Long Call assignment
 

I was assigned a long call trip, out of inverse seniority order, with the same days of availability grouping. Scheduling said seniority is not a factor in RUO "reserve utilization order". I was surprised that a search of the contract seems to confirm their assertion.
Scheduling also said they assigned the trip to the junior pilot within the same days of availability because he was on Short call today, and giving him the trip tomorrow would basically make his short call today meaningless. I thought that seniority was a factor that determined assignments as long as everyone was within the same days of availability grouping (which we were). We were both 5 days available group 1. Our only difference was I am senior, and he has short call today ad his first day on call.

I want to make sure I understand this because it affects the efficiency for the company if they are allowed to assign trips in the order that best preserves the needs of scheduling. I like it when a long call assignment for tomorrow deems today's short call worthless. Can they really avoid this within the same days available group?

Check out pages 23-47 and 48 of your contract. Note two.

Note two: Within days-of-availability groupings, reserve pilots whose RAW values are in the same RAW value grouping will be assigned open time in inverse seniority order unless one or more of them have submitted a yellow slip, in which case open time will be awarded in seniority order to the reserve pilot(s) who submitted a yellowslip for such open time.

I don't read anything where is says that pilots who have short call the day prior will not be used. I get scheduling point, if a trip pops up today and the guy already has a long call trip for tomorrow then he is useless as a short call today.

23.S.1.c actually says that if he is on long call any or all of the day he should get the trip. Again if I read it correctly.

Seniority is definitely a factor in assigning open time trips. Did he have 12 hours between the end of his short call today, and the report for the trip tomorrow? That's about the only thing I can think of. There are a lot of new schedulers running around down there! :D

You need to talk to the supervisor. I've had numerous encounters recently with schedulers who simply have no grasp of the contract. My initial training crash pad landlord was a pilot scheduler. She laid it out clearly that the schedulers are poorly trained, under paid and overworked. Her advice was simple -- know the contract because scheduler mistakes can really screw you over unless you catch it and stop it from happening.

Thanks all!!. I called with the reference above and the trip had been reassigned appropriately. We need to watch them, not because I need to not fly, but they can't get more efficiency out of a contact without paying for it. I see the scheduling point in wanting to preserve their short called pilot, but that is not the contract despite my being told "well, that's how we do it".

I had a similar thing happen to me but I was jr in bucket 2 and they gave the trip to me instead of a sr pilot in bucket 1. I called and they fixed it. I called ALPA after the fact and they told me that if I flew the trip I'd have been owed assignment pay.

Another "data point" when long and short call status becomes confusing...

The trip should have been assigned per the "ladders" in 23 N or O as applicable. A pilot's status (long or short call) for position on the "ladder" is determined by his status AT THE REPORTING TIME FOR THE TRIP. Don't know if that's written anywhere, but that's how it's historically been done.

As with all of this, the guys in the DALPA scheduling shop can go back and find out everything, including the times that actions were taken-- trips assigned short call, etc.

Suspect we'll see more of it as the schedulers try to squeeze more blood from the turnip.