Coverage during PBS and the staffing numbers are different things, but I agree that it's frustrating when you get slapped with coverage and then see blue days galore.

12.M.5 needs a serious overhaul in the next contract. Yes someone has to sit reserve, but you get basically no protection from coverage as a reserve. Reserve coverage protections shouldn't be any different than our line holder protections. Until then, this is why I tell people that if you want to ensure no coverage, you pretty much can never get back below 40% in seat, assuming their already above it.

 

At some point, someone has to be on call or work on the holidays. While I think there should be some protection, let's say top 20% of reserves, restricting to the levels of line holders, I think, is unreasonable.

 

I don't disagree that someone has to be there, they'd just need to staff better. I'll also rephrase my position, it should be the same as line protections in a holiday month. Noone above 50 percent (i know its of lineholders) should be subject to coverage. Certainly we should never see the number 2 pilot reserve have coverage, especially when they're top page. Treating reserves a second class citizens is and odd mentality here.

If I recall correctly, they used to staff reserves at 30% of a category. Now we regularly see reserves in the teens. Im not saying we have to go back to 30% but a set min of 20% or more would be a good tradeoff.

 

I agree, in theory. Better staffing helps everyone.

 

On a related note, the whole “extra X day based on staffing” needs to go away. The extra X day should just be permanent.

 

this

filer filler

 

I don't think that's what he was saying. Getting inversely assigned was a bad thing, and they were meant as a last ditch ability for the company to put anybody in a seat, even someone who is not at a crew base. In fact, IA isn't one, but several steps scattered throughout the coverage ladders. Look at the very last step...it says "in position", not in category. That means anyone qualified that they get ahold of, and is legal, is going flying.

If you read how inverse assignment works, there is a presumption that you ARE going flying if contacted. You aren't proffered. In fact, if you look at 23 R.8, you aren't called and asked, you are called and informed of the assignment. That's not asking, that's telling. The ALV rule and the leveling mechanism for inverse assignment is there to protect pilots from multiple bad deals before the pain was spread around, and a basic limit for the month (23 R.1 & R.10).

The problem is multiple iterations of global changes have occurred since C2k when all this stuff got to be in the current form. FAR 117, for one. FRB rules for another. There's always the "in position" and related off day answers. This whole system was designed with the idea that people don't want to be forced to fly when they don't want to, and it was one at a time phone contact.

So, with that bit of history, if people are no longer being told to go fly when they don't want to, instead now being asked to fly if they want to, then the entire premise has changed.

 

Agreed. That's why IA's need to be proffers only via ARCOS for last-minute coverage, and in seniority order.

 

Gold slips?

 

I mentioned a while back that they should be Red Slips for a code red coverage emergency.

Actually, they really should be Brown Slips, because then it would be BS when the company uses them and if they're using them it means the operation has gone to crap