After we get what?

Yeah, what ever happened to this automation we were promised? Did we outsource it to DAL after the ACE debacle? That would explain the timeline and lack of automation.

But seriously... what up wit dat?

There is a lot of gray area here, and lots of back and forth over beers. I might say that there is "nothing contractually wrong" from calling in sick all 270 sick leave hours (for old guys like me) and not calling in sick until one hour prior to report, for ALL 270 hours of sick use. But I would raise a BS flag if someone was bragging about it--legal and all.

A pilot is clearly violating the PWA if they use their sick hours when they are not actually sick (as defined by 14.A.17). Additionally, they are violating 14.F.1 if they consistently wait until 1 hour prior to sign-in despite becoming aware that they will be unable to perform their duties earlier.

The difference here is that using auto-accept is always PWA legal. No intent to fly is ever required, unless the pilot acknowledges a proffer.

Lol and the Charleston Chiefs are moving to Florida at end of season.

Good point—I hadn’t considered the “I actually want some ARCOS calls” angle….

Deleted. Wrong quote.

"I got a good deal on those boys...the scout said they show a lot of promise."

23M7
 

Recently lot of trip being getting inversely assigned to junior pilots without even going out as GS or even WS and it’s same 2 or 3 senior keep getting paid was it always like this ?? I guess CS has to do better job and being proactive rather than let the trips sit in open for hours

Yes

filler

It’s not an inverse assignment. The company just blasts category and whomever gets ahold of scheduling first gets trips. This was never a step in the contract and definitely isn’t IA step. They are just coding it that way and saying it was covered using 23.M.7. IA has been an obsolete step since Arcos.

Really IA has been obsolete since they switched to the robocall. At that point it went from Inverse Assignment to Inverse Proffer, again to whoever could get a hold of scheduling the fastest. I don't know when IA's went away from live schedulers calling people and forcing them to work if they answered the phone, but it was before I was hired. Proffers coupled with the arrival of ARCOS has blown up the IA process, hence why there needs to be a new type of coverage step for close-in (2 hours to report or less?) rotations. 1 single callout batch in ACROS, no auto accept/acknoweldge. Done in seniority order like all the rest of our premium pay. The senior most pilot who raises their hand gets the rotation - you cannot decline an award. Declining an award is the same as no-showing any other rotation (PBS awarded, WS, SWP, etc) which would bring in CPO involvment. If scheduling had to skip coverage to get to this step then a 23M7 payment is still due.

I disagree, this would give scheduling the power to hold trips and assign them late in hopes of getting off cheap. I have no confidence they will get the 23M7 correct or do it at all. We need a lot of other fixes before we go to a short notice non-proffer type of coverage. This would also aborgate seniority because short notice doesn't allow everyone to participate unless they are going to be phone available 24/7.

My idea is just one to fix the process. There also needs to be more automation/contractual langauge that would prevent trips from sitting uncovered for so long before trip coverage starts. And more automation in the ARCOS process of running through the award/decline process within a callout. The company sitting on trips doesn't do them any favors either when they have to triple pay to cover it. And sitting and skipping WS to go to IA costs the company more money even if they "forget" to mark that 23M7 was used. I don't think scheduling is nefarious in letting trips go uncovered (or sitting on people's schedule after declining an award) for long periods of time. I think it is simply a combination of incompetence and understaffing.

Like I said the company needs to clean up their act first, but even if/when they do there inevitably will still be flying that gets uncovered at the last minute that needs some sort of mechanism for rapid covering, with premium pay and with 23M7 due.

We already have this in the coverage ladder, they just need to use it properly. They have untouched tools that are more than appropriate. Reroute was so regular that we negotiated extra pay. That's in the ladder well before IAs and why are we not seeing it to the level we did in 2019? Because they are cheap. It worked fine for years when we weren't getting paid. This is about enforcing the current agreement, not rewriting them into compliance for their ineptitude.

I lime your idea, but I think everyone called should get 2 hours. Forget 23.M.7. Spread the wealth. This is the step for violating GS coverage so penalty should be severe. 2 hours to everyone inconvenienced. That was batch size penalty so we know they can afford it.

Yes every time CS do this shenanigans the senior pilot who get paid due to 23M7 is mostly the same pilots every month. Who probably even don5 want to fly those trips still getting paid. Yes it’s now whoever answers first or get hold of cs gets the trip

yes this is the way it should be done..get rid of IA totally, it serves basically no purpose now.

I think anyone who turns down the GS should not get paid. Only call and pay the pilots that didn’t get a shot at the GS.

Sometime they don’t even run GS they go straight for IA

I know. Then everyone should get paid something.

In larger categories, that would be a minute, or maybe two of pay each. Might be a little too thin, and then you’d really see a lot of no-intention-to-fly blanket/ proffer-WS in the system to ‘collect what you can’. Unless you just dumped those dollars into a jar that literally paid everyone an equal share?

I have no problem with the senior pilots getting the full trip value, but it should trickle down, with a counter like GS, maybe with a days-of-pay balancer. But certainly not 4-5 pilots gobbling up 120+ hours for flying 2-3 days a month.

The main point is that it should be expensive for the company to skip the normal coverage ladder, right?. How we spread out those dollars is an interesting debate.

Yes. The simplest fix is to treat it just like they handle being out sick and then trying to get a GS - make it like the senior pilot actually flew the skipped rotation. They would then be ineligible for any futher 23M7 payments for rotations that they wouldn't have been legal for had they flown the first skipped rotation.

Thats a good, zero cost to the company, idea.

Heck it probably saves them some money as they would be paying more people further down the pay scale. I'm assuming most 23m7 payments right now are going to people on the top of the scale.

Yeah, let's polish that copper penny up They'll bite off on that like that dog in UP! - "Squirrel!!!!"