The batch size give away was because the company started using 23.M.7 in unprecedented ways without paying an extra pilot. The union wanted to stop this. It’s obvious at this point that our entire coverage ladder will be redone in section 6. No one is happy right now except the dealmakers and ultra senior 23.M.7 farmers.

 

So the company’s non-compliance with the PWA justified us giving away free concessions and leverage?

I can only imagine how giddy management becomes reading some of the posts in this thread. Fortunately I trust the NC to do a better job managing our leverage this time around.

 

The use of 23m7 was not PWA non-compliance. It was very much compliance. The only non-compliance was them selectively choosing to pay the affected pilot. And there was almost no way for us to verify who they pilot was

 

That’s exactly the non-compliance I was referring to. I didn’t call the use of 23.M.7 non-compliance.

Direct API access (23.W.1.d) gives us everything we need to identify affected pilots who aren’t paid. Enforcement should’ve been DH’s priority, rather than negotiating management into compliance.

 

Spot on. I never used auto-accept when we had batch sizes, because I knew that if I got a phone call from ARCOS, even in the middle of the night there was a good chance I could hold the trip. After the giveaway my phone was ringing off the hook for stuff where I was #100 in line. So to eliminate the nuisance, all my GS have auto-accept. The caveat being that I'm so junior that I will fly anything that actually comes to me, because it usually happens only 3 or 4 times per year.

I had a crazy idea the other day, I wonder if it's actually feasible. We renegotiate the entire coverage ladder in section 6, coming up with a solution that better fits the current size of our pilot group. But, we get rid of 23.M.7 entirely. Whatever new ladder we come up with they HAVE to follow, with no workarounds, and strict penalties if they don't. That would force them to staff properly and utilize the many tools that they already have at their disposal to cover trips and choose not to.

 

23W1d isn’t implemented yet. As of a phone call with a rep last week.

 

This is exactly why we have Auto Accept, of course. However, we all know that most users of Auto Accept--especially the OOB sorts--have zero intention--or even ability to get in place--of flying any trip. They just want the 23.M.7 money.

And I will say this, a bit cynically I admit. Perhaps this truly won't apply to you, but I'm guessing that the overwhelming majority of pilots submitting every conceivable in and OOB slip of various colors, all using Auto Accept "because I only want to get called if I have a good chance of being awarded the trip" will literally trip over themselves to submit Quick Slips for every hour of every day of the month.

Yes I know: "how dare you imply what a pilot's motivation is for selecting PWA-compliant Auto Accept."

I just care about the PWA, and compliant trip coverage. The company owns most of the recent fiasco (slow trip coverage, ancient tech and IT, etc) but let's not pretend that we pilots aren't part of the issue at all.

 

Pathetic after almost 3 years, and a direct result of the previous MEC’s lack of interest in enforcing the contract.

 

After a couple months of relatively low stupidity..

Last night into this morning on NYC7ERA

Yesterday during the day, called for a couple GS, reasonable batch sizes (10-12, but they were also 5/6 day trips so not a lot of eligible people) didn't get it, no problem.
Early morning. Batch size "I didn't think we had that many in the category" x2. Select yes, go back to sleep.
0730.. IA Phone call. Connect to scheduler. Get scheduler. Give her rotation number. She was super nice. But couldn't get the trip coverage pulled to see who was owed 23M7 before she could put it on my line. Once she finally got it, someone else got the trip. She was super apologetic and basicaly cursed our IT. "It makes it hard for you guys to actually fly, which makes us do these stupid large batch sizes, which then makes most of you go to Auto Accept, which makes things slower... BUT THIS TRIP NOBODY TRIED TO COVER UNTIL 3 MINUTES TO REPORT. Like no coverage had been initiated until alarm bells "NO PILOT ON TRIP REPORTING IN 5 MINUTES" went off.

The schedulers are sick of the company's kludged together IT. But I'm sure DL won't fix it. If the Cloudfare thing didn't make them put forth an IT refresh, and I mean an actual IT refresh, not just platitudes in press releases and internal memos, they never will until it shuts down the airline hard. With no external event to blame it on. But they will still try to blame everyone but their own cheapness. And I'm sure they are understaffed and undertrained. But hey, some manager met their MIP goal to get their bonus and that's what's important right?

Management by MBAs. This is the end stage of it.

 

Our reps should’ve never voted out RS in favor of Ambrosi back during COVID. That started the MEC slide that culminated in the batch size debacle.

(I know we don’t directly vote for MEC chair, but we should……)