I'm delighted you would wait to gain some perspective before you run. that's a good thing.

So let's tone it down, and take a step back. Let's also dropp the LARGE CAPS: no sense in yelling.

WRT the practice bids at FedEx, the concept as I read it is fairly simply: people would bid differently in the practice than in the final. They'd try to see what everyone else would do in the practice. As a result, when people finally pulled the trigger on a real bid... they wouldn't get anything like what they got on the practice.

I think the problem with a practice is that people have no incentive to divulge their true intentions, and no penalty for bluffing. Therefore, practice bids seem to me to make little sense in practice.

Conceptually, they're fantastic.

They good method I see is for the company to run a few, rapid-succession bids, so that the results are published before training occurs. In doing so, they would not divulge how many bids would occur. Everyone bids truthfully enough, because everyone truly risks getting stuck with their award, but has a chance to try to improve their position in smaller clean-up bids.

Surprisingly, that's often exactly how the system works in practice: everyone bids carefully, and hopes they will be able to improve their position later.

I will agree that I don't like the fact the company can game the bid by making categories bigger than expected, i.e. by allowing more AE's, not processing all displacements, or even cancelling a bid if they don't like the awards. They seem to have a lot of latitude after the bid is closed.

 

But with the current reserve, almost all of pilots can commute to reserve. Sure, there are some who live on the opposite coast who can't, but they are flying past a number of bases to choose their base to be on reserve at. Those guys couldn't sit LC at home anyway (I'm thinking west of Kansas City for say, JFK)

Maybe 2/3 of the reserve pilots get a bit better schedule, but at the complete trashing of the 1/3's schedule who end up on SC all the time.

I don't agree that sitting SC means you don't fly - I know that has been your case the last two weeks, but I think that's because there have been lots of cancellations, resulting in 23K recovery flying.

I've sat reserve most of of the 2009:
April - sat six SCs, flew 2 trips or so.
May, June, July and August, every time I got SC, I had a trip by the time I commuted to JFK.
Sept, Oct, Nov, assigned 3 SCs or so a month, flew on 1 or 2 of those SCs.
I'm not flying in Dec, so I can't comment on this month's flying.

For me, as a middle of the pack reserve, my QOL has been pretty good. I can't see being on LC the whole month as improving it much.

I don't want a system, be it within the line holders, overall pay, reserve or vacation where the top half of the group (be it overall seniority, relative category or whatever) gets huge benefits and screws the bottom half of the group.

 

I'd like to take a moment and tell everyone that I have shown great restraint in the midst of great temptation- who said deterrents don't work? I didn't want to be banned as the AE results are pending.

But I found some great pictures at peopleofwalmart.com that screamed "juicy pilot" but I chose not to post it.

I should get credit for being good.



It was a real good one too.

 

Well said, and good info. Danke.

 

Clearly, I didn't say that NOONE can sit at home currently, since I said I can sit SC from home. That's at least one pilot.

I'm saying that, with short calls mixed in in a fairly random pattern, it's difficult for a commuter to plan. BTW, maybe the distribution is not so random: it maybe specifically designed to keep people in base: when you have one morning SX, followed by a LC, followed by an evening SC, then LC (etc.), you're not in a position to go home.

I'd like a comprehensive tear-down of this Reserve System. As part of this, I'm open to differentiating SC and LC "lines", changing the way SC are assignment, or any other positive move that makes things more predictable for everyone, and which value seniority. So the idea has merit.

 

Or brought you in for airport standby and released you at 11pm on day 1, then you'd commute home on day 2 only to be given 12 hours to notice to your 6am show on day 3, so run to the airport and come on back in, you're flying. I could count in my head about 4 times I did that at said airline where I finally gave up and started commuting to a line with no weekends off over weekends off reserve.

Is there anything that prohibits trips from being removed from open time, saved and then given to someone with min notice? If not, be careful what you wish for as you never know when a good relationship (pilots - scheduling) will go sour, or depending on your personal experiences even more sour.

 

The PWA says:

Same-day open time will be sequenced for award/assignment as it becomes known to Crew Scheduling.

So, from the looks of it, they are supposed to be taken care of when they are known.

 

I disagree. People that have more SC aren't "trashed". It's the constant mix-and-match of SC and LC that hurts everyone. The people that get a LC, get it sandwiched between SC, so it has no value. The people that sit SC don't get any monetary value for it. You're "more ready", but not better paid.

I'd probably bid (more predictable) SC duty. It could actually pay to be in-base, and handle the SC. I think you're making the mistake of assuming that junior people are more likely to commute.

If they're tight, they will sacrifice a SC to cover a known trip. During the busier times, you'll be more likely to go to SC, to a trip. No argument here. But that doesn't mean that the original idea is bad: everyone flies, but the person that got pulled to do a trip from a SC, on shorter notice, would have some offset for this lesser notice. And when times are slow, the LC truly gets to sit LC (doesn't commute in for alternating LC/SC days), and the SC person is rewarded for being more readily accessible.

The current LC system wouldn't do much since you'd have too little ability to pick trips. It's too unpredictable.

I agree. I want a graduated system where the most seniority equates to first choice in assignments: LC, SC, or pick the trip. Just like monthly bidding. I'm not trying to create classes of pilots.

 

I was referring to people who don't live close enough to make a SC assignment via driving. I really don't think the scenario you posted is a common one, & appears to be a worse case scenario. Especially considering a max 6 SC a month. Most people Ive spoken to (domestic) have been getting 2-3 SC the entire month.

 

Unless they have a way to assign it then reassign it. Trying to think more like a regional airline scheduler and not a mainline carrier one. But I've seen WS's here assigned to a regular line holder, which sucked because I had a yellow slip in for it, and then 6 hours be reassigned to another reserve pilot, who was not me because they gave me the trip I was originally trying to avoid via the yellow slip for the better one.

Not saying that was anything dirty, just saying trips can go away and pop back up.