What gets me is that for anyone who was here during the last two “-1 in every seat” bump-and-flush bids, they have to remember and recognize the absolute devastation that rippled through the crew force. So many seats lost, training events created, lives in upheaval, etc. It was crazy the amount of movement.

This new section 24 prevented a whole lot of that. Yes, it sucks for the pilots who wanted to move seats and they are in an understaffed seat trying to go to an overstaffed one and aren’t able, but the result is much less upheaval for the entire crew force.

When we eventually get a TA, people on here will say “don’t vote on the TA whether or not it’s good for you on a personal level, but vote on it based on whether or not it’s good for the entire crew force. Based on that advice and the fact that this bid is causing a lot fewer pilots to lose their seats, this system is probably better for the crew force in toto.

no, it was not an improvement.

You read that out of context.. I was referring to the previous posts that said since the first practice bid was basically inaccurate, they company should give us 2 more practice bids, and I said, no we are only getting 1 more. Please try to follow the entire conversation.

My opinion is different. This is as someone who, under the old system, got assigned a training date by the company that conflicted with an important family event. Sent out God knows how many emails to try and switch training dates (yeah... that was a great system), had to do a three-way trade because someone was butt-hurt that someone junior was going to training ahead of them. Finally after collecting all those emails and getting the training date moved, ended up having my new training date again moved by the company to conflict with the family event again.

Under this system (if you have any modicum of seniority) can at least bypass dates that don't work for you, and won't be forced to go to training when you don't want.

Do I wish we had small monthly bids? Absolutely. Do I wish we could bid for training spots in those small bids? Hell, yes. Is this system better than what we had? Absolutely.

under this system seniority has become completely irrelevant.

were there issues with the old system? Sure. But this solution is not an improvement. It simply traded a small problem for a bigger problem.

Disagree. Under the last system, seniority was irrelevant. They assigned training dates in seniority order with no regard to what senior people wanted to do. You're first on the list to train and the training date starts June 1st, over your summer vacation? Tough. You send out dozens of emails and work it out yourself. At least now, if you're the senior guy, you can just bypass until after the summer and take the next spot that works.
Are there issues with the new system? Sure. But this solution is a bit of an improvement. It traded a big problem for a smaller one.

your argument is that a one time training date is more important than being able to hold a seat that your seniority should be hold. That’s unsat. Both are important, but being able to hold the base/seat you want is definitely more important, because that affects your QOL every. single. month.

No, if you read my original post, you'll see my argument is that this does honor seniority because all the available slots were filled in seniority order, then the junior people whose base were closing were also allowed to go to a filled spot. Yes, there are some people who feel aggrieved that the junior bumped people shouldn't have been able to go to a seat without offering it to a more senior person, but that senior person wouldn't have gotten the seat because the seat was already filled.

You are advocating for a bump and flush which would (and has in the past) cause more havoc throughout the crew force and negatively affect so many more people than this bid system does.

bump and flush honors seniority, current system does not.

there are currently people who are junior to me on my airplane in my base getting seats that I cannot hold because they bid 757 CA and now are getting kicked out of 757 CA even though they’ve never gone to training as a 757 captain and never will.

that does not honor seniority. If you think it does, you don’t understand what seniority is. And yes, if you get kicked out of your seat, you shouldn’t be able to hold something that your seniority doesn’t allow.