Any "Latest & Greatest" about Delta?
10-26-2011, 12:39 PM
veut gagner à la loterie
Joined APC: Apr 2008
Position: Light Chop
Posts: 23,286
10-26-2011, 12:54 PM
Moderator
Joined APC: Oct 2006
Position: B757/767
Posts: 13,088
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.
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.
Dang, I didn't even ask if she was ok. What an arse I am. Sorry.
My daughter also has no fear. Glad to hear your's is ok.
Thanks for sharing the plan.
Last edited by johnso29; 10-26-2011 at 02:54 PM.
10-26-2011, 12:54 PM
seeing the large hubs...
Joined APC: Oct 2006
Position: 73N A
Posts: 3,714
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.
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.
Now I'm live where I'm base, and in base reserve is pretty sweeet. LC without a trip is basically a day off, and SC means no beer and have to stay around town. I can still go work out, take kid to the park, go the mall, etc.
In the end, someone has to sit reserve, as a junior guy that falls to me. Fine - it's the airline business. In my experience, a lot of the complaints about reserve come from those who commute a long way. The closer you are to the base, the easier it is.
About the separate lineholder/reserve system - no way, hate the idea. It's nice having the option to bid down to reserve when you really need something off, or for a senior reserve guy to get a line once in while.
10-26-2011, 01:01 PM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2008
Position: 737A
Posts: 1,890
Uh, no. I am not interested in being stuck in reserve. I can't be a regular lineholder at this point with any consistency, but occasionally I can hold it.. and that is good. If I had to bid all reserve all the time or bid out, I wouldn't like that choice. I don't know what temping was, and as far as the monthly AE thing, I have no real opinion.
10-26-2011, 02:27 PM
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Joined APC: Feb 2007
Posts: 1,050
Just throwing my 2 cents in here - I've been on reserve for the last two years (but not this month, training pushed me to a line holder) but I found reserve to be well, palatable. It's that or downgrade to a different airplane. I'm happy with what I'm flying. When I was NYC based, I could make it on LC, so there were times I sat reserve at home. SC obviously meant a commute to the base, but hey, it was better than those AA guys who sat for DAYS in the crashpad, not getting a trip and not going home.
Now I'm live where I'm base, and in base reserve is pretty sweeet. LC without a trip is basically a day off, and SC means no beer and have to stay around town. I can still go work out, take kid to the park, go the mall, etc.
In the end, someone has to sit reserve, as a junior guy that falls to me. Fine - it's the airline business. In my experience, a lot of the complaints about reserve come from those who commute a long way. The closer you are to the base, the easier it is.
About the separate lineholder/reserve system - no way, hate the idea. It's nice having the option to bid down to reserve when you really need something off, or for a senior reserve guy to get a line once in while.
Now I'm live where I'm base, and in base reserve is pretty sweeet. LC without a trip is basically a day off, and SC means no beer and have to stay around town. I can still go work out, take kid to the park, go the mall, etc.
In the end, someone has to sit reserve, as a junior guy that falls to me. Fine - it's the airline business. In my experience, a lot of the complaints about reserve come from those who commute a long way. The closer you are to the base, the easier it is.
About the separate lineholder/reserve system - no way, hate the idea. It's nice having the option to bid down to reserve when you really need something off, or for a senior reserve guy to get a line once in while.
The #1 thing that needs to change here (for reserves) is getting more days off, or a lot more than 70 hours if we are going to be on the hook for 18 days (my opinion).
10-26-2011, 02:39 PM
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Joined APC: Jul 2006
Position: Boeing Hearing and Ergonomics Lab Rat, Night Shift
Posts: 1,724
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.
Scoop
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.
Scoop
On the other hand, I think short call should pay...
Local pilots could pick up the shortcall and get the extra cash and the commuters spend more time at home, less money on the hotel/crashpad.
In my opinion this would increase reserve pay/QOL more than seniority would.
What the optimal mechanism for implementing short call bidding/pay but there has to be a way and with the new FTDT rules it should be easy to argue sine shortfall now will be considered duty.
Maybe we can throw the shortcall days in open time for pickup. Maybe each shorcall gets the pilot 5:15 (should be 6:00) credit towards 70hrs (should be 75) and 1 hour pay on top of 75hrs.
Just a thought.
Cheers
George
10-26-2011, 02:51 PM
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Joined APC: Jul 2006
Position: Boeing Hearing and Ergonomics Lab Rat, Night Shift
Posts: 1,724
ALV 72-80 = 76 reserve guarantee
ALV 68-76 = 72 reserve guarantee
FWIW the Min guarantee floor should be 70 for all.
Cheers
George
10-26-2011, 02:57 PM
No longer cares
Joined APC: Mar 2008
Position: 767er Captain
Posts: 12,109
Temping was a sweet deal for commuters. If the company needed to level reserves among the bases temporarily, they would give you a position in another base for a month. They'd give you positive space travel from your home (not base) to get there, and pay you per diem from the time you left home until you got back home whether you got a trip or not. They would also give you a hotel room to sit reserve in. You could also get a temporary block as well, but that never happened to me. It was strictly voluntary, so you'd bid for it on a monthly basis. So, if you were a NYC7ERB, but lived closer to ATL, you would keep a voluntary temp bid in for ATL7ERB for example.
10-26-2011, 03:07 PM
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Joined APC: Feb 2006
Posts: 1,242
Remember, NWA had monthly APE (AE) bids so base swapping really wasn't an issue. Also, if you were a block holder without a full sked at the end of the bidding, you could elect to stay at home for 65 hrs. pay or bid a RSV sked for rsv guarantee (75 hrs)
10-26-2011, 03:11 PM
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Joined APC: Jun 2007
Position: Captain Jack
Posts: 1,003
Just throwing my 2 cents in here - I've been on reserve for the last two years (but not this month, training pushed me to a line holder) but I found reserve to be well, palatable. It's that or downgrade to a different airplane. I'm happy with what I'm flying. When I was NYC based, I could make it on LC, so there were times I sat reserve at home. SC obviously meant a commute to the base, but hey, it was better than those AA guys who sat for DAYS in the crashpad, not getting a trip and not going home.
Now I'm live where I'm base, and in base reserve is pretty sweeet. LC without a trip is basically a day off, and SC means no beer and have to stay around town. I can still go work out, take kid to the park, go the mall, etc.
In the end, someone has to sit reserve, as a junior guy that falls to me. Fine - it's the airline business. In my experience, a lot of the complaints about reserve come from those who commute a long way. The closer you are to the base, the easier it is.
About the separate lineholder/reserve system - no way, hate the idea. It's nice having the option to bid down to reserve when you really need something off, or for a senior reserve guy to get a line once in while.
Now I'm live where I'm base, and in base reserve is pretty sweeet. LC without a trip is basically a day off, and SC means no beer and have to stay around town. I can still go work out, take kid to the park, go the mall, etc.
In the end, someone has to sit reserve, as a junior guy that falls to me. Fine - it's the airline business. In my experience, a lot of the complaints about reserve come from those who commute a long way. The closer you are to the base, the easier it is.
About the separate lineholder/reserve system - no way, hate the idea. It's nice having the option to bid down to reserve when you really need something off, or for a senior reserve guy to get a line once in while.
I agree 100%!!!!
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