About Reserve:

You are trying to please 3 groups, The Company, Senior Reserves, and Junior Reserves. Good luck.

The company wants to minimize staffing. If it were up to them, every reserve would fly what he's being paid, or more.

In the 'old days' the senior guys didn't fly much on reserve, while the junior guys would fly a lot, and some would even time out, but very few senior reserves ever flew to 70+, unless they wanted to. Even then, the company would try to send trips out to someone with less time, so nobody broke the cap while some were well below it.

So the Junior guys want to share the love with the senior guys, but obviously, senior guys don't want any part of that. The company wants them all to fly to the cap.

There will never be a perfect reserve system, because those 3 different groups all want something that benefits them, at the expense of the other two groups.

The most you can hope for is some type of compromise, which is why we have what we have now.

The best thing you can do is;

Get off reserve!

Especially if you commute!

 

For the record a resolution proposing a shrinking of the current bucket system was put forward by either DTW pilots (or reps not sure) but was unanimously defeated.

As ACL has stated, the MEC has been directed to and will discuss in Aug increasing the RAW score needed to exit bucket 1. IMO this in effect creates a straight seniority system without needing the company to agree to it. Obviously the company won't allow a huge change in the RAW values of each bucket but then again not much change is needed to create what a few in the union desire. The justification is that the original system was a concession so we should actively seek to void it. I understand that but I also understand that not all change is bad and that no one group of pilots should be entirely (IMO anyway) exploited to create a windfall for others.

I'm pretty junior in a slow category. I'm not the most junior so I really don't work all that much. Others are not so lucky. The system we have ensures jr pilots fly more as it should but it's the upper limit IMO of what type of windfall a senior pilot can reasonably feel entitled to.

I have already emailed my rep and I appreciate that he called me back this morning. We agree on a few things and disagree on others but the discussion was reasonable and I felt my input was valued. I encourage each of you to do the same. It remains unclear what tool the pilots will have to be heard on this issue between now and Aug (survey?) so assume nothing and contact your reps. Given the resounding defeat of the DTW resolution and the opposite outcome of the ATL resolution, it's not difficult to see which direction the tide is rolling.

Not acting because "the company won't allow a return to the old system" while probably true is a huge gamble IMO because even small changes to the bucket sizes have the same impact as erasing the bucket system.

 

I would be interested in more details on this. e.g. how many pilots were present? What was the seniority of those who voted? The system is skewed in favor of senior pilots so it's no surprise a resolution that benefits junior pilots would not have much if any likelihood of passing.


I'm fairly certain DALPA can not unilaterally change the RAW values for the buckets. They can decide they want to sacrifice junior pilots' QOL even more than they have for their senior buds, but it requires the company to agree to the bucket changes. Personally, I'm still waiting to see a pilot get into bucket #2 after five days of flying like my rep and a SOT member told me would happen.

 

Carl;
FWIW, your DTW CA rep is the one that agreed to the compromise of the FPL resolution. I was not there but that is what I am told.

For your own information. The FPL will be posted on the Treasure's page after each quarterly MEC meeting. Why what you ask? Guess its the same with everything else, they present it to the MEC and then to the pilots. Its also done in open session so any one can watch the Treasurer's Report.

Q 1 is up there if a recall, and the updated one will be up there as soon as its formatted correctly. There were some changes desired by the MEC so that takes time to do.

Also, its FPL period, no break down of 24J v non-24J, but the FPL is up there. Also you are free to check any pilots schedule for this reason. Verify it if you desire.

On the resolution that Bar proposes, one rep cannot move the tide and there is good reason for that. It a dampener in the system. To get the ball rolling on any issue, you must show up and present one. Also if any sort of resolution like this passes it must go up to National and the EC and then ultimately to the BOD.

One offs like Block Representation are approved in the governing documents and there are a few carriers out there that have it, FDX and HAL are two I can think of off of my head. Changes to what a group has now, or any modifications to the current representation structure get approved by the EC.

 

Bucket size is mutually determined by the Scheduling Committee Chairman and the company. To date there has been no direction from the MEC on it. SOT I survey results said to increase seniority on reserve, and this was as far as they could get it.

Also remember SOT and its assumptions were based on a hard reserve pay. With a variable guarantee that was part of TA 2012, the RAW number per credit/block hr is not the same from month to month. Even in a slow month, you have 72 hrs of reserve guarantee, and that means it takes more credit/block hrs to get your RAW up. The guarantee is part of the formula to determine RAW value(number)

 

LAX ER-A Backdoor open.

Baja.

 

 

^^^^^^^^^ AMEN!!!!
That was the worst trip in the system. Great job!

 

Tank you...tank you bery much...

 

Heyas Carl,

Maybe that was true in the past, but don't forget, over half the status (voting) reps on MEC turned over March 1st.

It's a different group, in more ways than one. There are a LOT of junior guys on the MEC now, and I'm pretty sure they don't have any problems expressing themselves.


As for the bucket issue...we don't work on absolute seniority for practically anything...there are almost always restrictions to seniority (ALV/caps, in-base/out-of-base restrictions, freezes, open board/PCS runs, swap-board, etc). Furlough is the one thing that I can think of that IS absolute.

Let's take a look at just one...the PCS run times. More PCS runs = LESS ability to use seniority, because that means less time that a senior guy might have a chance to look at a trip and enter a bid.

A "real time" open board would be the ultimate "seniority nullifier", because it would be first come, first served. On the other hand, look at what fNWA had, which was ONE open time cycle a day...at midnight.

BTW, efforts to change that at NWA were met with that EXACT argument..."it wouldn't allow senior guys to look over the flying"

So the question isn't "should we let seniority rule?", because we've already decided, as a pilot group, that we don't, at least not absolutely. The question should be "how much balance do we want?"

In the case of PCS runs, we decided that more convenience to tweak schedules was more important that seniority. I'm sure the bucket issue will be decided the same way.

Nu