Lol i knew that was coming.

Yeah actually that makes a lot of sense. Honestly I can live with the amount of flying we do now that EDP is a thing. Pads the paycheck nicely and I've never done one of those mythical ATL long sits that people talk about. But wow, my dream ATL schedule is every other base's OT scraps.

 

This is so true. NYC and SEA for the win!

-Sincerely, 320 pilot who lives relatively close to ATL and commutes to NYC.

 

ALPA. I'm sure a DART would get you the current numbers, but overall it is just over 50% that are commuters, with NYC being the highest at something like 75%.

 

Commutable trips can start late day 1. Have 30hr layover somewhere and finish early.

12 hr overnights get tiring soon. Specially during summer, but I guess you might not want to workout or eat good.

As I get older the less I want to work. I still remember when I was a new hire in NY 320… 1-2-2-0-1 leg five days, all commutable without redeyes. 26hr pay for 15-16hrs of block. Oh yeah also at $80/hr I was very very happy slacker FO.

Then Covid happened and I would say after 5 years, it seem the rotations are getting a tad better this year.

 

Delta ALPA questionnaire for the next contract closes tomorrow.

Fill it out if you believe it has lasting impact.

(It has SOME impact. But not LOTS of impact. The contract signing is years away. I WISH ALPA WOULD SEND US A LIST OF OUR INDIVIDUAL answers to the survey. Good gut check of what you (and I) thought were important on Oct 19, 2025. Because it's going to change. The negotiation committee will, and should, adjust)

FWIW, I'm all about $$$. Everything else is noise.

All airlines have feet of clay.

 

m3113n1a1 has the correct logic here.

Having a low ADG allows the company to build 4-day rotations that have minimal block on days 2/3, but have barn-burners on days 1 and 4. Really it's a function of "A" DG. What we should be angling for is a min daily guarantee of something like 5:15 so as to eliminate the days in the middle that have like 2-3 hours of block - which is really just a waste of my time when I'm on the road.

A 0:00 ADG gives the company max flexibility. An extreme 12:00 ADG would ensure the company has to build rotations that give them maximum block per day to squeeze the most out of us, but they are still constrained by the destinations they want to fly to and by the speed of airplanes. They can't just optimize a given rotation to add :04 minutes of block to one and subtract it from the other because they're not optimizing a continuous function. They're optimizing a discrete one, which is much harder and thus leaves a lot of "slop" in the system that they can't get rid of.

So yeah, maybe rotations would get harder, but they'd also pay a lot more if we had a respectable "M" DG. Your average 3-day would pay probably closer to 20 hours if that was the case. That'd be really nice.

 

It would also start at 0600 at end at 1800 or later. 6-7 block hours per day with two layovers 12 hours or less. No thank you.

 

I think training and vacation get brought up to ADG before ADG increases.

 

if that’s what you want, bid a WB.

I think you are a couple standard deviations away from the mean, begging for 20 hr three day domestic trips.

Increasing pilot efficiency = fewer pilot jobs required.

Increasing trip difficulty = more fatigue calls and more failure points in execution. And mgmt won’t want to pay the EDP longer days generate. Or they’ll ask to eliminate EDP in exchange for a higher ADG. No thanks.

So the company likely isn’t interested. The pilots shouldn’t want it, either.

I’m with CX500, raise the value if vacation and training to 5:15.

 

The goal is to make more money while keeping the status quo or making rotations easier, not harder.