There are lots of ways MLOA improves QOL, whether people want to admit it or not. But this is one area where mil folks are certainly not advantaged - green slip trigger is not affected/pro-rated when taking partial-month MLOA.

...but what are the reserves required? Not because it SHOULD make a difference, but because it DOES (unfortunately).

You can't just look at reserves available. You also have to look at reserves required.
In most cases, available has to exceed required and it has to be true for each of the days covering the trip you want to drop.

See Section 23.W.3.a

A request to swap with the pot under

a. the number of reserves available in the category (A) on the day(s) to be dropped is greater than the number of reserves required (R) on such days,

Its very hard to swap with the pot unless you are swapping trips that operate on the same days.
The Harwood formulas make it nearly impossible in the summer.
Hopefully we can make some improvements in that area with the next contract.

Yes, line bidding with trip/vacation touching conflict pay protection..... but that probably isn't going to happen.....

Oh okay thanks all. I thought we had a bad vs worse type thing because I had a swap earlier in the month approved in a similar situation where the available never exceeded the required...guess I just slipped through the cracks and got lucky on that one

I've had the same thing happen.
Occasionally they will approve swaps that don't meet the reserves requirement.
Same thing with X day moves.
Never hurts to put in the request and see what happens.

I think they run those requests by hand and will sometimes grant them even if they don't have to contractually. They look at proximity to weekends and holidays, actual open time in the pot, number of guys with white slips on file, etc. etc.
Also if required vs. available is "close" it can fluctuate positive/negative during the actual PCS run. ie = start out negative, go positive during the run, then end up negative after the run. You never see that on DBMS because you only see the final number. I'm told that happens A LOT on the very first run on the 20th of each month.

We DO have such a thing. It is spelled out in Section 23.W.5.a. However it is so mind-boggling complex, with terms like "the sum of the negative integers" that the typical line pilot could never understand it.

But here is what you need to know.

1. If reserves available exceed reserves required for all the days of the trips you are trying to swap, the swap will be granted. That is the easy one to understand. Of course in the summer time especially, and in some categories all year long, that is not necessarily the case.

2. If you are attempting to swap two trips that fly over the same days, you will ALWAYS have the swap approved, unless there is some FAR or contractual reason to prevent it, regardless of reserves available. Do NOT believe the multitude of complaints when guys claim they tried to do that and the system would not let them. In every case I have ever seen, there is always some extenuating factor that the pilot did not consider or realize (tried to swap into a "Q" trip, forgot that trip one blocked in at 2345, meaning his release was 0015 which means his trip was actually a four-day instead of three day, etc).

3. The tricky one is your example. You are trying to swap two trips, both of which fly over days that are short, reserve availability wise. The swap MAY be approved, if by doing so the category is "less undermanned." However as I mentioned at the top of this post, the formula is bizarrely complex, not helpful, and may end up resulting in a lot of denied swap requests, that not only do no favors for the pilot, but actually may not help the company out as well.

What is the true bottom line? That reserves required formula, in 23.W.5 really needs to be updated, to be simpler, more comprehensible, and address the needs of the pilots more.

The swap system is fully automated. The last paragraph you posted is why people see differences in results.

Because mgmt has nothing better to do than scope these boards and punish probation pilots who try and improve their schedule... Ygbsm

Oh, and to the guy who was asking about APD, I am fairly certain you have one. Go to icrew-pay/hours-bank statement and it should have a Y or N next to the statement "APD available".

And don't forget that APDs reset on the anniversary of your hire date; they are once-a-year use-or-lose.