usually didn't have multiple GS being passed out like Halloween candy. Also, reserve was a much worse deal back in the day, so 98% of the time the only guys on reserve were the most junior. When this provision was put into the contract it was likely decades ago, and a reserve GS was so rare as to be a statistical outlier. Now they are far more common. Nevertheless, if you want the benefit of GSWC, you likely won't get it as a regular lineholder except in all but the most extreme cases--even with our current staffing issues. Scheduling is going to do everything they can to avoid a GSWC, since as you noted it just solves today's problem to create tomorrow's. But since a reserve GS is coded as a GS--and most importantly, the GS coverage step doesn't discriminate between regular and reserve--scheduling has no choice but to award the reserve GS, if that pilot is next in line for the GS award. That never really struck home to me until a couple of years ago. Think about it. In nearly every other step of the trip coverage ladders, a reserve assignment is a specific step, applicable to reserves only. But not for green slips! It just says "green slip." NOT "greenslip to a regular lineholder" followed several steps later by "reserve greenslips." Just...GS.

Want a GSWC-like schedule? Reserve GS is the way to go. That may or may not be what works for you but there you have it.

Truth. Unfortunately the catch is that you don’t have rotation guarantee or reroute protections as a reserve. And you are subject to tag-on flying, even while on a GS.

How the trips are covered is pretty specific. I don’t think there is even a mechanism where they can run coverages concurrently. The scheduler pulls the coverage run for that trip. If after 30 minutes the trip has not been accepted by a pilot they are required to pull the coverage again. They often fail to do this in the interest of workload. If on the other hand a pilot calls and wants it on a WS I am sure they would pull the coverage again in exactly 30 minutes.

Can’t speak to recent events, but in 2015 on the 717, I caught them starting the ladder again from the top without calling for GSWC. I called them, they have me “we’re just doing our best tap dance.” Not 2 minutes after I hung up, I got the call for the GSWC.
As the saying goes, “if ya ain’t cheat’n, ya ain’t try’n” Do they habitually cheat? Don’t know. Do they speed sometimes? Absolutely.

How did you catch them? (Not a sarcastic question, I'm actually wondering.)

Not the same shenanigans but I went to bed last summer expecting a GSWC call for 3 trips in open time that they had been trying to cover all day. Woke up the next morning to see all 3 trips gone and none of them awarded in my base. Took a look in ATL trip coverage and all 3 of them were there. Had been modified to be covered by out of base reserves (DHs added on front and back) but had been awarded as Green slips. I submitted in ACE. Got 3 pilots paid for the trips, unfortunately I wasn’t one of them😕.

Naive post of the year?

Have you heard his argument that we just have to be reasonable in contract asks and the company will just give it to us? Best part? Management told him- :)

In Daily Trip Coverage, you could see who was getting the call. At first it was in-base guys, then out-of-base guys, then the IA call (that I ignored). Then they started over again with In-base without going through GSWC.