Good for them. I have more respect for pilots who are “gaming the system”, which really only means acting under the terms of the PWA for maximum benefit, than I do for management’s outright disregard for the PWA in its quest to take as much as possible from the pilot group.

Two separate issues. The reason we have a bargaining agent in ALPA is to handle these disputes. If you respect pilots that game the system, that’s your right. I don’t agree with it and I am senior in category and refuse to do it on principle. I can easily live with that.

As if management doesn’t “game the system”? The only difference is that the senior pilots in question are playing by the rules, while management is not. Both sides have the right to extract maximum value from the PWA in accordance with its terms.

Nope. I honestly didn't understand the whole batch size thing while it was transpiring. I barely understood what they were, so I simply didn't have an opinion on the issue. I was just trying to understand why so many here were so mad about it when at surface level it didn't look like a big deal.

More than one thing can be true at once. There are absolutely senior pilots who have auto-accept on who have no intent to actually operate a GS/WS. You don't need to have auto-accept to be the harmed pilot under 23M7. The ONLY thing it's doing is slowing things down unnecessarily. Whether you want to believe it, doing this does far more harm to mid-seniority pilots than hurts the company. They just move to 23M7. The only people who get paid are guys in the top 1% and pilots who are super junior who get the IA call before anyone senior to them.

Yes, the company is the problem. They are the ones who don't staff properly. But also auto-accepts with zero intent to fly are also causing this slow down as well.

Unfortunately that was the case for the vocal minority who were blinded by "losing out on their GS." It's like they didn't take a second to just think it through and realize that we were giving it away for free and accepting a company promise to not do it again. Now here we are, in the middle of one of the biggest "I told you so," moments.

It's not that simple. I absolutely do not agree with batch size agreement. We effectively solved a company problem (batch size violations) by agreeing to a pinky promise. The problem, however, stemmed from the grievance. We filed a grievance because we were claiming that the 23M7 usage was violating past precedent. The company came back with this settlement offer and our options were effectively to withdraw the grievance, accept the settlement or take it to arbitration where we were certain to lose. The widespread usage of 23M7 doesn't just negatively impact a "vocal minority." It completely upends the seniority system in favor of a FCFS system which primarily benefits super junior pilots and super senior pilots.

Those pilots are still playing by the rules though. There is zero requirement in the PWA to have a certain level of “intent to fly” prior to submitting a slip — with or without auto accept. Most pilots have blanket green slips submitted all month long, but very few actually intend to fly every day. My personal “intent to fly” varies throughout the month based on what else I have going on, and the quality of trips being offered. That’s the beauty of our proffer system.

The company is not always playing by the rules / PWA, which is the real issue. The pros / cons of the current PWA terms that we operate under can be hashed out in section 6.

Again, nuance. More than one thing can be true at once. And for the record, using 23M7 inside 8 hours IS playing by the rules. That doesn't make the rampant usage right.

Of course more than one thing can be true at once. Pilots who use auto-accept are playing by the rules, while management is often not. That part is simple. If you don’t like the rules, then write your reps and fill out the upcoming C26 survey to request a change. Nothing is truly “wrong” if it’s done in accordance with the PWA.

Management is frequently using 23M7 outside of 8 hours, not logging 23M7 incidents as required, along with numerous other routine PWA violations.