With the new contract, I think the old adage of never doing a VTO in a month where you have vacation has been reversed, and now I think vacation in a VTO month can afford lots of flexibility. I'm going to test that theory in September.

I think I have a good handle on most of the new improvements, but I do have one question, which I think I know the answer to but want to see what everyone else thinks.

I realize that vacation days and vacation hours are pretty much uncoupled from each other now. So lets say that I have 8 days of vacation in the first week of the September bid month, and I just slid that vacation 2 days to the left into August. So now I have 2 vacation days in August and 6 in September. Assuming I don't ask to increase or reduce my vacation CHs for the 48 for the 8 days, how will this get paid out? I'm assuming that all 48 hours will count towards my September BLG and the only thing the 2 days in August are doing is blocking those days at the end of the month.

 

Is this a theoretical discussion or are you actually talking about Aug/Sep 2019? I ask because if you wanted to slide your Sep vaca back into August, you needed to do that during the Conflict/Input window for August (i.e. back in July). See CBA page 102, 7.G.2.e.

Are you saying you were able to slide Sep vaca back into Aug during the C/I window over this past weekend?

That issue aside, if you had slid the vaca as you describe back in July and left 6 days in Sep, I'm pretty sure the SLG is going to "see" just the 6 days available for your secondary line (i.e. 36 CH, not 48). Obviously, you could request more vaca hours be applied to your Sep secondary but absent any action on your part, the SLG is going to apply 36 CH to the build of your line.

Standard "I may be out to lunch" caveat applies to all of the above.

 

Not theoretical. I was able to slide my vacation back into August in this last CI window. The only time you have to slide it the additional month early is if I was knocking out an August trip with it. I was able to slide it 2 days to the left to butt up against a trip in August.

And, your right. Everything I see in all the webpages looks like it's just seeing the 6 days/42 hours I have left in September.

 

Ok - so I was only half out to lunch. Good to know since I'm going to be living in Secondary territory for the foreseeable future I think.

 

Somewhat related, one small item to keep in mind when working vacations in the SLG world: any requested adjustments to how many vacation hours are applied to your BLG (other than the full allotment) are just that, a request. The company may or may not honor your request at their discretion. Put differently, if you’re requesting to reduce your vacation hour usage by X hours, they may deny your request if nobody else has requested to increase their vacation usage by X hours. Ask me how I know...

It’s still not a perfect system, but I guess it’s better than it used to be (especially for those at the bottom who can only hold VTOs).


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How drastic of a reduction did you request? I know there are a few bidding strategies associated with doing so and I'm all ears.

 

I don’t recall the exact number (it was back in March), but it was in the 15-20 hour range.


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You were right man. All I asked for was a 12 hour reduction and it was Disapproved. 😔

 

Well, sorry you had to join the club. I know some have had success, but it seems to fall somewhere between the toss up and “so you’re saying there’s a chance” categories.


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Speaking of Secondary lines, I just found out 4.D.2 doesn’t apply for CH earned during training. Doesn’t say that anywhere, but that’s how it been being handled.

But, more disturbing is the recent story I heard yesterday. Not sure if it’s true, but.....I heard of two cases where guys bid Secondary lines and these awards lines were not built to BLG.

Instead of buying these lines up to BLG, these pilots were given PNP. In one case, the line built for August (5week bid) was built to 55 hours and not bought up. Instead he was given 12 hours of PNP in his make up bank. The other case was a Captain who got the same deal. Word is, CE told them that’s the way it goes basically....

We need to investigate this...I’ll be contacting my rep today.