I'll revise my statement for you...we need 4-5 days for commuters AND locals who prefer longer trips. That doesn't take away from the fact that we should still have 1 and 2 day trips for those who prefer shorter trips. Multiple e-mails with the RCC shows there are plenty who prefer shorter trips, but their inputs are being disregarded by the company. As Cbreezy mentioned above, other places have the unions building the trips, not sure we we don't have the same. Maybe it is a cost item, it would be a great thing to explore.



Lol well I was displaced to 717B first, then chose to upgrade and stay on the 717, rather than reinstate to 330B. If there is one thing I've learned through all this, seniority is king kong.

 

Oh no, he didn’t include your specific situation as an example in his post despite advocating for the longer trips you want… terrible of him.

The point was the pilots are, and have been, requesting a mix of trip lengths, and the company has mostly ignored it. 4+ day trips that many pilots don’t want get left in open time and then chopped up to be flown by multiple reserves/GS completely erasing the pre month credit savings the company is trying to achieve. If there were less long trips and more shorter there would be less chance of 4 days of flying being covered by 5+ days worth of pilots. How would that affect our ability to staff the airline?

As far as the cost of the change, duh. It’s a negotiation, most everything we are requesting is an increased cost. We aren’t looking for a cost neutral contract.

 

They consistently have added credit back into the trips because the optimizer only deals with math. That math maxes duty time and minimizes layover time while not allowing credit. They haven't even tried to set length parameters, who knows if that would result in just a fraction more credit and less back end cost. As someone who would prefer to never sleep in another hotel hammock, day trips are the right answers. The facts are that since the pre-month optimizer the trips have been more fatiguing. And the operations optimizer and human factors destroy the savings as soon as the month begins. There is a better way but your expectation for unadulterated efficiency is a theoretical goal that never meets reality. They have already proven they are willing to tweak. Pilot QOL was much better when the puzzle pieces of the monthly line were more various, but we know that's not the company goal. But QOL still happens as broken trips are gobbled up by necessity of the not so rare (anymore) PCS/swap board ninjas. The company can either have efficiency or reliability but not both. The profitability of Delta was built on reliability.

 

The reason we have no 1 & 2 day trips is because of Average Daily Guarantee. The longer the trip, the easier it is to dilute block down to 5:15 avg.

After network, marketing, and fleet build the flight schedules, they hand it to Crew Resources to staff. Network, marketing & fleet have higher priorities than increased pilot credit, like revenue capture, hub banks, slots, airplane use, MX, etc. From CR perspective, some flight times are difficult to staff efficiently. They pay Bob S and Ryan G to figure out ways to reduce credit while still staffing network's plan. With ADG, they can turn these staffing lemons (redeyes, long sits, mixed fleets at outstations, less than daily frequency, etc) and make low credit rotation lemonade by inserting high block duty days along side. The program that worked that out was Carmen aka Optimizer, and result was 2018 we needed to tap the brakes on hiring. Same timeframetrip construction started eliminating 1 & 2 day trips. CR is exploiting ADG because they can, and are invectived to. We need other rigs to fix trip quality and trip duration mix (addition of MDG, better duty rig, etc).

 

I know how it will works. Mandating a trip mix could also have the same results. Giving the RCC some contractual teeth could benefit us as well. It isn't all about just the rigs

 

Rigs, or lack there of, is what created the fatiguing skeds and longer trip lengths everyone always complains about. Improving rigs not only fixes these, but increases time off and/or pay. But I’m open to all solutions. Saying the RCC needs teeth is cool, but I’ve never heard any specifics or sample language. What would we try to codify? TThat LAX base wants more Hawaii layovers but reduced red eyes? 😂 Trip mix rules are nice, but I still want to make sure those trips don’t suck due to ADG block exploitation.

 

Perhaps for the narrow body fleet, we could codify something like an ADL (for average daily landings) to be some thing like 2.5. Then a four day trip could look like 4-3-2-1 or any combination of daily landings to come under 2.5. Then further limit duty day with ADDP (for average daily duty period) to something like 9. Then a four day could look like 10-9-8-7, 12-6-10-8 or any combination to come under 9 hours.

Maybe having better rigs would accomplish the same thing. Not sure. Please feel free to chime in.

 

If i bounce it can i count for two?

 

Haha. We are talking scheduled. Sorry.

 

RIGs, coupled with the optimizer, are why the trip quality isn't where we want it to be. Where you create a requirement for pay, you create an incentive to fill it with flying.

The solution isn't more RIGs, it's contractual limits on bad trips, such as a limit on legs per day, length of overnight, a break in the middle of a long day, etc.

You need a guardrail on both sides of trip construction. RIGs protect from highly inefficient trips. Contractual limits protect trips from being too efficient.