Jesse, et al;

Man O man, I feel your pain. When you are at the bottom and manning is tight, it is almost preferable to have no job. The exhaustion caused by what "they" can do to you (and will do to you) is untenable. Been there.

One month, as a junior narrowbody reserve, I slept in my bed 4 times (not necessarily at night) AND I lived in base - days off all at outstations. No payback days, no nothing - not even enough time to figure out how I could be scrogged so badly. I had enough time to pay my bills, do my laundry throw away the food in my fridge and go back to work. I bid out of that category as fast as I could, but while it lasted, it was brutal and it scarred me for life.

BUT I could bid out, which is not necessarily an option these days.

Oh, and save the "when you show up for work you are fit for duty" stuff. And I still don't know how I didn't get payback days.

 

Yeah sometimes we chase our tails on this one. While "productivity" is a four letter word among unions, it is why SWA has been so phenomenally successful while paying dramatically more than their competitors all while having 100% scope.

As nice as it is to think we can legislate through our contract massive unproductively to drive hiring it just doesn't work like that. All that does is push for even more outsourcing at an ever more fervent pace (thanks spell checker).

Some guys still think we can open section 6 and be all like "ok you ignorant managers, here's a contract doubling the number of pilots required to do the exact same amount of work...AND we're getting a big raise!" It just doesn't work like that. Little scams like "buddy-bid-month-off-greenslip-line-triple-pay" and touch drop vacations that many want so a select few can get over a month off with each week's vacation while others only get 4 days are sneaky little jailhouse lawyer tricks and are extremely expensive and unproductive ways to concentrate the value of a CBA into the hands of a very select few while having NOTHING to do with honoring seniority. Likewise, senior reserves flying 2 days a quarter while junior reserves fly max lines every month is equally unreasonable.

Seniority should matter for a lot of things on reserve, but it shouldn't mean getting an entire month off while others in category work 18 non commutable days. All line holders, junior or senior, fly a full line value. You can bid min or max, but you're flying a full line. But somehow when it comes to reserve, seniority is an entitlement to be the absolute last to be used under any circumstance. So senior reserve under that type of system becomes yet another micro empire slush fund and the rest of the CBA has to eat the cost of that. Like I think FTB mentioned, the logical equivalent would be to give the top 10% of lineholders the month off while distributing their trips among the other line holders to fly on their days off for no additional pay because hey, we got to respect the seniority.

Some will say productivity will result in excess staffing, but that is only true if you keep the insanely high levels of outsourcing we have. And when we go for SWA pay, the company will demand SWA productivity to which I say we tell them to bring it on...right after we get their scope and pay. We have the upper hand on the productivity argument anyway. Want us to fly 800+ block hour years for narrowbody domestic? OK, but we're getting SWA pay for small narrowbody flying and up from there and work rules that give reserves 14/15 days a month off and the average line holder 18. That means we will need extremely good rigs to drive that productivity, amirite?

 

This new raw bucket system is only used as a tie breaker if all else is equal. Senior reserve pilots are still going to fly as there will be many cases where they will get trips before more junior reserve pilots. The #1 reserve pilot will get the 3 day trip if he is the only reserve pilot who is on 3 days of availability. The #1 reserve pilot will get the trip when he is the only one on short call whose contact times work. The only time the senior reserve pilot will get bypassed for a more junior pilot is when there are more junior pilots who meet the same days of availability. I don't see an earth shattering change. I'm junior reserve in my category and I haven't flow yet this month while a lot of pilots senior to me already have raw scores of 30-95.

 

I think the problem right now is amplified by the lack of flying available. Leads the regular guys to pick up everything they can via white slip leaving very little for the reserves to do except short call. When/if we start adding flying back, I think this will settle out into a more equitable system. I think it would make sense to reduce the bucket size until they start adding some flying back.

 

Deleted post.

 

I think that senior folks in larger categories are going to enjoy the positives from the new rules more than senior folks in small categories. If you are senior in a larger category, then you are much more likely to have people junior to you on any given days of availability but in a smaller category, there just aren't enough people to pad the senior folks each day of availability - thus increasing your chances of flying while being senior.

I think the new system is good and I believe the 80 RAW to be a fair bucket threshold. I look forward to seeing the short call seniority implemented. I do believe that the new system is going to be a pain for the extremely junior folks, especially for the commuters.

I'm currently a handful from the bottom in my category (hoping to get displaced next bid to go to more junior equipment) so I while I certainly understand the plight of the junior folks, I welcome the new system.

 

That's something worth thinking about... in the long run does productivity lead to over staffing or does it reduce outsourcing? Many variables here. Of course, the regionals have always been whipsawed against one another to keep costs down, but with scope of work, that could be prevented. One thing coming down the pike--- the new FAA rest and duty time regs, which will really even the playing field WRT productivity. SWA does have the advantage of a hopscotch network and single fleet type. We will have that to a degree when the new 737s start showing up, and the MD fleet is pretty substantial as well. 717's perhaps?

 

Buzz,

The seniority on reserve issue is being blown way out of proportion on this site - probably because many of the posters are very junior and think they might get hosed - fair enough, but I think many are premature in their judgment.

We both have said give it a chance - if it is unfair lets fix it, but guys want to call it a failure now and point to the small but vocal group on this forum as proof that it is unfair. Well lets look at a couple of things:

1. I looked at the RAW scores of a few junior categories and am not seeing the "unfairness" that I thought would be overwhelming.

11Feb2012 ATL 88B RAWs:

34
71
48
18
38
105

Well obviously the junior guy got hosed at 105 - wrong the 105 RAW is the most senior pilot on the list for today. My only guess would be he wanted to get into group 2 and have the 2nd half of the month off - who knows. Also the raw of 18 is the most junior guy for today.

This is the exact opposite of what we were told was going to happen.

2. I looked at the DALPA forum for the expected posting about the junior guys are getting hosed on reserve. Could not find it because most guys there, perhaps due to a more even distribution throughout the seniority list, had nothing but praise for the new system with kudos to the SOT.

So I will say again - lets give it a few months and see how it actually works before we deem it a failure. If after a few months it can be confirmed to unfairly burden the junior guys then absolutely we should fix it. But lets make sure its broke before we fix it.

Scoop

 

I get the "but that's what the pilots wanted!" But again, pilots want this too:

• I have never commuted and do not feel large numbers of rotations should be biased to commuters.
• I a not a commuter and don't believe pilots living at domiciles should have to fly "commuter--long" rotations.
• STOP, STOP, STOP, showing ANY concern for commuters. I am tired of giving up/in to the company to appease this very vocal minority. MOVE, MOVE, MOVE or quit.
• I DO NOT want the company to build more commutable lines than we have right now..
• ALPA spends to much time working on commuters.
• I view commuting as a choice a pilot makes. I would not choose to live in ATL, but do so to avoid commuting. I am not generally in favor of tailoring our contract around those who choose to commute.
• Live 20 minutes from airport. NOT INTERESTED IN CATERING TO COMMUTERS.
• don't care about commutable trips
• I DO NOT COMMUTE, GET RID OF THE 4-5 DAY TRIPS. THE TRIPS IN MSP SEEM LIKE THEY FAVOR THE COMMUTER. ALL YOUR QUES SO FAR ARE FAVORING THE COMMUTER!
• The most popular trip in all domestic categories is a ONE DAY TRIP. Everyone wants to fly ONE DAY TRIPS. One day trips are never in open time because everyone wants to fly one day trips. The most productive and cost effective trip for the company is a ONE DAY TRIP. Please stop pandering to the vocal minority - the commuters by building a bunch of commutable long trips. MOST PILOTS ARE NOT COMMUTERS! MOST PILOTS DO NOT CARE IF A TRIP IS COMMUTABLE.

A lot of the reasons, well most all of the reasons it seems from watching that a senior pilot has flown a trip on reserve above a junior one (during the week when staffing is greater) is because they had a trip off SC. BTW, I haven't flown and am not close. I bid senior reserve, usually more senior than this month but that should return when lines get back to normal with higher ALVs. Still haven't flown. You can say I'm junior in category, yes, but senior reserve.

What I and Jesse are talking about here is are we going back to straight seniority or we doing some in between seniority and the old system? A high bucket is not the middle of the road but more or less back to seniority only.

Now sure you could say but there are plenty who disagree with that. ^^^ But there are plenty who disagree with seniority only reserve too. Who should win? A guy sitting at 85% on one category who is losing QOL who complains about this would be considered junior, even though they may sit in the top 1% of another category.

Seniority is relative obviously until you get to pilot #1. I am currently watching a buddy who is around 50-60 on his raw score, the pilot one number junior to him on the list and has been and will next week be in the same position is 0 flight hours. Could go on for a while like this.

 

I still want to know why we don't offer ALV SILs based on seniority. It's only fair that line holders can get the month off at ALV if reserve pilots get this as well.