6 week bid periods
 

Since this was a company "ask", I'm obviously skeptical. I'm making an attempt to see this from all angles and find the potential pitfalls. Obviously vacation is a big concern - How big is still pending, IMO. Bigger playing field on which to hit the same target with your 5-day slide for one. Since the vacation for next year will be complete before this might be ratified, that playing field would most likely move from what was expected during the bid.

Days off gets affected by this as well. Right now a reserve pilot gets a minimum of 168 days off per year. All but two 6 week BP combinations drops that number by one to three days.

Paychecks will probably get even harder to figure out than they are already.

One LEC rep is of the opinion that 6-week BPs will be good for week on/week off patterns. According to him, as it stands now, with a 4-week and 5-week month back to back, there are situations where a pilot must work two of those weeks in a row. A 6-week bid period would alleviate this (good, I guess if you work wo/wo). He also seems to think that there will be just two of these 6 week periods per year (one sometime in the spring and one prior to peak). If that's the case, then we would have to have ten 4-week BPs and no 5-week BPs to keep 12 BPs per year. Otherwise we get 11 or 10 total (with the other combinations using two 6-week BPs).

Personally, I remain skeptical. If this is an exploitable option without clear boundaries - the company will do so to the max extent possible.

I did some quick :rolleyes: (for me) math and found out there are 15 possible combinations of 4, 5 and 6 week bid periods that fit into a calendar year. If you consider that sometimes the last bid period may encroach on January of the new year, there may be a couple more iterations - not sure.

My point is this: There is nothing in our existing contract or the TA that specifically states we have to have 12 bid periods per year called "Jan, Feb, Mar, etc". They could decide to call them bid period 1 through 9, since eight 6-week and one 4-week make a round 52 weeks. Maybe they have the last one go 2-weeks into January or some other kung-fu we haven't thought of.

I'm not sure how big an issue this is yet but I think it needs to be looked at. I simply throw these numbers and some initial concerns out for everyone to think about.

Here are the 15 possible combinations I came up with: Sorry for the formatting.

4w-5w-6w-Ttl periods-Annual days off
8 4 0 12 168
3 8 0 11 167
9 2 1 12 168
4 6 1 11 167
10 0 2 12 168
5 4 2 11 167
0 8 2 10 166
6 2 3 11 167
1 6 3 10 166
7 0 4 11 167
2 4 4 10 166
3 2 5 10 166
4 0 6 10 166
0 2 7 9 165
1 0 8 9 165

Since BLG is tied to monthly pay checks on the 15th and the end of the month, I personally do not see how they can pay you half your BLG every 15th of the month unless they have 12 bid months.

If they have to stick with 12, then it definitely limits them to zero, one or two 6-week BPs per year.

The TA still requires payment on the 15th and last day of the month and is pretty specific on what is in each paycheck. Maybe that will limit the possibilities but I just thought it was worth thinking about.

Hopefully it doesn't create big (or any) major issues.

Are you kidding? The company will just come and ask for a side letter to change how we are paid and the union will say sure if we can get an extra Scooby snack each week! 😡

How about a 23-day trip on the 777 or the 767 in Asian theater? With the associated concessions on DH's. Anything to stop the company from doing that in a 6 week bid period? We might build the lines, but the company builds the pairings.

No language on how many 6 week bid periods in one year. And the big thing to be aware of is that the company asked for this. There is a plan behind it, and without any language to limit the company, we won't fully understand the implications until it's too late.

Actually, there is. TA restricts single trips in the 6 week BP to be no longer than 390 hours TAFB (~16 days). That's the same restriction as trips in the 5 week period.

Bottom line there is there just won't be any single departure lines in the 6 week BP, which is probably a good thing generally speaking. There will just be another week long trip somewhere in the BP to go with your two-weeker to round things out.

Thanks, just because I overheard 23-day trips discussed in anger during the hub turn, doesn't excuse me not reading before posting.

My understanding is the SIG wanted this not the company! Prevents back to back weeks of work. It was in the 99 contract and never used.

Reserve is a max of 15 days for a 4 week bid period. A 6 week bid period is 50% longer and 50% more reserve equates to 22.5 max days, yet the TA puts the 6-week max rounded up to 23 days.

This equates to a little more than 2% extra work per 6-week bid period. Combine with less off days per the OP and you start getting hidden creep to how hard and much we work--at a COLA level of increased compensation.

But if we use you logic and a 6 week period is used vice 2 5 week periods we work less.