In my 5 years I've never been awarded a summer vacation. Closest I've ever gotten was late Sept. Then again I usually lose a day of vacation (due to deployments) and the associated screwjob that goes with not getting to bid two weeks (this needs addressed). Worse yet, two of the years I just got what was left over since I missed bidding while deployed...never was awarded a move-up, after they arbitrarily gave me the coveted mid Feb vacation. One year they did give me an October vacation...funny enough, never a summer week.


I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying. That said, as a habitual trip dropper, I've found looking at reserves avail after the first PCS is a more indicative of how it will look. Often going into the first PCS it all looks good, only for many in the bottom half to have drops/APD/etc.. denied because those numbers went black before getting to them. Long trips in my category make it tougher, but I've generally been able to make it work, many times at the last minute. Then again, supposedly I'm in a massively overstaffed category that may see a big displacement soon. With APDs/IVDs only making up 3 moves, the PD is where it really matters.

 

Half of the days does not mean that half of the time a trip will drop. Many categories have a predominance of their trips as four and five day trips. Only a single one of those days being black inhibits the PD. As you know.

 

Senior bidders taking summer vacation?

Must be a gs play. L.o.l.

 

Those will all change before the 20th is done. Now my category has 3 black days and they are 2 Saturdays and a Sunday. My bid package has 76% of the hours in 5 day or greater trips, of those 95% touch a Saturday or Sunday. We use to have 18 hour 3 days and turns, not any more, and this is the second summer with domestic and international mixed which tanks the international and domestic quality. No matter your previous preference, now half your trip will be what you never thought you'd do. BTW, how long is your "summer?" I'm talking about June, July and August.

 

Authorized leave was not vacation. They were days negotiated as compensation for lost holidays during the year.

So yes, they were a sort of holiday pay. Not even close to vacation.

Denny

 

We will look on the 20th. I bet most categories will have the ability to APD or IVD and still chances to PD.

 

APD and IVD perhaps but APD is unpaid and IVD is essentially unpaid because you are just shorting yourself later. If your intent is to drop to adjust your schedule these tools are a waste. Both APD and IVD days can't be used to pick up so you have to be stategic with using a single APD day which makes the other 3 APD days useless. IVD days are paid at vacation day value making them worth less than a trip of equal length and you lose pay and time off during your real vacation.

 

What exactly do you want. This discussion started about the inability to fly a low time schedule because no trip could be dropped. I offered many options to do that. Now you want to be able to drop trips with pay at will!

Edit, looked at the vacation wide reports. Looks like every pilot in every category I looked at had the option of a June, July or August vacation. There were secondary vacations awarded in those time frames.

 

Just looked at every single category in ATL up to and including the 7ER both A and B for the last 10 days of July. There was not one single day during the last 10 days where a IVD or APD could not be used and there were still blocks in many categories where you could PD. Again there was not one single day unavailable for a IVD or APD.

 

ATL73NB, for the rest of July, there's not a single day available to PD, much less several in a row to PD a 3- or 4-day trip. There are also 8 Q trips in open time despite the mantra that you can always just throw stuff on the swap board and it evaporates.

Yes, coverage is good enough to APD, assuming one didn't already burn that to make their daughter's graduation, or their 20th anniversary, or to help their sick family member, etc. Many folks have multiple important engagements a year and I think improving our mechanisms to get to them is reasonable and achievable.

I'll study up on IVDs, which I've never used myself.

I understand you have low expectations, and everything is much better than it ever was. So are our profits. Me? I'd like to turn some of our profits (and negotiating capital) into schedule control tools to improve (my) qol. Sounds like you have different priorities, and that's fine with me.

Until something changes, pilots will just use sick leave where required, and CPOs everywhere will keep reminding folks in double speak that they always have that option.