It’s pretty unlikely we become magically staffed enough and networking scales the flying to have the old school days of good, less fatiguing trips and tons of reserves. So I find it odd to think senior guys will bud reserve to be worked just as much as holding a line for the bottom barrel trips, minus a nice trip on sick call. Unless you’re on an anomaly fleet or small fleet that doesn’t work a lot and is over staffed (like 220) The practice of flying more than we are staffed for started well before Covid and seeing the need for pilots over this decade and lack of where to get them, I highly doubt things get Rosey on the scheduling front anytime soon. Baring some slow down from a recession, which might give us all a breather honestly.

 

We aren’t going to hire 2000 pilots a year and only retire 600 forever. Staffing will eventually equalize. When it does, senior pilots will bid reserve and fly 4-8 days a month for 75 hours vs. a line with 14 days worked. You can count on it.

Don’t mishear me and think I’m advocating for PB days to go away. I’m just saying it won’t end senior pilots bidding reserve if they do go away.

 

I haven't been following along, but if they "go away" are they saying that a reserve pilot that picks up a GS on his days off is paid double pay for the trip in addition to his guarantee?

If so, I pretty much agree with you as $$$$$ talks, if your saying that they just get straight time above guarantee and no PB days or premium, well good luck with that.

 

wanna bet? The people that roll thunder have different motivations than money money money

 

Except that when hiring finally catches up, the company will now be able to staff the operation worse than they currently do if reserve PB days go away. So you’re still making an apples/oranges comparison.

 

I trust the NC to not sell PB days or this 150% WS nonsense down the river at the last moment when they've apparently been successful to this point at beating back concessions. This reeks of a management floater.

 

I remember these days. I thought I was going back to them by bidding WB. Not the case. I hope these days come back. But, until they do, the company needs to choke on 400 hour credit months and PB day bonanzas due to their staffing decisions.

 

PB days are a product of understaffing, full stop. The only way to get rid of them is to staff the airline.

 

Or negotiate them away. Hopefully that’s not happening.

 

I’m not a reserve guy, don’t want to be, as I don’t live anywhere near base. I will only do it on a WB. But the 9 months of my time at Delta on RES taught me the value of a PB day. They are golden and our reserve system is decent. I’d like to see some improvements for back side of the clock callout (for commuters of course) and I’m all ears for other enhancement proposals.

All that said, I see this so called thread drift as a useful discussion of a hot topic (company desire to eliminate PB). The more pilots that understand the value of what we have now, the better. This rings reminiscent of loosing the chunk of PS we did last time around …. it’s a coveted gem that management hates and we should cling to it like a Titanic life raft!

This is a worthy discussion that I never took as an advocacy for running Grenslips at redline during negotiations. Management has already established that environment and this little APC convo isn’t going to prompt one more green hour of flying aside from what was going to occur anyhow.

Carry on!