Gold HRA + family.

My wife hit the $1000 deductible when we had the baby and I forget how much else that cost on top. My daughter has now hit her $1000 deductible and my son who was born this year is at $900 on his way to $1000. My $750 FRA is $0 now.

I'm $0 btw.

And yes my daughter is fine. She's plays hard, unfortunately she was moments from being picked up and put into bed and we wouldn't be concerned about a scar or a $995 bill.

Sorry $915. I think the bill is still a work in process.

You know....it's funny....I thought the exact same thing. I mean, why keep mentioning how "committed" you are at every opportunity? If you were "committed" as you claim you are why not continue going about your business? Also why don't we ever hear Delta talk about how "committed" they are in SLC, or ATL, or DTW? Why is it always "We are committed to MSP"?

Anyone else think this is a bit weird?

Close MSP and give it to Alaska but we will still run international out of there with our JV partners.

We will also use our current regional jets to service Delta markets. Those regional jets by the way now have internet which will greatly aid the customers experiences as they transfer from a Delta Connection flight with a pilot wearing a "I LUV SWA" laynard to their Alaska or AF/KLM or assorted Asian JV partner flight.

All of this made possible by, DELTA.COM and American Express Skymiles.

Man this running of an international airline seems easier and easier once you can soften section 1 of the pilot's PWA!

RD,

Answering your questions from above:

Does it mean that the more senior get to choose to stay at home and not fly?


It depends on how much you weight seniority. Giving senior pilots the most possible weight would allow them to pass on trips until the junior guys fly to the limit. This requires the company to man the category with more reserves to handled the lopsided distribution of flying.

The company does not like this.
Junior guys on reserve don't like this. With the possible exception that it requires more total pilots - possible hiring but small consolation while they are being abused.
Senior guys on reserve like this.

On the other hand with the current system seniority has almost zero weight - basically a tie breaker. Consider this:

Senior pilot has flown for a total of 9 days with a raw score of 48.
Junior pilot has flown for a total of 9 days with a raw score of 49.
Both guys have the same days of availability - senior guy gets assigned first unless the junior guy chooses to lower his raw score. So in this case the senior pilot has no real seniority advantage.

If seniority were considered in the reserve system, instead of RAW value, wouldn't the more junior folks be getting a worse deal than we have already?

You can see from the above that there is a spectrum along which you can weigh seniority to favor the senior pilots and disadvantage the junior pilots. In the past we operated more to the favor seniority end of the spectrum. We are currently operating more toward the no weight for senority which by the way appears to more efficient for the company.

There are two separate issues in my mind when trying to improve our system:

1. Find a method to weigh seniority that would not cause the company to carry more reserves or minimize the additional reserves required. Or else just accept the higher cost of more reserves required.

2. Find a suitable seniority weighing mechanism that would favor the senior pilots but not totally hose the junior guys. Basically, how much weight should we give seniority. Some guys want the system to absolutely favor the senior guys. Other guys want seniority to not count at all in reserve assignments. Most guys (myself included) want to try to figure out the sweet spot that gives senior guys some but not a total advantage in reserve assignments.

If you keep up with this post there have been many suggested improvements to our reserve system that tweak the seniority advantage at minimal cost to the company.

One thing that absolutely needs to fixed is the reserve guarantee needs to be 75 hours minimum or even 75 for long call pilots and 79 for short call pilots. If its good enough for DAL's preferred Pilots (Alaska Pilots) its good enough for us. :rolleyes:


Scoop

Sorry to hear FTB!! I am fed up with the **** medical "benefits" our employer offers. I shouldn't have to second guess going to the doctor/hospital because of ****ty benefits.
Medical is very near the top of my list of thing to be fixed.
Hope your kid gets better soon.

Prior to bankruptcy, wasn't the reserve guarantee 5 hours less than the cap (or ALV)? Would that be a reasonable option again? A 75 hour reserve guarantee would be a pretty good deal in the winter, when the ALV is reduced.

Because there months.. few and far between mind you.. where I can hold a regular line. And it is a crap line, but as on old timer once told me, "The worst regular line is better than the best reserve line". I hold this to be true. Now.. if reserve were to actually recognize seniority, I might be interested.. but I doubt it because the categories will be manned so thin that you are sitting 10 SCs/month etc etc etc... Reserve, no matter how it is structured, should NOT suck. It currently does. IF the company has to hire more guys to cover a system that recognizes seniority, so be it.

No problem :) We are kind of on the same page, except as a sometimes bubble guy, I like the possibility of holding a regular line. I don't want to be pigeonholed into reserve when I could be flying LAX all nighters on MY schedule. :)

Nice post Scoop.

The TLV is 72-82 hours. I think a guarantee of 77, right in the middle, would work nicely. I also like the idea of SC essentially getting some type of premium credit. My other suggestion is for long call to be a 24 hour call out. Most of the time I'm assigned a trip on LC, it usually is. Cover everything else with SC. I personally would be willing to go back to 8 SC periods if LC became a 24 hour call out. I caveat that with the fact that I'm a commuter, and I can't sit LC at home.

My next suggestion is to assign SC 2 days prior, not prior to 1500 the day prior. This too, would help mitigate issues with commuting.

Finally, I favor two separate systems. RES/Line Holder. This is simply for the fact that there is absolutely no chance for any quality of life for the bottom feeders at the company. Right now, at least if a senior guy bids down to reserve, the junior guys are somewhat protected from outright abuse by the RAW system. I think the only way to make that better would be to eliminate the number of days available in the criteria. That way, the lowest RAW score, regardless of number of days available, gets the assignment.

I would probably favor the current system with some tweeking, and seniority in the RES system, if the average days worked on RES each month, were the same as the average number of days worked as a line holder. This currently is not the case. Introducing seniority to the system as it stands now would mean that line holders bid down during the holidays, and junior guys work 70+ hours for the month, and all of those hours are on the weekends and holidays btw.

Now, if bringing in seniority to the reserve system means that you get an advantage for YS purposes, I have no issue with that. But to use it to deny an assignment so that it goes to a junior who has a much higher RAW score, not so much.

We work in a seniority based system...I understand this, and as such am humbly standing by for my lashing! It would, however, be nice to be able to have a little bit of seniority in the worst category within the DAL system, which is reserve.

Thanks, what I saw was with the separate cats...the res guys were senior ( didn't fly and rcved 75 hours), and the commuters...which were a huge percentage of most of the bases had a line. There was a lot of grumbling when we went to it, and then the majority of the guys did not want to go back to the old system.