Originally Posted by Carl Spackler

You were never a DPA supporter Dorfman, we've been over this. You're a DALPA guy through and through. Which is fine. I'm glad your happy with them.

Regarding Heiko, I don't recall a single post from DPA ever criticizing him. He was a relatively new guy there anyway.

Carl

Originally Posted by MikeF16

Thanks guys I had no idea I could PD or swap reserve days, I thought that was only for line holders. I could turn 21 days in the crash pad into about 17 if I can line up my reserve days.

Originally Posted by hockeypilot44

If you're NYC 717, you can drop your whole month. You won't get paid though if you do that. There are guys at this company that do go months without a paycheck or with very small paychecks to run other businesses. I am not one of them. I spend my spare time drinking beer and playing hockey.

Originally Posted by MikeF16

Do you know how long the turn around on a PD is? I've got a single day of reserve on the 20th, and my flight to be in position leaves about 1pm tomorrow. If I PD'd now would I know before boarding my flight if it was approved or not?

Originally Posted by RonRicco

Heiko is not new. He has been a negotiator for most of the last 5 years.

Originally Posted by Carl Spackler

He was an addition to this negotiating committee after the MEC administration purge from the C2012 debacle. He was new to this negotiating committee, not new to union negotiations. Didn't intend to infer otherwise. The point was that I don't recall any DPA post that criticized him.

Carl

Originally Posted by jetnwa

Life is grand! 3 commutes a month with a rotation falling into carry over for the next month for lots of days off in the month. Turning 2 weeks of vacation into a full month off on a NB...hoping it will be X 2 next year. One man's garbage is another man's gold!

Originally Posted by MikeF16

Do you know how long the turn around on a PD is? I've got a single day of reserve on the 20th, and my flight to be in position leaves about 1pm tomorrow. If I PD'd now would I know before boarding my flight if it was approved or not?

Originally Posted by gloopy

It also says:

"New...category means, for the purposes of Section 22, a category that has not been in existence for 60 days since the date of the first opportunity for the first conversion"

So you might get another bite at the apple if there is another immediate AE the following month. I'm not sure though. New categories coupled with almost constant mothly AE's is somewhat uncharted territory so I hesitate to say for sure. Normally in most cases you only got 1 chance to bid it but in this case you may get 2 depending on the frequency of the AE's in conjunction with the new category.

That said, it really doesn't matter because you're either going to get it or you're not if you have a bid in for it, and you should NEVER have an AE/VD bid in for something you don't want or even want less than what you currently have. In your case that also means don't have a bid in unless you're willing to be the plug…possibly for a while. If that bothers you, throw in a percentage qualifier. However if you do that, you need to be OK with not getting it when you could have been the plug.

Just to muddy the mud even more, the flying in new categories tends to suck for a while. However the first attempt might be your only way in for a long time, precicely because more senior pilots who want it, and intend to bid it in the future, may bypass on the first attempt. That could get you a plug position, but then on future AE's here come the senior bidders "pushing you down" and keeping you the plug, possibly for years.

Do not bid it unless you want it. If you want it, don't forget to bid it.

Originally Posted by sailingfun

Put your personal drop in now. It will be run at 5 pm EST. Requests are run every 5 hours between 7am and 11pm.