im on 8 days of credit plus a sc and still bucket 1. each day has dropped in raw score value from around 11 pts to 10 for me.

heres the thing, so much of what we schedule wise varies depending on a formula. bucket sizes should also vary, high when everyone is flying is fine because you wont even get a chance to care, low in the slow months.

but some people out there really really want alv-2 pay and be assured that they wont fly once or sit one SC. its one thing to do that in the international catrgories in the winter because thats the nature of the beast - its another to fake it on the domestic side.

they want people to work in there place for the same pay... I dont support that.

So, working six to seven days is not enough for the junior guy? At what point is it ok for the senior guy to get off the couch and come to work? I just listened to a senior guy talk to an ALPA rep in the JFK crew lounge recently. He was talking about how unfair it is that there are buckets to begin with. He was telling the ALPA rep (and the ALPA rep was agreeing) that reserve should be 100% seniority based. Junior guy always flies. Nice. I know it's coming. Didn't somebody just submit a proposal to remove the bucket system?

Yeah, what's up with that? It looks like they fingered out the back door trick, now you don't even get the "Ligero... authentication required" page, you just get last years sched! So unsatisfying to not get my monthly,
"I R teh MztR Haxxor!" fix...

Variations of this resolution came out of several LECs earlier this year. Some bases wanted more seniority on RSV (ATL) and others wanted less seniority weight/smaller buckets (DTW??).

The MEC wasn't sure how to proceed with such conflicting information, and decided to conduct a poll of the pilot group on the Bucket size issue, among other things.

The results of that poll have been analyzed and will be presented to the MEC this week in SEA. They will then decide how to proceed. All of this is academic until the next time we engage the company anyways, because the company is under no obligation (and would almost certainly decline) to change the bucket sizes to allow more seniority on RSV, as it makes us less efficient as a group. The SOT can make recommendations to the company, but it would probably be ignored unless we ask them for smaller buckets - which many see as a concession.

I'm curious to see what the results of the poll say. We should hear something after the meeting this week.

So are you saying a junior guy hitting bucket 2 with 32 flight hours on the 11th is not fair? If the senior guys sits on the couch for the rest of the month in bucket 1 so will the junior guy in bucket 2. The bucket system is self correcting in this regard.

OBTW - the system you are describing is exactly what we had at DAL - I should know, I was the plug in LAX back then. The bucket system seems to me to be a very compromise between spreading the work and honoring seniority.

Scoop

When exactly was this poll? I never got a call and I dang sure wanted to let my voice be heard about this ridiculous system (buckets are too big). I know my reps got a flurry of emails about this a few months ago. We're tired of it.

and when we go to straight seniority the company will count up how many people sat while others flew for them and determine that's some extra fat and we can MD this category and move guys over to the 88.

and somehow that increases staffing.

I thought we were 'engaged' with the company right now, over the minimum NRT Slot issues and the JV block hour compliance?

Everything is negotiable, all the time.;)

But, you're putting words in my mouth. :D

It ran a few weeks ago. They used Wilson polling to conduct the survey and they called just enough pilots to get a statistically valid sample across categories. It's very expensive and time consuming to do a live call, so not every pilot received a call.

You're not the only one with that opinion. It will be interesting to see the outcome.