Captain Reserve?
 

Could someone in the know please tell me the most junior captain line holder's seniority (DOH) systemwide? Looks to me like they've put the current deal together right for the max benefit of all. Still, I've never met a DEC I really wanted to trade places with. How much misery should one expect (for how long)?

Thanks in advance

That information would be outdated by the time I'd be done typing the message.
long story short, as a DEC you would be junior for about two years (until FOs hired with you start upgrading), but holding A line (vs a good line) is a function of having people below you. If you are the last DEC hired, life will suck. If you are on the front side of the wave, it'll be alright.
life sucked the most for the DECs that had seniority to go from a junior airplane to a 175 for better trips etc, but that was also the airplane everyone senior was upgrading into (figure 4ish years of reserve including the pandemic effect)
​​there were CRJ DECs holding a line within 3-4 months if not less, just based on how a bunch of them got put on it in a very tight time frame. The junior portion of that bunch, naturally, never saw a line.
all that being said, the current "DEC spot" is a OCL - ORD 175 CA - so the results will be mixed. On one hand, there's about 320ish people that might want to take the spot at some point and be senior to you (ORD 175 FOs, 145 CAs and FOs), on the other - not all of them will. There's 60ish people hired a month, anyone's guess how many of them are DEC eligible - figure some of them will become the junior captains.
All in all, expect 1.5-2 years of reserve. It will very likely be less than that, depending on where you are in the wave, but that's a good pessimistic number to keep in mind.

Right now, how long it would it take for a DEC/new hire forced upgrade to hold MIA 175?

Define dec/newhire forced upgrade

Well, if you get hired in wanting to be an FO but get forced to upgrade due to being junior and having over 1000 121. Really the same as being a DEC. Didn't the last award have forced upgrades on it?

So will PBS change any of the suck or is that just a marketing gimmick? I was interested in going to Envoy for the ord base. But with kids I’m worried about the schedule.

PBS is a computer algorithm that will optimize the schedules for the benefit of the company. Obviously, it will have to be set to respect whatever parameters may be in the contract, but this is already done with regular lines as well. Some people will be better at bidding using PBS and putting in the right options the right way into their bid, so they'll come out ahead, while others who aren't as good at programming PBS will come out behind. Everyone who has used both line bidding and PBS seems to like line bidding better. Think about it, the company isn't spending money on PBS to create better schedules for pilots, that's supposed to be the union's job. The first month or two everyone is probably going to be p1ssed off.

Its not only (or even mostly), about who is better at bidding. PBS will still only give you what your seniority will hold. The biggest difference is likely to be a huge reduction in OT. PBS won’t allow conflicts, so the only OT around will be sick calls, or the occasional Mil leave that gets submitted after bidding closes. QOL has way more to do with the efficiency of the trips. PBS will mostly just be less money in everyone’s pockets.

You have to learn what parameters actually ask PBS to do what you think think you're asking it for. There would be several parameters that would have to do with days off or time off, for example, and you had to use the right ones the right way to actually have a chance of getting what you thought you asked for. So if a more senior person bids for a certain day off improperly, and a more junior person bid for the same day off the right way, the junior guy would end up getting it. But yes, if both bids are done the exact same way then it has to respect seniority. The line bidding is more transparent to the pilots because everyone can see easily that if they didn't get the line they wanted that it went to more senior person and there is no question about if were any errors. PBS also allows the company to do credit pushes and load up everyone's schedules at the low end of the seniority list to keep the stuff that wouldn't have been awarded, out of OT, as you said. Either way, point is, PBS is for the benefit of the company, and not the pilots. If you don't like what you're being awarded now, it will probably get worse with PBS. It's marketed to younger people who haven't used both systems and think it's great to have everything automated, but there is a reason why PBS is a concession. People who have used both would take line bidding.

PBS sequences
 

PBS will not change the sequences at Envoy. There are some PBS systems that will build the sequences. Envoy is not going to use one of those. The sequences will be built by the same system currently building them. What MIGHT change some of them is the trip and duty rigs that are coming. Those rigs will either force them to improve the efficiency of trips, or at least still pay as if they are more efficient.

The "huge reduction in OT" is not necessarily true. PBS providers themselves only promise 2-3% reduction in post-build OT. It depends on work rules. PBS can allow things like vacation slide, DTS, training conflicts and such. Envoy doesn't have that many open sequences in the bid package if you look at the bid package.

I'm not saying this is what management will give you, but PBS itself does not mean a huge reduction in OT, the work rules and PBS implementation may.

The PBS contract change is yet to be negotiated and has been pushed back. Not even sure they have actually started.

One big area of concern and negotiation is conflict of trips with vacation and being able to subsequently drop those extra flights for more time off. Currently Envoy allows dropping those days and using sick time to cover the pay. Seems like enough people want that to make it a priority in the negotiation and the Envoy FAs have PBS (same software system pilots will be using) and still can conflict vacation with trips and drop, so there is precedent in the company already.

But that is a pretty big source of OT, so it would reduce the system efficiency and Envoy will have their pound of flesh in return if it happens.

We did a pretty thorough project going through the PBS providers a few years ago. They'll pick up the cheapest and sh*ttiest one very likely. But PBS does not mean no DTS, they can run DTS after PBS awards. Heck, some PBS providers even allow slide-and-drop. So you can slide your vacation days by 1-2 days to create even more DTS days (7 days of vacation, get rid of 2 trips, move it up by 1 day to touch your previous trip and get rid of 3 trips).
It's all negotiable. Be smart with it.

What's the likelihood that a new hire/forever-on-reserve DEC would be able to regularly and routinely get 6 days off in a row, each and every month, please?

Many thanks!

Well, it's certainly not going to happen from the regular bid with the current system in place. Maybe you can trade some days around? I know it's possible to move days but I don't know how likely it's granted.

PBS is going to come at some point, maybe you can get work some magic on the bid then.

Would absolutely not recommend you to come here and plan on that. As of today it is virtually impossible.

Zero. This absolutely will not happen, you'll be lucky to get 4 days off in a row every third month.

So as a new hire DEC how many days off are most people getting. I’d try to get ORD as a base and I’m not interested in picking up OT. I’d rather have more time at home with the family.

12. You’ll be on reserve with minimum days off most likely until FOs junior to you in class begin to upgrade or more DECs get hired after you. If you’re at the beginning/middle of the DEC wave it wouldn’t be too bad movement wise, but if you’re on the last half or one of the last few hired as a DEC when they shift back to hiring 1500 pilots then you’ll see the bottom of that list and a lot of airport standby for years potentially.

So what/where/when exactly is the beginning or middle or end of the DEC wave? Probably an unanswerable question I would guess, eh?

When is the music going to stop when you play musical chairs? That’s probably a lot more predictable!

Way too many factors on this one. With a lot of other regionals raising their wages, why leave for Envoy? It’s not the QOL and don’t even think about the “F” word, because that’s not something to bank on either.

Either way, stand by for the latest bid results in the next few days. At least that will be a hard data point to shoot an azimuth from.

And just like that ORD becomes the most senior in the system for Captains. Junior OCL is a low 800 number hired 10/2018.

Did the results come out? Where does MIA stand for FO and CA and how many people got forced upgraded?

Prelim results with the final incoming tomorrow.

Junior MCL is a 1000 number hired 07/2019
Junior MFL is a 1600 number hired 02/2022

It looks as if there were a lot of forced upgrades and with how the pay LOA is, coupled with the need for CAs, it is pretty safe to say that if you have 950 hours 121 you can fully expect to be in an upgrade class as soon as they can award it to you.

Kinda what was expected I guess. PHX will probably change everything anyway. What's the total number of pilots now, ~2000 or so?

According to the last union comm, 1924.