Would I feel the same...about what?

I'd always prefer to bid/hold a regular line over a reserve line. I commuted to reserve for about 5 years, hated it, won't ever do it again.

Ever.

Period.

Cap or no Cap.

I like to know what I'm doing every minute of every day of my life, I have several hobbies and I have to schedule them in around my work.

I never want to work more than 12 days a month. Ever. And I know I hate sitting in a motel room on short call waiting for the phone to ring, because I've done plenty of that too. I consider that a huge waste of my valuable time off.

Now...if I could sit short call on a sailboat in the middle of Biscayne Bay, with a glass of rum in my hand...yeah, I'd bid reserve.

 

Perhaps I was a bit too forceful. Here is my real point. We have a fairly complex, though very fair, contract. There are lots of provisions in it that enable different pilots to pursue different paths. You have determined that bidding reserve in a vacation month is a good path. I tend to agree...IF you live in base. Others, especially commuters, have determined that being on reserve is never a path they wish to pursue, for whatever reason.

That is all. "One man's trash is another's treasure" and all that.

 

I don't live in base. (2 hour flight) I DO have a crashpad though which makes it a bit easier. Since it is NY, I have to stay twice a month (which sometimes less, sometimes more) to "break even" on what a hotel would cost but that is not the determinate as to how much I go there.

My point was that I have read a lot of work less for more pay, yet this option which accomplishes precisely that is getting stomped on. Fine.

 

I would't say it is getting stomped on--merely the fact that some are pointing out that it doesn't necessarily work for all people all the time.

I am on reserve this month and will likely only get 60 hours, since I personally dropped a few days. Why? Because I am hyper-busy with sports, scouts, etc. But reserve worked for me this month.

Next month I have 11 vac days, and almost bid reserve again. In fact I changed my bid at the last minute. It would have been nice--87 hrs pay for only 12 days on call. But I have too many things going on and I could not risk getting called out on a 4-day trip

So between sports event this morning, but that evening, and a scout outing that weekend, but the other mid-day, blah blah blah, I have dropped every single trip except a 2-day, which I am also trying to drop! Then I will put myself on defacto short call with a month-long series of WS, trying to pick up easy one and two day trips.

I don't normally like doing this, but the contract gives me most of the latitude I need to work around all the busyness in my life.

Maybe I need to scale back....

 

I (and many others) think 5:15 a day is reasonable and fair. 3:15 is "woefully" less than that. Or even 5. Or 4:30. Or 4:15 or even 4:00for that matter.

The "doing away with knowing when we will have time off" was a response to the person I quoted (I think sailingfun but I'm not 100% sure) as whoever it was seemed to be implying that JetBlue's vacation/time off system is often used for spontaneous day/trip drops and he prefers a system where you know your "week" off long in advance.

First of all JetBlue already has a system where you can bid and get your vacation in weeks well in advance. Their hour bank includes sick, day/trip drops and vacation weeks though. While flexible the total hourly accrual is way, way too low unless you dn't get/use sick time so its not the most valid comparison.

Secondly he was implying that if we got a higher day we may have to morph our system into something whereby we lose the ability to take vacation well in advance. Neither of those things are true, nor is it what anyone is advocating; higher daily credit means higher daily credit. That's all. Any other conceptual change is a completely separate issue and isn't a part of anything anyone I know or know of is actually talking about.

You get a higher paying month and usually work about 4 days less. That's not enough time off IMO for a "week of vacation". The per day hourly amount needs to go up, by more than a few minutes.

22:45 for an entire "week" is just way, way too low. We need to get it up to the 30-35 hour range at least (even though its not fully apples to apples, JB is 35). At that point it becomes a powerful block of credit for lineholders or reserves that helps you get the full week extra off like its supposed to be. No touch drop scams or end of the rainbow 6th week needed.

 

It would if we changed the availability grid, which would be an absolute necessity. 22:45 is way, way too low for a "week of vacation". We wouldn't stand a 7 day trip that credited that. Or even a 5 day. As of now our "vacation week" is about 4 days and that needs to improve.

 

I can 100% agree with that.

 

We only get partial vacation/training days, since we get 5:15 for a true work day and something significantly less for a vacation/training day.

It's woefully inadequate and needs to be bumped up to 5:15.

 

That's a fair point. Perhaps we should be looking at something like a trips touching up to - say - 5 - hours per day? I am sure there would have to be a maximum of 7 days which would be 35 hours. That would FORCE guys to go on vacation. (more jobs) I get what you're throwing down though and I do not disagree

 

Pay AND credit or pay NO credit?