kronan

Let's Delve a Little Deeper into the Airbus bidpack shall we?

In June there were 196-71-55 lines published, a total of 322. But How can that Be, there were 359 Pilots on the Capt seat. Oh wait, 37 Pay only.
In July there were 196-81-36 lines published, a total of 313. But a total of 357 Pilots, hmm-that's odd. Oh wait, 44 Pay only.

So, 9 fewer lines published. Hmmm, still the Same amount of Regular lines but 9 fewer lines published. I know, in order to keep the Same number of Reserve lines, Company should've pushed the Average BLG into the 85-95 range. Sure, that would mean a lot of folks working a lot of days, but there would've been More Reserve Lines. And Even Better, Reserve RLG would be Higher. Yay.
Fewer Regular Lines though.
Darn, guess the best solution would be to publish Fewer Reserve Lines.

So, FedEx could've gone with the 196-71-46 matrix...but, they don't have to. Tradeoff for the ability to drop Conflicted R day blocks due to CIC, ability for entire R day blocks to drop due to Training conflict, and the elimination of Involuntary Reserve Line conversion allows the company to withhold 20% of the projected R day blocks. So, that would make the bidpack roughly 196-81-36.

kronan

Vacation and R day leveling.

I too, previously would bid Reserve in a Vacation month. Typically R24 since I'm a commuter. Amazingly enough, all of the leveling and being the most Senior pilot on the list didn't prevent CRS from using me.

But for the Changes in how VTO Vacations are administered, my go to priority would still be Regular Lines\Reserve Lines\VTO.
Times have changed, so thinking Reserve is no longer the best choice for me.

In general, I'm thinking Reserve Utilization is probably pretty low right now. Or at least I haven't seen the frequent posts about people exceeding their RLGs in the past few years. And, when Reserve Utilization is Low...Reserve goes pretty Senior, especially Carry over Reserve.

Why bring that up? Because I'm thinking that even if you're still Too Junior to Hold Reserve in a Vacation month, you're Still pretty Senior relatively speaking. And the ability of the upper tier VTO folks to Choose B reserve expecting to be at the Very bottom of the Seniority honoring Leveling list and thus, sit at home unused, will be pretty common.
IOW-Actual Flying is going to go Deeper into the VTO pool than it has in the past, and as a commuter I'd still prefer Flying to R days on my VTO line

kronan

So, as an MD11 Capt for Years, how does the amount of long International Flying compare to years past?
Used to be a lot of 12+day trips in the MD11 bidpack years ago?

Has that changed?

Fdxlag2

It shows you how balanced the pilots are. I know a lot of no voters who were flying max carryover, draft, and disputed pairings who were making out really well flying the trips that others weren't flying because we were in negotiations.

skypine27

This this this.

The one Yes voter who was brutally honest with me said this: “I don’t even care what’s in it, I just the signing bonus then I’m quitting”. True to his word, that’s exactly what he did.

Adlerdriver

This is absolutely not true. You're ignoring the critical but yet to be defined known qualifier in the "80% of all known reserve days" referenced below.

Section 25.A.4
Unless waived by the SIG, at least 80% of all known reserve days, by crew position, shall be built into reserve lines published in the bid period package; however, all known R-24 blocks shall be built into reserve lines published in the bid period package. Remaining reserve days will be made available as reserve blocks, in the View/Add window, and Secondary Working Window (SWW).

All R-day blocks are not "created prior to the bid opening", nor is CRS restricted from creating blocks of R-days during the post-bid processing.
We've already seen evidence to support this shift. It's not possible to publish 58% fewer reserve lines in the July MD-11 Captain bid pack (for example) and create all required blocks of R-days that will be needed for post award bid processing. That means "known reserve days" probably represent less than half of the R-days needed in July for the MEM MD Captains.

Where do you think the R-days that would have comprised that 58% went? Most of them are still needed and they sure weren't "created prior to the bid opening".

That's because they will be turned into R-day blocks following the CIC window. Once all the vacation slides, training conflicts, carry-in conflicts and anything else that knocks out R-days are decided, the planners will then create additional blocks of R-days as needed. Those R-day blocks along with the ones knocked out during the CIC process will be available during the view/add and secondary process.

How else do you think they're going to turn the extra 25% of secondary lines into reserve lines for the MD Captains?

Anthrax

There is no arguing with you. you have this effeminate sarcasm blinded by the singular rose given to you by the company, and you’re so madly in love you overlook the obvious blemishes while at the same time inflating the pros.

The Walrus

Nice tits.

golfandfly

If you’d like, I’ll show you.

In Jul we have 48 R lines. 4 have 15 days in a row.

In April (Pre PBS), we had 74 R lines. 14 had 15 days in a row.

Guess the MD11 lost those long trips just after we went to the new system?

Thanks Alpa!

Adlerdriver

I used MEM 11C numbers just now because they were convenient, but you did make the point that it was Feb vs Jul.

So, I looked at Jun 2018 777F (old contract secondary processing) versus Jul 2018 777F (new secondary process). Nothing "nuanced" about the results.
Same number of bodies both months - 520.
Same number of lines - 477

Secondary lines increase by 30% from 81 to 105
Reserve lines drop by 41% from 54 to 32.

I don't think I'd refer to the reaction to this as "histrionics". I think it's abject frustration on the part of many of us who saw this coming along with all the other negatives in this contract that have come to light.

We asked these questions online and in person. We were misled, outright lied to or the questions simply weren't answered because the NC knew if enough straight answers were provided, the TA probably wouldn't have passed.

How do you think the pilots who choose to live in their domicile and make a regular practice of bidding reserve would have voted if the NC had been straight with them? If they simply admitted - "This 80% of known R-days clause is going to reduce reserve lines by around half. At the same time, secondary lines are going to increase by about one-third. Many of you who currently bid reserve lines will not be able to hold them any longer and will be forced to use a secondary line to hopefully get reserve."

Most of the NC were former SIG. There's no way that this was a surprise to them. They knew the ramifications of this language and chose to hide it. Instead they advertised removal of involuntary conversions, all the new options to bid for R-day blocks and knock out entire blocks with conflicts while conveniently omitting the price of those improvements. Their job was to educate. Give us the facts, good and bad, and let us decide. They chose to become salesmen and sleazy, dishonest ones at that.

It's kind of amazing that you continue to be a CBA 2015 apologist in the face of the mounting evidence supporting how inferior and concessionary it actually is.