You're omitting a critical part. When schedulers called us one-by-one, it was under a system where a GS was not a proffer, and if you answered the phone, as long as you were in position to legally fly the trip (i.e. hadn't consumed a beer recently, etc) you had to fly the trip. Pretty easy to cover when the scheduler was pretty much assured of finishing the trip coverage process if a pilot picked up the phone.

With ARCOS, we made GS proffers-only, which is something I really liked. As far as I am concerned (and I am sure that I am the minority here) the large batch sizes and possibly getting a phone call in the middle of the night for a trip you likely had no chance of getting was the reasonable tradeoff for making GS proffers through ARCOS. So many pilots have been hired since we went to ARCOS that they don't even know that we secured a contractual improvement merely as part of the ARCOS program itself! (but I don't blame them; no new hire should be expected to know or even care how things used to be, only how they are when they join the ranks). But if you don't like getting a call in the middle of the night, why not turn off your phone or silence it. Last time I checked, no one ever submitted a GS request under duress, so that's not too much to ask.

But we did have legit complaints with the large number of callouts for just a trip or two. Somehow, with non-seniority list JL at the helm--clueless--our negotiators negotiated not only batch size limitations but financial penalties to boot for the company violating the batch sizes. I'm guessing the company has buyers remorse on a massive scale. I've flown with many an FO who had a blanket GS in, with ZERO intent of flying one, just to get the batch size payout--that setup absolutely wouldn't have happened under the prior system.

The zero-risk current status quo encourages thousands of pilots to submit blanket GS requests while having zero intention of accepting or flying one--but it does slow down the process--a lot. To complain about the inevitable increase in RR and IAs (which is a company mess of their creation) seems a bit hypocritical to me.

We shouldn't give up the current negotiated language for free--not for a minute. I think we can all agree with that. I think that our MEC is fully aware that we can address some company needs re the batch size issue, and associated "side effects"--but securing permanent contractual improvements for us as part of that.

 

I hope you checked to make sure that you weren't missed for a different GS while the one you declined was still on your line! 23 Q 12 b.

 

I believe the 88 categories (especially ATL and NYC) were rather large as well. Agreed, we'll always have premium trips, but what we've seen over the last 5 or so years, is crazy and indicative of running an operation lean of peak. Junior WB Bs getting GS#2 and 3 was unheard of prior to rona. Unless we get something good in return that offset that, increasing batch size just encourages them to keep running this lean.



While the proffer is great, I was perfectly fine with the non-proffer setup. It's not like you had to answer the phone...get the voicemail and see if you want it. Even still, it wasn't that hard to take a quick peak (even easier now with micrew) and see what the trip is before picking up the phone. Not to mention, if it wasn't super short notice (even then, often times they gave you 5 minutes) because you had 10-15 minutes to respond.



I personally don't mind the calls in the middle of the night, my phone automatically goes to DND at night. I actually have it set to let ARCOS ring through. For me, this isn't about the midnight calls that I won't get, but more about fixing an issue they've caused with running us hot and building crap rotations. Fix that, and I'll be more apt to help out with batch sizes.



The company has to power to minimize that.



I find it hypocritical that they cry uncle and us 23.M.7, when they are doing it to themselves and/or have the power to fix it.



This is really my overall point. If they want batch sizes changed, we better get some solid, permanent contractual change items.

 

your argument seems focused on the fact that there are a lot of open time trips..not the coverage of them. that's a different argument. All i'm talking about is how these trips get covered. Yes, there are many factors affecting why there is so much more open time now, from the crappy trips nobody wants to fly, to the fatigue calls, to the lack of staffing. Those are relevant for why theres so much open time, but not for how they are covered. Would you agree that taking 30 hours to cover a trip in open time is excessive? That's low batch sizes. we could have a category of 1 million pilots and because they only call 1 or 5 per batch it still wouldn't get covered. see my point?

 

This is why I mentioned earlier that I could see a way to make batch sized tied to the size of the category, not a blanket change across all fleets. Still, we need to get solid, permanent gains in our PWA for this move. I see what you're saying, but I believe they're connected, I guess we're down to the chicken or the egg. Fix the operation so we're not seeing so many coverage events and you'll likely see a reduction in the coverage timeline as people realize the chance of a payday gets less and less. I see the current situation as a fee to the company for doing what they're doing.

 

it's possible to have all the above, it just takes some willpower from those in charge on both sides

 

I think this is a chicken egg argument. They have huge amounts of open time to cover and need/want pilots to fly extra to cover them. The current system to cover open time would work just fine if they didn’t have so much open time. Pilots would jump at the first chance for a green slip if they didn’t think there were a hundred other chances that they could pick and choose from later on. So trips would be covered in the first batch or two. So I think it is a legitimate and the best solution for us and the company to properly staff the airline so they don’t have so much open time. Thus batch sizes wouldn’t even be an issue.

 

I HATE this solution to tie batch size to category size. Just because I am in a large category I get punished? More calls for trips I won’t get. How is that fair? This is the company’s problem not the problem of pilots in large categories. See my post above about proper staffing.

 

Well the large categories are the ones getting most of the IA calls and 23M7 assignments. So maybe you’ll end up with less calls overall. Also, it sounds like part of the issue is many, many pilots with GS requests in with no intent to fly a trip. If you’re looking to actually fly the trip it now gets to you quicker.

 

you can't have it both ways..either you want GS and can deal with getting some phone calls, or you silence your phone and fly your schedule. as it is now, once you get G1 and go to the bottom you have less of a chance to get G2 because they can't wait around to get to you at the bottom of the list. as for proper staffing, we have been hiring a ton of pilots, so I dunno where you think they can magically make more appear? As said earlier we have like 3000 more pilots than we had 10 years ago. Big issue is the crappy optimized trips that cause sick and fatigue calls and don't allow any time in them in case there's weather or mtc issues and what not.