A rolling overlapping notification system that advances one pilot every minute with a 12 minute window would cover 60 per hour with a max of 11 unwanted calls.

There is no shortage of possible solutions. The real magic is determining the price Delta pays for implementing it. I'd like it heavily weighted toward soft pay. Vacation, paid APD, etc...

 

So, do away with offer window, have a single 12 minute award window and award window batches as to disturb the least amount of pilots?

 

And you can adjust those batches based on time of day, how many trips need to be covered, how far out report is…. /s 😂🤣😂

 

Just to add some data to the debate, I took upon myself the laborious task of auditing some 23M7 logs in iCrew. It would be SOOO much simpler if these logs were in a traditional (i.e. Excel) format, but here we are. Manual data entry.

ATL320B was my choice as it's the largest category and is spread across all bases (except BOS of course.) The intent, and result of my audit was to determine just how much 23M7 (aka trip coverage being stopped/skipped) resulted in out-of-base pilots getting paid. Indirectly, but probably directly, this indicates how often OOBWS is guilty of "jamming" up coverage, other factors notwithstanding (CS being staffed properly, doing their job, etc.)

I audited all 41 pages of ATL320B 23M7 logs in iCrew for January 2026. Results:

446 23M7 entries
294 were for ATL320B (WS)
152 were for 320B in other bases (OOBWS)

So, 66% for WS, 34% for OOBWS

Or, simpler terms, 2/3 were for WS, 1/3 were for OOBWS.

Honestly this was a higher % of OOBWS than I was expecting. That being said, I'm still not convinced that OOBWS are "the problem."

 

That is a way higher percentage than I would have thought. Further since OOBWS capture many more potential pilots, I could take forever to get through that step.

 

How about we bring batch sizes back? If they use a reasonably sized batch size (call it 5), they have no penalty. Also, AA works for proper batch sizes. If they're desperate, they can bypass AA, and go Auto-Ack only, but every batch that exceeds that by some threshold (5 pilots) will pay X-hours per pilot in the batch. 10-pilot batch, 1-hour per pilot. 15-pilot batch, 2-hours per pilot. 20-pilot batch, 3-hours per pilot.

Thus, if you get woken up by a 2 am call with a 30-pilot batch, you'll at least be paid 5 hours.

Increasing batch sizes scales the penalty. People will get woken up, but at least you'll be paid if you're not likely to get the trip.

Would that work?

 

I could go for something like that. Give batch sizes an honest try while still preserving some leverage in the time-to-cover realm. We basically went from zero to Infiniti on the batch size giveaway and never explored the fine-tuning possibilities that batch sizes present for both sides.

example: company declares an irop and ps commuting, id be open to selling aa and batch size up to 10 for a 24-hour window in exchange for adg during that same time. Stack that onto a gs and I might volunteer to fly during the irop

 

Batch sizes aren’t the problem. Any batch size we’d consider reasonable the company will violate when they need to. That will generate penalty pay, which will generate pilots piling in to collect the penalty, slowing down the system.

This is the exact same reason the company abused batch sizes before, which led them to abusing M7 the first time. It’s the same reason they are stuck now.

They're trying to cover way too much flying compared to the way they used to.

 

but but but THIS new computerized system will fix all our previous problems! Think of the efficiencies and all the time and money we will save!

 

I think the new system will work just fine and we do not need to make any changes.

Time to run coverage? Itll go out the normal way. You’ll only be woken up if it’s yours.

No time to run coverage? It’ll go out as a QS, and the company pays 3x in exchange for the inconvenience to pilots of only having a single batch.

Any changes to this will need to be requested by the company in section 6 in exchange for substantial return elsewhere, end of story.