The number one item on the contract survey with regard to reserve was to return seniority to the reserve system. The new system is about half way between what we once had and the 1113 system imposed by the company.

I know you're coming from a good place, but...

When I was in high school, half the music we listened to was admittedly terrible, but it freaked our parents out, so we kept playing it. That was mostly the point.

I can just imagine having a serious conversation with my ex-NASA engineer Dad about the terrible things 2 Live Crew and NWA were telling me...

I can see it now, "Now Timmy...Guns are bad, mmkay!?!"

Sailing I can understand if that is the case but I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of how this plays out.

If the top 60 of 110 pilots have a strong QOL on reserve now it will be 10 have a slightly better QOL and the other 50 pick up their flying or sit perpetually at the top of the RUO. I don't see that as bringing seniority back, I see it as taking seniority away. But therein is the problem, what is senior? Evidently 20% doesn't even qualify as senior.

And I know the new system is supposed to be halfway between ALPA's expressed desire for seniority only and the company's desire to spread the flying evenly. But with large buckets the system will be seniority only to the point it might as well be 150 point buckets instead of 80.

Likewise, if seniority should matter beyond bidding and trip pick ups why not have this for regular pilots? A category like 7ERA has 300 regular pilots. Give the top 10% or 30 pilots the month off at ALV and unstack their flying. Make sure the flying is 0 credit to those who get it though. That way we ensure regular pilots have the same seniority benefits of a reserve seniority only RUO.

Again, I'm okay with interjecting seniority into the system but I am not okay with a seniority only system. It is detrimental to too many pilots and if these bucket sizes stay high (and there is a fight to keep them high) then we're going back to seniority only. Call me a seniority populist fighting for the middle class, :D, but I don't agree with it.

So RAH is going to make Frontier Airlines is own separate company in six to twelve months? I thought they already were? :rolleyes:

So there's more money in flying contract than flying on your own. Says something.

The only thing I can say about using the contract survey like this is that there was also a lot of all caps hate spewed at commuters too. But we're not going to end commuting or supporting commuters, are we?

I'm sure if I was in your shoes I would feel the same way. That being said, with the current system, when summer comes all the reserve folks will be flying. When things are slow (right now) some folks are not going to fly. Imo, the shared distribution of flying gave us a reserve system that did not honor seniority. Many folks have been complaining for years that reserve did not honor seniority, the survey confirmed that. This new system does a pretty good job of that.

I realize many folks have been sitting reserve for 5 years now and I know that sucks. To keep it in perspective, many late 2000 + 2001 hires (who are hardly senior to 07 folks) were furloughed for 5 years. This job has been a kick in the coins for lots of people, hopefully you'll be that senior reserve person in the next 12-18 months!

I find it hard to believe seniority came before increased reserve guarantee and same credit for same flight on the reserve survey.

What do you feel the buckets should be set at then? I feel that 80 is reasonable. Much lower than that, and it creates too many buckets and seniority is devalued (especially in summer when we are flying more). Don't forget, we are getting 5 points for each short call too.

There will be quite a difference between categories too. The bigger category you are in, I predict, the more you will be able to exercise seniority. In a small category, there just aren't going to be enough bodies to populate each day of availability, bucket etc...

We will see how it plays out, but I think that a bucket of 80 is reasonable.

Number one?

Where on the list did credit time for short call days fare?

I'd rather bid short call for a chance to over 70 than anything else and I've been on reserve in one form or another and one place or another since 1993 :eek: (because I chose to fly at mainline and I choose not to commute out of Atlanta)