It didn’t become a problem until word of mouth of 23m7 reached a critical mass where auto accept caused steps of trip coverage not to be able to be completed before the trip stared, not anything you mentioned. It’s simple math.

The pilots are the final reason for the system breaking, but we’re not to blame if you peel back the onion as to why people started to learn about using auto accept.

I've found the public to be extremely unsympathetic towards us regarding pay issues, and I honestly don't blame them. A lot of people are short on money and the amount we make even when shorted compared to them....... Not condoning pay shortages at all, they're unacceptable, but I think the strategy is actually counter productive.

The public does seem to be a lot more receptive towards safety and rest issues.

this is accurate.

Except the company can skip past all that. They have adequate time to cover every single trip. 8 hours prior to report and they can throw on a short call or run a 12 minute quick slip. That incurs a pay penalty, sure, but let's not pretend auto accept is driving these cancellations. It's increasing the cost of things, but the cancellations themselves are almost entirely understaffing of schedulers and pilots.

Whose going to take those trips? Middle of the night call to report early. No commuters are taking it and with the amount of premium going out most locals are just going to wait for something a little more gentlemanly.

If an uncovered SS goes out as a GS or QS is that 3x or 4x pay? Sign of the times. Define greed and scruples in this context.

Yep exactly, but that is a staffing issue and not a coverage issue. They can use 23M7 to offer trips at 200% pay 8 hours out... That is adequate time. Maybe not for a commuter in the middle of the night but that has always been and will always be an issue (though one could argue they could've offered more silver slips in advance).

But yes, there is so much open time that there is so much premium so guys can be selective. That is indeed a pilot understaffing issue. Increase the pilots and there will be more of us to pick up this open time or take it as a short call, and that extra competition will make guys less picky, which will also increase trips being picked up.

It's easy to blame the coverage side of things on auto accept, but I'm just not seeing it, whether you think it's unethical or not.

No. A SS trip loses the SS designation, and any associated premium pay, when it hits the manual coverage window 2 days out. Once manual coverage starts it simply pays based on whatever step it gets covered at (plus 23m7 if used). A SS can only ever awarded through PCS, not manual coverage.

Auto Accept was starting to become an issue years ago. About three years ago I got a GS to GRU. Very last minute after the previous crew timed out over a mx issue. I got to the airport in about an hour. About 45 minutes later the first FO showed up. Maybe two hours after that the second FO showed up. On the flight down he explained to me what took so long. He had to wait while they worked their way through all the Auto Accept. Was the first time I heard about it.

We didn't "break" anything. They did. It's been broken since late 2018. We are not the ones trying to get more blood from the turnip. They are. We exercise our contract. A contract we BOTH agreed to.

Try to remember what side of this equation you're on. Thank you.