"P" on the trip coverage report?
 

Has it always been there? What does it mean?

I just noticed that there is a column to the left of the pairing-number column labeled "P".

For the entire month of February, there're only two trips tagged with the P: both Pacific, 1-GS, 1-RES. Lot's of similar trips and coverage situations not marked with the P. ??

From the DTC page, click the "F5 = Help" key and it will bring up a decoder ring to tell you what everhting means.

"P paid - if marked 'p' this indicates a non-theatre-qualified-pilot has already been paid for this trip."

While we're on this topic, what does "A#1" mean? The help screen says "Assignment", but that's the least helpful description possible. They're all assignments.

Involuntary assignment aka GS with no trigger that doesn’t count against GS.

"Inverse Assignment" is a specific step in 23.N and 23.O trip coverage (and part of the much maligned 23.M.7 problems). It's an assignment from open time in inverse seniority order, typically when they are out of other options (or time), and they just start handing out trips to the most junior pilot in a category. It is premium pay, and outside of the Green Slip counter/leveling mechanisms.

*Edit* Hockey types faster.

Hockey and Fangs ansser the "A#1" below.

Both Assignments and Awards show on the DTC.

"Assignments" is when scheduling assigns you a rotation on LC, of assigns you short call....things you aren't volunteering for.

But things like GS and YS and WS are "awards"....things you asked for.

Are they actually involuntary though? It's my understanding IA are profferrs, and like any ARCOS you can accept or decline it.

"Technically" IA's are required, but the PWA spells out viable reasons that you may be unable to fulfill your assignment, like alcohol, unreported sickness, childcare issues, etc. so in reality they are treated almost as proffers becasue what good is it for skeds to go fishing for a pilot only to be told 10mins later, not able and start over.

Officially, No, they are absolutely not proffers. However, before the ARCOS Batch-size-swap-for-no-more-IA-outside-8-hours agreement, the company would sometimes treat them as proffers.

They haven’t actually done IA’s that aren’t proffers in years. In reality, they skip everything in contract, have computer cold call everyone, and first one to get back to scheduling gets it. This lead to pilots calling scheduling before even the GS process played out and asked for the trip. It’s not supposed to happen like this and we gave up unlimited batch sizes to eliminate it.

I agree with everything you said? Before the AROCS batch size givaway, I called CS several times and 'sucessfully' turned down an IA I didn't want because the one I did want was gone - effectively it was a proffer. My point was that despite what the PWA says (that officially they are not proffers), CS has treated them as proffers at times. I presume they are still treating IA's this way, but I have no personal knowlege either way since the ARCOS 'deal'.

As a commuter, IAs have been treated as proffers for the last year at least. The automated system asked you to press a button to be connected to a scheduler if you’re able to accept the trip. I’ve even called back (officially making contact) to let them know what time I COULD get there and been told no, they’d wait for someone who could get there quicker. Never felt that I would be required to accept a trip on IA. Haven’t been called for inverse since the 23.M fiasco.

This is how it's supposed to work, but the company just blasts it out (probably to everyone that has availability); then it's first come first served. Whether or not you are you're "junior" matters not.

A5S

such a foolish decision. The root problem I think came from the fact that an lA is double pay and single credit but not limited by the gs ladder order (1,2,3, etc). We could have investigated a trial period of issuing ia’s in seniority order (for example) before giving away batch size. Or several other options.

Sure seems to me that the junior available pilot should be pay protected, i.e. the harmed pilot.

Agree.

But what if there are 2 or 3 or 15 junior available pilots (for example) for a 3-day IA? Saw that happen last year more than once. Maybe DALPA can give away $millions more of leverage to find out from the company via an unauditable document.

A5S

Well, Deferred implementation of 23 W. 1. D. (Direct Database/API read-only access to DBMS) could go a very, very long way to solving that problem when/if it is finally implemented. Not sure how many people realize how massive that win from the new contract will be when it finally comes to fruition. Negotiating leverage has already been spent (and won) to audit everything scheduling related.

This would have been my suggestion as long as everyone on list actually got the GS call first.

Unfortunately, inverse assignment morphed from a bad thing, as in being forced to work on your day off when you don't want to, and is actually limited because of that into whatever it is now. Now people gobble up as much time as they can, so that part of it is lost from the zeitgeist.

If you actually ran IA the way it was supposed to, under the current envrionment, the senior pilots would lose their minds, because now you're letting junior go first for a no-trigger green slip. That would last all of 10 minutes before the reps got floodeded with calls from senior pilots demanding a change. OTOH, if they actually went by the list, and forced junior people to work on days off who didn't want to, there'd be a similar revolt.

On that tangent, do you think there is a potential solution for people declining one-day GS to avoid hurting their ladder order? During quieter months, I've seen situations where everyone declined a one-day GS and then the GS went out of base, which is a loss for everyone (more delay for the crew to get the there, whoever took it has awful efficienciey due to commuting to a one-day trip, etc). And now everyone in base still has the same place on the ladder since no one burned their spot. I'm sure at least someone in base would've taken it in hindsight if they knew it would go out of base and they never ended up getting G#2 or #3 anyway by the time the month ended.

Just a thought for future contracts but maybe the G#1 code for a 5.25 trip shouldn't be treated the same as G#1 for a 21 hr trip. Maybe add a conditional accept option that says I'll only keep it if it's gone unclaimed through the list, and then it would turn into G#0. Or maybe I should stop overthinking these one-day proffers and suck up occasionally shooting myself in the foot 🤪

A long thought. Yes, stop overthinking!

We could make it something like the number of days is added to your GS count. So if you get a one day GS, that would be your GS#1, but if you got a 5 day GS, then it would count as your GS#5.

Nope, it's fine the way it is. If you want to gamble the stakes are the stakes.