Gotcha. Mom always said I was never the brightest bulb in the knife drawer. :p

You do not get first choice of trips. They are awarded in seniority order.

If you are on reserve, you can't pick up open time. You can "yellow slip" a trip you would like to fly on your reserve days, or "green slip" on your days off. (green slip would be above the reserve guarantee)

As far as 717 NYC "day" trips not being desirable. Buckle up, seeing as it's a new category and the shuttle is all they are going to be flying for a while, I would say there is a very good chance that the December trips are going to be par for the course for a while.

Not so fast! It didn't work for me and one other I know of in a different base. APD's are at the discretion of the company even if there is 100% coverage for the entire trip!

If that's truly what they want, Airbus is the only way to go. Period.

And they're going to have to order a lot of them. Like an EK "Heros of Farnsborough" order. I don't see that happening all at once, or 25-50 planes at a time. I think they will continue to order a diverse fleet, although eventually I see us with two or three less fleet types. IMO we would have gotten 787's on this order but Boeing was just too committed to the dual subsidized fake royal airlines, their 10 777 bridge deal wasn't sufficient bridge lift and/or [opionion on top of opinion] they were irrational on price because they flat out don't need a small fry US order right now anyway. They are engaged in corrupt economic warfare to drive US airlines out of business while capitalizing on the transfer of our industry to economically hostile foreign entities. They'll sell US airlines widebody planes if we come begging, but they really don't care about any of us.

It will get very interesting if Airbus ever opens a widebody plant in the US.

I did the blind swap thing for awhile, but kinda like to know what trips I'm asking for.

It's kind of a pain to set up (and even to use until you get the hang of it) but Easy Swap allows you to filter trips and then it will log in and enter all the swaps by rotation #/date for you.

I think it's $4.95 a month, but it's worth it if you get one good swap a year. You also need windows and the persistence to work through their crappy interface :p

Flightline.com -- Download Files

Yes you do. I have done it twice. Read Section 11.B.1.d.3

It depends. If you have a few OE trips (which you will) they could end up on RES days. If they fly on you XX days, they count how many they flew you, and those turn into PB days which are automatically placed on your next RES days (and become days off.) This keeps happening until you run out of RES days remaining in the month, at which point they go in the bank for future use.

In your case, this being the last month of the year, they will turn into Supplemental (extra) Vacation days for next year's vacation. In other months, Banked PB days can be used a variety of different ways - most of this is detailed in the Scheduling Reference Handbook...

As a reserve, you don't really have the ability to "pick up" Open Time. You can put in a YS on your days off, but this is usually (strongly) not recommended as you will be working for free unless you have exceeded the guarantee for the month. YS on days off also does not get your day paid back (PB).

Alternatively you can Greenslip, which is the recommended way to make extra $ as a reserve, but it's unpredictable as to when you can get one (usually.) GS's on reserve pay on top of guarantee and you get PB days for working on your X days.

Whatever you decide to do, DO NOT yellow slip a trip on X days!!!! You will be flying for free (time applies towards reserve guarantee) and not getting your X days paid back. If you want to try and make extra money over that time then green slip. You will get paid above the reserve guarantee and get your days off paid back.

Denny

Thanks a lot guys, this is very helpful.