What easy button? They just hit the IA button before, now it's just a QS button instead. Same downsides to them (costs), respects seniority for us, and you won't get called if you don't want it. The IA button calls you no matter what.

 

You were getting massive IA calls at 3am that were a free for all and you had zero chance of getting the trip. Now you have a choice whether you get calls or not.

Don't want a call, don't put a QS in.

Why do you think this will increase phone calls you don't want?

 

Overall this is a step in the right direction. Two things are missing, either due to omission by ALPA or because the company refused to come to an agreement on these issues. First this MOU is missing is a tighter restriction on the use of QS/M7. 8 hours is way too far in advance to be skipping coverage. 2-4 hours Is much more reasonable. But that stems from the second miss - putting firm timelines in place for when trip coverage has to start once a rotation hits OT that reports within the second day manual coverage window. Yes the IA free-for-all, deal making, etc is put to bed with QS. But it still does nothing to hold scheduling accountable for sitting on trips for 12+ hours with no coverage stated before blasting it to IA (soon to be QS). If those two things were in the MOU it’d be an absolute slam dunk. Hopefully we can tweak those things in the upcoming section 6 negotiations.

 

If that's your (really far stretched) theory, then it's a win for the pilots. QS replaces GS. Now instead of just 1 pilot getting 200% pay, some random pilot gets 100% pay for doing nothing. Sounds great to me.

 

They don't have to answer the phone and we required the automation prior to implementation. They can literally wait until report -2:12. The cost doesn't change, no impact to cost with a simpler process and an undefined timeline is EASIER for the scheduler and the company already has decided 3x is an acceptable cost. How do you not understand how easy we just made trip coverage without a quid?

 

Haven’t read every post in this thread.

My take is we’ll see a massive drop in GSs. CS will leverage that we’re all “greedy bastard pilots” and keep those uncovered trips in open time longer. Meanwhile, the longer the cheese sits, pilots won’t be able to help themselves for “their” money and WS, OOBWS, or YS. Anything that’s left over will go QS at the <8 hour point, but the money saved by WS/YSing pilots will be a net cost savings for the company, even considering 3x pay. The company wouldn’t agree to anything that didn’t cut costs.

We all suspect there are already deals happening between pilots and CS. I’ve personally seen the GS progression stop and suddenly be awarded as a WS/YS.

As a commuter, this is going to mean less opportunity to pick up green, IMO. Living in base is going to get A LOT more lucrative for pilots that want to fly/make more.

 

And this is different how? IAs are the same process.

 

I don't see how the behavior is going to change when they are already letting trips sit in opentime.

 

except it’s not IA, in fact it’s the opposite of IA.

whatever, the point is moo.

 

I guess if you think answering the phone genuinely caused them any reluctance to hit the IA button, then this might be a small win for them.

I very much doubt that though. They're answering the phone constantly anyway, I'd be shocked if any one of them thought, "I really want to just send this out as an IA, but I don't want to answer the phone, so I won't."

I do agree that we screwed up on the automation side. We should only have given them a month. Even that is double what it should take. Someone familiar with the system could implement it in a day, they could test the snot out of it over the course of a week. The automation failure is temporary though, and has no impact on the overall effect of the MOU.