I think it was contractual. Many guys would intentionally bid for 18+ days of reserve. This way they'd gain another 2-3 days off because rarely did we receive a 24 hour break. It was almost always a calender day off. Add to that when you had 18 days in a row you weren't in a 4 day bucket, you were in the 18 day bucket. So basically you could pile your days up & be the last to be called for several weeks. It worked very well.

Is that assuming everyone goes to 65?

I can only speak for myself. I'm 50 right now. With having lost the pension, I need that extra 5 years to make up the difference and get to a level in my retirement portfolio where it will provide enough cash flow.

Retiring at age 60 would cause me to come up a little short. I would just have to go out and get another job and continue to build my portfolio for a few more years. And if I'm going to work past age 60, I might as well be doing something I enjoy. That's the way I look at it.

Yes - the numbers are off the ALPA site, and someone made a Excel sheet that calculates it all out.

It did just change in the last month or two - I think the domestic categories can now have 9 days of reserve in a row now.

Methinks somebody needs to read "When Scheduling Calls" again! Pay particular attention to the FAR, Rest, and Short Call sections.

Time on call is neither duty nor rest, so the argument you describe above wouldn't be made. Anytime you're assigned duty from call you must be able to look back from the end of each flight segment and find adequate rest.

Somebody who had 8 days of domestic flying in a row without a hard 24 hours off participated in the violation of the FAR's....to which the pilot is jointly responsible with the company for compliance. If it's international, the company bears sole responsibility.

From the Good Book:


Before accepting a domestic

look back 24 hours from the completion of each scheduled flight segment
and find a legally scheduled “normal” or “reduced” rest period within the
previous 24 hours. If the rest is reduced rest, then within 24 hours from
the beginning of the reduced rest, the pilot must be given a compensatory
rest period, the length of which depends on the amount of scheduled and
actual flight time. Under no circumstances may a flight crewmember
receive less than an 8-hour rest within a 24-hour period.

There was actually a note in PBS right above the min-max days on parameters when the bid opened. It stated specific categories that were now increased to a max of 9 days on. I know the 73N & 320 were NOT included.

Here's what the latest scheduling alert says about it:

The requirement to be relieved of all duty for 24 hours in any seven consecutive days applies to all pilots except an international four-man crew. The seven consecutive days are considered to be calendar days, while the 24 hours may be any 24 consecutive hours, i.e., not necessarily a calendar day, and may occur on a layover.


Important note: This is a flight limitation. A pilot may fly for six days and train or deadhead on the seventh day. A reserve pilot may be on call for any number of consecutive days, but must have been released from telephone responsibilities for at least 24 consecutive hours at some point in the past seven days prior to reporting for domestic flight duty. This is not true for international flight duty.

Important note: There is no requirement to place a day of rest on the seventh consecutive on-call day if no 24 hour rest in the past seven days can be found. As long as a pilot has 24 hours rest in seven days prior to reporting for domestic flight duty he is legal. When needed, such rest is placed on the pilot’s line at the time that a domestic trip is assigned. This has the effect of providing him at least 24 hours notice to a domestic reserve flying assignment if he cannot look back and find 24 hours rest in the preceding seven days.

I just looked at the Bid packages, and from what I can see, the only airplanes included were the DC9, 73N and 767 (domestic). (it says on the cover sheet "Max Reserve Days On: 9")

I'm not going to say that "you're wrong sailing! We can see 100 seaters at mainline!" and blah blah rehash and so on from hundreds and hundreds of pages back which goes nowhere really.

Especially since I agree with your premise Sailing that we won't see them.

I believe this because unless Embraer or Bombardier can offer 100 seaters for $6-$10M, I don't know you can justify buying them over 150 seat MD90s and possibly in time used A319s and maybe 737s, who knows. To me some of the more profitable non-state supported operations have opted for a fleet of used aircraft over new.

But looking at RAH's 12 year EMB-190/175 pay scale ($96/hr A and $37/hr B) and looking at ours ($107.67/hr A and $73.54/hr B) you see a $48.21/hr pay difference on the cockpit pay alone and a majority of those savings comes on the backs of the first officers.

Say you flew 4000 hours a year per airframe and had a fleet of 50, at best thats $9.6M a year savings in cockpit crews. Tack on $20/hr savings on FAs and you come up to $13.6M a year in savings. I'll call maintenance a draw and all other things being equal it seems as if those savings would be eaten up by the cost of running another airline- especially if that airline is funding the creation of a potential major competitor.

And truth be known, these are 12 year RAH rates are applicable to the 76 seater and 100 seater, i.e., we cost $1.81/seat they cost $1.76/seat.

I think its a mistake for Delta Air Lines not to have an unlimited supply of, and 100% control of, what they feel works best for them. I think its in our best interest for ourselves and our airline to have both unlimited supply and 100% control.

I personally would like to see Embraer straighten out that EMB-195 wing and slap some of those cool 8 bladded mega props from the A400 on it and put that at mainline. Let Bombardier take on B&A, China, Russia and Fokker.

Anyways, friendly reminder, the 737-200 was in the Delta mainline stables until 2006. DC-9-30s... are still here. Anybody thats asking for 100 seaters at RAH or similiar airline, whether it be Bombardier, some at Delta, ALPA, etc, truth be known they're not getting back into aircraft we long abandoned but replacing aircraft we had at mainline less than 4 years ago.

Off to church to ask forgiveness for Ferd.