NoDeskJob

I’m ATL320B. The category is about 700 people.

if I had to guess, I’ve seen 15-20 VAS got out since implementation. A VAS essentially pays 1.5 with no trigger.

I see the SS being used even less cause it pays 2.0 with no trigger. Plus they have to see the scheduling trainwreck coming in advance….so maybe holidays when they can see the manning shortfall writing on the wall a week out, or a Snowstorm with combined low manning in a category

tripled

lets trade them back for batch size 2. Or for Same/next day swp and ws pickups. Oh and also Y rots.

Go Cards go

Pays the same, just done in advance with no trigger. I’m sure it will change the game, just not sure how yet. Will be interesting to watch, assuming they are offered.

Valar Morghulis

Very thorough Scheduling Alert on all the new options in email.

Phuz

It seems the goal with SS is to simply reduce the number of GS that are going out. Since they pay the same the only real reason you'd do that is to prevent a rsv pilot from getting a GS and payback days.

Viper25

1) Do SS go before GS in coverage ladders?

2) since they need to be in OT for 48 hours, I imagine many last minute GS will still be in play.

crewdawg

This is exactly it. Many of the "additions," while they have some great benefits for some, were designed to kill payback days. It will be interesting to see how this year goes with all the new items implemented. If they actually offer the 150% bid packet trips and SS trips, it might just be better to go after those. With the complete lack of ability to us PB days, there are just so many reserves available, they're doing a great job of filling trips with reserve assignments. They're also getting much better at not breaking up trips, which is another killer.

I'm not at all saying these are all bad things, it just changes the game. Figure out your new game and move on.

Whoopsmybad

I think as staffing seems to be solid (most BES at least) it’s helping. I think 2 day out assignments are helping not only pilots plan their lives, but I think as all the new schedulers get more experience it’s helping them do better.
Trips are better, or at least they pay more. My last reroute showed up on my time card in 3 work days after the trip ended, and was right.
For the credit surfers and last second snipers, yeah, you have to figure a new way to hustle the system (not judging here at all). But I do think what we may be seeing is some of this QOL contract starting to play out. I reserve the right to adjust this statement, though, after this summer.

3 green

Plus, more reoutes to cover trips instead of sending it out for a greenslip (23.L.4 note removed in current PWA), extending reserves to cover open time instead of sending out for a gs, airport standby reducing gs, silver slips will reduce gs flying, and the 2 day callout to cover open time also reduces gs flying.

crewdawg

My category certainly doesn't fall into "most" categories I guess. We've gone from solid coverage, even though last summer, to coverage so bad I couldn't drop a single day of reserve. That's even with me being int the top quarter of my category. I'm glad other categories are experiencing this, but it's not something we're seeing. They're also not backfilling every spot on the AEs, so I don't see it getting better any time soon.




I don't disagree with most of what you're saying. Killing GS kills a few pilots QOL, but I'd guess that a larger portion of the group have increased QOL, which is good overall. I'd love to see a day where we have good (doesn't have to be great) coverage and a GS is just something that occasionally happens to cover true irops. Unfortunately, what I think we'll really see is something closer to reserves with mostly black days and working most of the days. It used to be that I could all but guarantee I wouldn't be called on my first block of reserves early in the month, not so much anymore. Credit surfing is what gives me a solid QOL as a line holder. Even as a reserve it was nice to fly more broken up trips, but the number of 0xxx trips assigned are sliding downward.

If they would build more 1 and 2-day rotations, I wouldn't have credit surf, which would be a very nice increase in QOL. In most categories 1 and 2 day trips seem to be gone by the first page. At least enough to build a line anyway. Funny thing is they said they couldn't include the 220/717 to the 1/2 day trip construction language because "it made the rest of the bid packet worse and the 1/2 day trips weren't great either." That seems to be counter to what we're seeing. For March, they did create quite a few more 1 and 2-day trips, and the ultra-senior dudes came out in force for them. Even at my seniority, I couldn’t build a line with them. The rest of the bid packet was pretty much the same as it every was. If their assertion was true, all these trips would be left in open time or awarded to those junior in category.

Either way, whatever is causing all this, it’s killing my QOL, at least until I figure out my next gameplan lol. But I can certainly see that it increases QOL for many others, so overall it's a win. These are all good problems to have.