This conversation is just another example of how CE has failed us. The language is pretty clear but somewhere the company decided the 12 hour buffer is part of your training (if it is - why don't we get paid for it?) which then negates the actual wording of the CBA! Just another example of the "we have bigger fish to fry" mentality from CE. What they don't understand is that once all the little fish are gone - the "bigger" fish starve to death!

While I am hesitant to throw CE under the bus it is usually the lawyers in my experience who do not want to fight the fight. I took the ALPA survey yesterday and stated this is the most important thing the union needs to do now is grieve almost everything. The way I see it is they get paid a salary so the fixed cost really do not go up that much. Also, if we continue this path of not grieving most things the company will just keep interpenetrating the contract how they see fit. We need lawyers who want to fight the good fight heck they get paid the same no matter what and have no skin in the game, we are the ones who loose.

The company did not decide that the 12 hour buffer is part of your training.

Let's say you have a 10 day block of reserve starting on Monday. You bid for and receive training starting at 6:00 am Tuesday. With the 12 hour buffer, your reserve day on Monday goes away. You now don't have training in the middle of a block of R-days.

Now say you have the same scenario, but your R-days start on Sunday. Now after the 12 hour buffer knocks out your Monday R-day, you still have 1 R-day on Sunday. This is what the contract says, you must have one R-day on either side of training.

Bidding for two R-days on either side of training just protects you from screwing it up.

The CBA did not say - your training and buffer- it only says if your training falls in a block of R days!

Here is what it says.

If the pilot’s recurrent training conflicts with a block of R-days but does not split that block (i.e., it does not leave an R-day(s) both before and after the recurrent training), then only the R-days in conflict with recurrent training shall be dropped as a phase-in conflict and the pilot shall remain responsible for the remaining R-days.
ii. If the pilot’s recurrent training splits a block of R-days, then the entire block shall be dropped as a phase-in conflict and the pilot shall not be responsible for any of the R-days in that block.

Try reading what Walrus posted above.

the bidding of recurrent training occurs in the "conflict processing window" which includes the application of all buffers. Whether it is training, vacation or international buffers. The reason the new CBA makes it even easier to knock out a block of r days is not because ALPA wanted it...Many pilots enjoy this process but all it really does is ensure that the seniority inversion in secondary line process widens and we replace lost CH more efficiently than leaving partial blocks of r days behind.

I can't find anything about a buffer in this! Please show me where the buffer is part of your training.

CBA 11.E.11, not sure why the angst over this? Has been SOP for a very long time and now will be overcome by the new CBA anyway in the near future. The 12 hour buffer has always been a "part" of training. The question on whether or not a training session "split" a block or r days is one that is answered ONLY after the conflicts have been processed. If the recurrent session bid left standalone r days on either side of the training (after the conflict processing window process) then the entire block was/is dropped and becomes CIC.

It's simply a matter of legality. If you put training in a particular spot and that results in you being illegal to sit reserve on one of your scheduled R-days, then the R-day gets dropped. Once those legalities are accounted for, if you've still split your R-days with training then they all go away.

Once "TBD" has been achieved (whenever that is), this may become moot. If you have a 12 hour buffer either side of training, getting it to "touch" your R-days IAW the new contract would be like trying to touch two similar pole magnets. So, I'm not sure how the new CBA will account for buffers and still allow training to conflict with R-days and drop them. I would guess that any conflict resulting in an R-day drop would trigger the whole block to go away.