Doesn't change anything.....whether you are flying a rotation or not....you are REG, not RES.

The "make yourself aware" stipulation for RES assignments on the first day of RES only apply to RES pilots...you are REG in your example.

Now...if you have a carry over trip from REG to RES, even though you started the trip as REG, you are finishing as RES, so you would have a post rotation schedule check.

 

Post-rotation schedule check only applies if you are RES on that day you finish. If you end a trip as REG, no schedule check. If you end a trip as RES, must check schedule.

You would begin LC at 0000 with 18-hour leash.

Status of REG to RES or RES to REG only happens at midnight at the first/last day of any given bid period. You cannot be both within the same bid period.

 

I agree about VAS. And VAS is probably something we can point to every time the company complains about auto-accept or whatever. It has the potential to (mostly) solve these problems without fiddling with the contract.

But, the company can't just make GS early without burning reserves. Coverage ladder and all that. GS are same-day/next-day/second-day same as reserves.

 

If you honestly believe that the legions of people using auto accept and not responding to the award calls, particularly those who have zero intention of actually flying a trip aren't harming their fellow pilots then I don't know what to tell you. The company has absolutely made their bed but the idea that the pilot group has zero culpability in what is happening is not grounded in reality. But hey, if you want to fly premium let's all go sit at the airport to make it easier for the company to cover that first turn on the rotation.

 

The company has an out to all of this that they are not using, that happens to fit your description. VAS. That's the blow-off valve.

If it was easier for the company they would already be doing it.

 

Is this a new idea? Nowhere in any thread circa 2023 (when I started) was it alleged that using auto-accept was taboo (as you are implying) or damaging in any way (as you claim). It is a way to optimize ARCOS to call you only when you can actually hold a trip, rather than getting dozens of calls for trips you can’t hold. What you’re presenting here is a narrative shift that I haven’t previously read anywhere else, and back when I started, there were a lot more GS calls going out. To my knowledge, the company wasn’t skipping the coverage ladder back then, so why is it our problem to fix when they’re doing it today?

 

I have a hard time believing that many people put in for GS with zero intention to fly all month. People have specific criteria and life happens. Besides, small batch sizes mitigate the need for auto-accept. If it's a problem for the company, they have multiple ways to fix it within the PWA.

 

The legions of pilots maliciously putting in blanket slips just to clog up the coverage ladder? Have you been drinking the company's kool-aid again?

 

FWIW I have heard this narrative before. It was during my INDOC, when someone from Crew Scheduling made a presentation. They talked about how setting tighter GS parameters can help GS get filled faster. They didn't mention auto-accept specifically, but it was clear that CS was against blanket GS, and if we helped them it would help us. Company kool-aid.

Now I say, too bad so sad. The company can negotiate for a change if that's what they want.

I'll also add that the batch size giveaway of 2023, which I didn't understand the hubub about at the time, it beginning to make more sense to me. I think that increased use auto-accept was/is a direct consequence of it. Way too many nuisance ARCOS callouts.

 

Pilots are harming other pilots, company actions are doing that. Also, is it really "legions?" Though we have one in my category, I see most with auto accept, decline stuff they're not taking. It only takes a few O dark:30 calls where you're #60 and #2 takes it, to change behavior. When someone complains about this, people mock them and tell them to use auto accept. Well guess what, they're using auto accept.

There are plenty of things they could do to lessen the number of people with auto accept on. For one, they could make it easier to turn auto accept on/off by updating icrew or adding something into ARCOS. They could better automate the assignment process so the 23m7 payments drop significantly. Or they could simply use realistic batch sizes...I know, crazy idea. Also, I never said we didnt have some culpability. We absolutely do and it came from when we gave away batch sizes in the first place. Well, we gave them those options so clearly we were OK with them. Plenty of people happy to take a VAS or stby rotation on a GS. The few I've seen go out, worked out quite well for the recipients.