Originally Posted by 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.

Originally Posted by tripled

cant quite follow your logic here. Your overall QOL is down but you’re happy because you think other pilots’ QOL went up?

Originally Posted by tripled

cant quite follow your logic here. Your overall QOL is down but you’re happy because you think other pilots’ QOL went up?

Originally Posted by crewdawg

I fly with lots of commuters who love the changes becuase it works much better for them. That portion of my post is just saying understand that many of the changes are good for a lot of the pilot group, especially the stuff that helps commuters (~50% of the pilot group). So even though it hurts my QOL for now, I get why many may view the changes as a positive for the whole. It just means pilots like me will have to shift strategies, which sucks, but it's small potatoes in the grand shceme of things. However, I do wish we'd have gotten a little more trip mix protections, especially on the 220/717.

Originally Posted by 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.

Originally Posted by fishforfun

It was obvious that was the goal with this and prebid premium trips. They don’t mind paying 2x for a trip, but hate payback days.

Originally Posted by tennisguru

My understanding is that VAS/Silver slips/Standby rotations/PBS premium rotations/etc were nearly entirely propopsals by the union, not the company. I think the company pretty much agreed to them because it gave them more flexibility with no requirement to every actually use any of those tools. Not entirely sure what the union's thought process was behind some of the proposals, other than trying to open up some more unique opportunities to earn premium pay, espeically with VAS and stanby rotations.

Originally Posted by Whoopsmybad

It’s because we’ve been asking for things like this as a pilot group for years. All other major airlines have things like this, ability to pick up premium without triggers, voluntary options, and such. We asked the union for this, and they delivered.

Originally Posted by fishforfun

It was obvious that was the goal with this and prebid premium trips. They don’t mind paying 2x for a trip, but hate payback days.

Originally Posted by hockeypilot44

You are correct. This was union’s solution to cutting back or eliminating payback days.