Only extremely senior first officers are flying with line check airman right now (top 10 percent in category). If you look at the top bids in PBS, every single one of the senior guys try to make every single one of their trips with a LCA to take a chance that some of their trips will be bought. If you change it back to recovery obligations, flying with LCA will go junior again. Everyone first officer on the list will br affected by this change.

Not true. I have a friend on the 737 in Atl, and he is approx. 50% relative position. He gets about 80% of his trips with LCA. So you dont have to be anywhere near super senior to do it. Plus a lot of LCA swap trips, and get trips with junior FO's when they do the swap.

Not true I am 50% in category and I have a at least 1 trip a month bought off for the last year. This is a GREAT deal for FOs and should not be changed

Two separate concepts being discussed, right?

1) The recovery obligations of a FO flying with a LCA.
2) The notion of removing LCA-awarded trips from the available pairings for FO's to bid.

2 is heinous, and affects every FO in category, +/- a couple. If you allow the removal of trips, then everyone below that point is getting a worse trip than they might have otherwise held. Essentially, every LCA in their category lowers the seniority of the FO's in their category by 1. I can't imagine this would seriously be considered.

I'd say it is more than being considered. In response to a question about what contractual inefficiencies the company wanted addressed in this negotiation - the first thing RA discussed was FO's staying home for OE's. Weird but true.

Being a Saints fan, I might be able to get on board with this!;):D

Not to mention the staffing implication. Would we let Delta staff the FO positions to a lower number derived from removing an assumed amount of OE flying from the staffing formula? If so, you need fewer FOs in each position. If not, you get some number of FOs who now get pushed to reserve because of the removal of those trips.

Unacceptable, IMO.

Seems like the problem RA has is FOs staying home paid Simple solution. Exchange FO recovery obligation for mandatory Greenslip pay. If a pilot loses his trip and is forced to be available for something else, the pilot should be compensated.

Not so simple. The problem with green slips is you have to fly them. There is nothing better in this job than (once in a dog's age) getting paid to stay home. I am not about to give up my very favorite thing about this job, are you? Why should we be discussing a way to make this palatable? IMO, there is no such way.

Everybody has a price. If the company wants my trip and still wants me to fly I have no problem with that as long as they make it worth my while. Give and take.