You're not the sharpest tool in the shed, huh?

I have indeed enjoyed more notice on the green slips I have gotten under the 2-day-prior assignment timeline. That's a fact. You extrapolating that into an argument I'm not making is frankly asinine.

If I don't get another green slip in 2024, I'm cool with that. I like the fact that I'll probably have a day or two notice, though, if another offer comes through. That's a change I'm happy to have seen implemented. When I sit reserve, I like the early warning too. But now you've got me thinking three days would be even better!

The company depends on guys like you who keep playing checkers while they play chess.

As staffing levels increase and reserve efficiency improves, the average length of time between GS assignment and GS report decreases. That’s a simple fact that any member of the scheduling committee will back up. Second-day coverage improves reserve utilization efficiency, which decreases the average length of time between GS assignment and GS report over time.

It was easy for the company to sell second-day green slips as a benefit when nearly every category was severely understaffed. Reserve efficiency meant nothing in the many categories that rarely had available reserves in the first place.

If you don’t care about flying green slips anyway, then length of notice should have never concerned you in the first place. As for reserve notice, short call assignments and utilization are now at a recent high. How does an increase in 2 to 18 hour report times help you exactly?

And the union also depends on guys like me who tell them what I want, and if it's a majority opinion they go make it happen. Check.

Another simple fact the scheduling committe can back up is that without 2-day-prior trip assignment, no one would ever have gotten more than one day beacause, um, that's how it used to work. They do now - and some of those who could never do a GS with less than a day notice can now do so with a day and a half or two. Clearly, that's not you, because you speak for you and are clearly disconnected from alternative opinons that (believe it or not) have merit and applicability to the lives of others. Type-A bloviators who argue against points that aren't being made abound and these knuckleheads frequently find themselves in the minority. The arrogance of the smartest guys in the room is obnoxious, but alas it's nothing new. The really smart guys know the boundaries of their wisdom - the less smart guys aren't self-aware enough to recognize their boundaries and continually fall back to the tired chess/checkers trope.

My priority is not to maximize green slips. Do I "care about flying them"? Sure - I like them when I have two days notice if I was otherwise going to have household obligations on that day or four that need to be reshuffled. And when I sit reserve (by choice), I enjoy watching the trip assignment chips fall into place with more notice. I like SC assignments earlier when that happens. I like proffered WS two days out. I guess you can say I like my game of checkers, and one day when I'm as smart as you I can learn what all those funny looking pieces do on a chess board. Until then, I'll just ask you going forward what's best for my situation (for every Delta pilot, really) and since it'll be the same as yours your response should be straightforward.

I commute and fly the occasional green slip. Length of GS notice matters to me as well. However, I find average length of GS notice to be far more important than the maximum permissible notice offered by a few outliers. A longer average means a wider variety of green slips to choose from, over a greater number of days.

Under the old PWA rules, I often had well over 24 hours notice anyway. Sometimes even two days notice if the first day was a DH day that I could DDH from.

I’m simply offering another perspective. What’s less subjective, however, is that second-day coverage offers new efficiencies to the company that enable it to reduce premium flying. Whether or not you care is up to you.

This spirited exchange ended more amicably than I saw coming. Valid points all around.

This is really the crux of it all. I'm guessing most of these gains were relatively easy to gain because it helped the company immensely. Yes it helped the pilot group, I just see the company getting the better end of the deal in the long run due to efficiencies. I have noted a massive increase in whining on FB about the big increase in SCs being handed out. This really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, even with the reduced number they can hand out, which was nice but I can't remember ever being assigned more than 4 in a month.

It also did nothing to fix their chronic understaffing. If they aren't going to fix the long term staffing, I really don't think it was a bridge too far to get toss out the first year of rona sick calls wrt to its impact on the staffing (on theory we've been told for why staffing has gone to crap).

I actually think it was a fair trade. The 2nd day coverage makes planning easier for both. The further out assignments are an efficiency gain for the company but the other gains like 18 LC and defined SCs offset this along with the premium SS. Line holders got something, reserves got something and the company got something. I think the batch size give was far more detrimental to the pilot group as a whole.

After accessing the debate I side to TED74. The 2 day notice for GS increased the pool of pilots willing to accept a Greenslip and increased pilot QOL by shifting reroutes to Greenslips. It was a real win/win, with the company protecting the operation better and pilots getting more advanced notice for premium flying. Silver Slips will enhance this even further.

Don’t really do FB, but was actually thinking of starting a thread to see if anyone else had noticed this so I’m glad you brought it up. I’ve bid reserve almost exclusively for the last 10 years and until January my record was 4 SCs and that only happened once. Even 3 was slightly unusual.

Fast forward to January and February where I got 5 each month! I know two months does not equal a long term trend, but it sure feels different with how they are handing them out now.

How many have you been used on?