i just put a nice SLC 320B 2 day on the swap board for tomorrow, in a jam if anyone knows anyone-

I saw that post of yours and that is what got me to actually do the survey.

Thanks for the idea!

Yes, but if the more senior pilots are smart, they will bid off the last 12 days of the month. This is the most likely time that the more junior pilots RAW's will be below theirs.

I understand what you are saying, but there will always be a group that gets flow more. Junior guys will always go first in the first part of the month, and the more senior pilots will go second. Lets say the most junior are off the first half and the most senior are off the second half, it means that the most senior sit the first half well the bottom 1/3 with no bidding authority sit at home and the middle 1/3 work. In the next 1/3 of the month the senior pilots are still senior and the most junior start to filter in. They work first. Once we hit the last 12 days of the month the most senior 1/3 are off well the 1/3 most junior work and the middle 1/3 sit.

I saw it last month and for the senior guys that are paying attention, I am seeing it this month. You can tell from the wide report which senior pilots already figured out the game and strategically bid their off days.

Will it guarantee you not to work? No, but it greatly reduces you changes in months with there is little to no flying in the pot. As we get shorter in the spring and summer, it really does not matter.

Sink, I agree, senior has to matter. My point is that there are ways to game this system just like any system. It serves one best to be in the top 1/3 of the reserve pilots though.

You put it in as a Q trip too? Might be too late, but someone may pick it up out of the open time pot as well.

If you make the raw score high enough then it becomes a seniority based system. The beneficiary is the very senior pilot. The loser is the pilot that is one number junior and back.

Under the old system the weekends on crowd flew a lot because they were always down to min coverage, same now. So no change. In my category, it's not uncommon to see GS's on Sunday and 80 pilots on reserve with 21 required on Monday.

Under the new system for the weekends off crowd, and this is the dirty little secret and I'll let the cat out of the bag, most of us in my category flew 1 maybe 2 trips a month max and some of that was off SC. That was about 40-50 pilots. Now, a few pilots are flying 0 trips and the others a picking up the load and flying to the brink of bucket 2 but not necessarily getting there. Anotherwords, its seniority based for almost all of those weekends off pilots all month. A lot more pilots QOL has gone down than pilots whose QOL has gone up. I don't like that kind of system. I'll explain in another post.

mm, what I said was I'm benefiting from the system, not as much as some which was just adding color to the comment, but still don't believe it's right.

I'm not going a good job of explaining myself. Days off are distributed throughout the month. If the senior pilot of at the end of the month, the junior pilot is off at the beginning. What you're describing doesn't work. Senior pilots get no benefit from bidding off in the second half, if there is flying throughout the month.

Having week-ends off: that does work. But then again, having week-ends off works with or without buckets.

Can't do this discussion justive right now, though. Gotta go. You guys take it easy.

That's exactly how a senior pilot should do it, but in your category with the size of some of your trips you can probably do it better than mine. The key is not to be available on a weekend on mine, if you are, you're flying. So you just have to bid weekends off and as many days off at the end. It can be done but there is a limit.

Because the thing is if you get, and this happened to me last month, if you get lumped in with the weekends ON group during the week (say only be available for 3 days starting mon) then out you go. You want to try and hide in the 4+ day available crowd for as long as you can if you're senior.

The senior guys will still get called out now and then on their SC days. If they bid to be on call the 1st 1/2 of the month they will not be immune from flying on their SC days. I am seeing senior reserves with higher raw scores than junior reserves and I'm seeing it in big categories.

Sink, I think the thing to remember here is that many of us who don't like the bucket system are not necessarily opposed to the bucket system. We don't like the 80 point threshold on some categories.

I sit reserve and hate that SC is so arbitrary. It should be predictable and I should be able to say, just like with a YS, "IF you need me to sit SC then I want the following time slots..." Instead you have to guess whether they want you and sometimes you screw yourself that way.

I want arbitrary out of the system and the 80 point threshold is arbitrary. Make it mathematical.

As to the overriding issue, should we go back to a pure seniority based reserve? I don't want to and I'll fight that. That's my personal preference. I'd rather more benefit then few. Which is why I bring up the GS vs WS system. If seniority matters then the GS system should be seniority only like WS, no more wait til everyone else gets a chance. Which I guess was how it used to be done?

Of course, my favorite "go back to the way it used to be..." was this little one my buddy overhead in ATL. "We need to scheduling back in the pilot lounge and not on icrew!"