As I understand from a friend over there, UA has far more flexibility in how they assign open time, with regards to in base/out of base and what kind of premium is involved. Zero leveling mechanisms, so senior guys hoover everything up. Everything is aggressively pushed, and reserves can pick up OT only after lineholders all get a shot, which leaves reserves to be on reserve, but they do have a period of time where they can "aggressively pick up", but line holders can also "steal" trips from reserves (there was more to that part, but I was well into NYE festivities). After trip filling at noon, and within some amount of time of departure, trips go to FCFS, and he said that cleans out OT pronto.

If any UA guys are around, they might explain it better.

They also have an option that allows scheduling to assign trips with ample early report on day 1 of a reserve block. They do get extra pay, it's voluntary and I've heard it goes senior. I have to imagine that helps clean up some open time quite a bit.

Until the MOU is implemented. Does anyone out there know exactly how SC is running the callouts from IA. I am constantly getting calls for IA that were filled 10 minutes before my phone rang. I know that IA's are supposed to go inverse seniority order. So are they doing batches of robocalls starting at the bottom? Are they staggering them individually every 30 seconds, from the bottom up? Are they calling all eligible pilots at once? I cannot figure it out.

I'm a mid seniority pilot. Too junior to get the very few GS that now actually go out each month, and too senior for an IA call to ever get to me. Do I understand this right, are mid seniority pilots just totally screwed right now?

Asking for myself.

It's not a true IA. It's a whoever accepts first 23M7 assignment. (coded as IA for pay) The "IAs" are going up and down the seniority but unpredictable when and how far they will skip. The latest is to skip WS and OBWS to get to SC RES. Nobody gets the 2X premium and more SCs are being used. The IAs are mostly proactive deal makers described in the ALPA memo.

You don’t know this. While I’m certain deal making is happening you are crossing a line when you say most IAs are deals without facts to back this up.

Point of order, I've gotten 2 IAs doing nothing but seeing its crew scheduling, send to VM, call CS, enter pin, "speak to a scheduler" and by the time I'm on hold I can see what trip it is via the voicemail transcription.

And gotten the angry calls from randos. Now if its someone on IA #7 in one month, yeah that's probably sketch. I've never gotten more than 1 IA in a month. I probably could've gotten #2 last month but it was a report NOW and I just started installing a new boiler and didn't care about a 1 day IA. That took forever to fill. Got 2 calls for it.

I did make it up to GS#8 in 2022 at 96% in seat, but NYC 320A manning was crap at the time. And I bid to roll thunder.

Delta once had 25 years give or take as the number 1 airline in the US. It took about 3 years to drop to last.

Are you saying random pilots are calling you directly mad at you?

So, my most recent experience is that I'm getting called for IA's, but I'm just barely missing all of them to junior pilots. They are getting assigned 1-4 minutes before I get through. My impression is that there are less completely random call in's(dealmaking) versus a month ago. The system as currently designed, is rewarding pilots for being junior, and they are receiving IA calls prior to senior pilots. Again, if you are mid seniority pilot, you are sandwiched in the middle and being iced out of premium trips as compared to the very senior and very junior. I would consider just randomly calling in and jumping the inverse seniority order of IA's however that would involve violating the hard earned juniority of our newest pilots. How dare I. Who am I with decades of service to Delta and Alpa to do that.

Again, does anyone know exactly the way CS is staggering these IA calls?

It has nothing to do with inverse seniority, that's just a catch-all label for the system they're using. It's a 23m7 assignment that has no seniority or order to it (to be replaced by QS in the next few months).

If a callout happens for something already covered, it means someone accepted to fly it before the phone call went out. I learned recently that even if they already have a pilot, their system still automatically sends the call out while they change the trip code to IA and immediately assign it.