What is the difference between a Authorized Personal Drop and a Personal Drop? From section 23, it is not real clear what the "authorized" means. The benefit is that the APD is run before the APD and the limit is one per year, with more than 25% reserve coverage.

Is my read on this correct?

... and I get dragged right back in...

The way I would implement a longevity system would be to take the lowest paid captain DC9 at 12 year.. and find an acceptable raise from that point. That becomes year 1 of the longevity scale. Every year after that is a (3%) raise until year 40. How would anybody get "screwed" there?

OK.. why do we need make a choice about choosing money or QOL. That is defeatist. You essentially are saying that we cannot have both, so we have to make a choice. Really? I don't buy that because there are no more benefits of real consequence so the remaining two have to be paired against each other? Like I have said, I know I am tilting at windmills because there won't be any original thinking on how this is all done. $500 for the whale.. they deserve it!

Can't never could do anything...

I think the debate is more "could" versus "should" than can't. Each fleet and base is its own little fiefdom where somebody gets to be senior. Removing the pay distinctions in our pilot group nullifies the advantage of seniority for the senior. It also would result in greater stagnation on the junior equipment, since there would be every financial incentive to camp out rather than upgrade.

My solution is the opposite. We should have separate categories for paint jobs, winglets, galley configurations, engine dash numbers, lav floor cover color and anything else we can think of. That way we all can be senior on something :)

An APD is a once per year (renews in your hire date month) ability to drop up to a 4 day trip (Not long ago DL had almost no trips longer than 4 days in any category). You don't get paid for it if you drop it. Here's the important part: With an APD, you can't pick up anything over the days that you've dropped. So let's say you dropped a 4 day trip on the 4th - the 7th. You want to pick up a trip that departs the evening of the 7th. You can't.

The idea behind the APD was that with the reserve days almost always capped, if something important is going on at home and you really need the days off, you can use an APD to get that. If it falls over a holiday, like Jan 1, then Skeds can decline to drop the trip even if coverage is good enough for an APD.

That said, if you have a medical issue or treatment you need to take care of, a family event such as a graduation or marriage, you can always ask your C.P. for the time off, he has the ability to call skeds and have them drop a trip. If you go that route, don't be surprised if he asks you to white slip something else or pick up another trip in the month especially if your category is short of pilots. I don't know why some C.P.'s ask that, but they often do. Sometimes C.P.'s will cover those sorts of drops with your vacation time, so you kind of get paid (vacation pay) -- if you don't want that to happen, make sure you communicate that to them.

You can check the contract for more details about the APD. It's not as useful as it once was, and it will probably cost you money to use. But basically it's there if something comes up and you don't have any other way of being off work... Cough Cough.

If you have a family emergency, ie: a death, your C.P. will authorize up to 4 paid days off, S-1 passes, to deal with that issue, all you need to do in that case is make a phone call.

The APD used to be a paid drop before bankruptcy. That would be a nice nugget to get back in 2012.

When crew scheduling calls does it show up as the scheduling phone number or Delta switchboard or none of the above? I need the exact number it will appear as in the caller ID so that my phone does not block the call.

"Authorized personal drop" (APD) came into being as an offshoot (concession) of "authorized leave." We used to get 5 and then 3 days of authorized leave. I believe that it was negotiated in the contract in lieu of holiday pay. With authorized leave you could drop a 3 day trip and get paid for it with your 3 days. If you dropped a 4 day then you were out one days pay. I think authorized leave made it's exit in contract '96 but I could be mistaken. Authorized personal drop took its place.

With an authorized personal drop, you can drop any length of trip as long as the reserves meet the min threshold required in the contract to do so. On certain major holidays you are contractually excluded from being able to APD. They are listed in the contract. With that being said, if you want a major holiday off, try the APD. I have gotten Xmas off in the past using the APD option.

Bottom line as far as dropping and picking up trips using the APD. Only use the APD to drop the day you really want off. Then, if you want to pick up a trip before or after that day you can.

Denny

It depends on if they call you from the direct dial computer system or via a land line phone. If its a computer call the system will not function with caller ID and will show up as Unknown Caller. Very few calls show this so I assume its Delta if I see that. If they call from a land line phone it can be from almost any extension in crew scheds and could be many different numbers. They show up as 404 715-XXXX or 404 714-XXXX.

The above APD information is not quite correct. You only need show APD on 1 day of a rotation and they will drop the entire trip. You are then free to WS or GS on the remaining days of the rotation. If however you show all 4 APD days then you are blocked from flying on those days. If you want to fly over part of the dropped trip make sure you place only 1 APD day where you don't want to fly. The other days then remain available.

QOL is built into every aspect of our contract. You are always making choices. About the only way to eliminate QAL would be to have a lottery system each month for your monthly award. You would simply be given a random schedule. The same would have to apply for vacations ect....
Being senior in a category not only gives you a much higher quality of life but also generally gives you more pay. Its much easier to WS choice trips or GS trips if you are at the top of a category. That is why any switch to a seniority based system would require a system rebid before it could be considered fair. I would certainly downbid asap to the 737-800 if we go that route to be as senior as possible and insure both the best QAL and pay.