Wrong. It forces the company to pay out at premium for those weekend trips or crappy red eyes that people drop. It works really well for us. If you don’t want management to need to shell out a premium, then that’s sad.

With the new TA here we’ll make like $15/hr less I think. I’d still take our contract over yours any day. Yes, the grid/DTZ/XY are really that good.

I don’t know how many times we need to explain that it isn’t just senior guys that benefit from it. The most junior pilots do too. The only people who don’t are reserves, and that would be good to fix.

JetBlue pilots love working for straight pay we have been conditioned to do it. Our system ops only uses premium time at the last minute when they realize they don’t have coverage. This forces all of our commuters out of the chance to pick up last minute coverage. Hence the commuter pilots that want to make extra end up having to pick up straight pay trips to try and improve their paycheck. It has created a behavior that there are very few last minute trips. Does Spirit put their crappy & redeye trips in premium earlier then late night the day before the trip starts? I am a big fan of DTZ as it has been explained to me by my friends at Spirit but the conditioned JB pilots are hesitant. Mostly because we feel it will be preyed upon by a few of our senior high credit pilots that drop to zero via the trade board and sit around on VDA(200%) which is seniority driven then end up crediting 150-200 hrs a month in the summer while the rest of us grind out 80-100hrs for more days on then the VDA crowd. I also appreciate the way Spirit handles the VDA approach as it was explained to me, something like a bucket system.
If we try and combine our two systems it might really favor the Senior 4 or 5 in each seat/base/fleet type even more then It currently does. Our system frankly sucks for QOL, Spirits seems pretty awesome for QOL but not as productive as ours.
Personally since I can’t have much of a QOL under our grid system as a 12 year Captain I just try and work my tail off averaging about 105 -110 per month, some months a little more some months less. I would love to keep that credit but have more control over time off

The time they start calling the x list varies, it can’t be more than 2 days prior, but I’ve gotten calls ranging from 3 hours to 36 hours. We also have the Y list, which you can list for from any spirit airport that you are within 3 hours of. Say you live in LAX, we don’t have a base there but lots of flying - you can put yourself on the Y list and if flying opens specifically out of LAX last minute, they’ll call you.

It’s a bucket system for premium pay. It starts the year in seniority order, but once you get a premium trip, you go behind everyone who hasn’t in the order of assignment. There’s “buckets” of credit, I don’t remember what they are, but it ensures everyone gets a fair shot.

Really can’t stress enough that DTZ is not only for the senior few. For sure, its *easier* to drop during IOT if your senior, but if you keep an eye on the grid, you’ll drop plenty when you’re junior too.

This is my concern, and would definitely happen without the right guardrails, if it can be prevented at all.

So if you are called for a trip out of base are you credited for a virtual DH at premium rates on top of the premium trip credit like JB does? For all….. both contracts have nuggets like that, just like you have DTZ that (as evidenced by this discussion) the other group can’t possibly grasp the QOL/pay consequences of because they don’t have sufficient perspective. Thankfully it sounds like most on here are open to learn before digging in their heels, I think that bodes well.

Depends. If you’re an X list call, no, you offered premium trips in your domicile. If you’re a Y list call, no, because it’s specifically for airports you’re close to. If it’s a voluntary JRM call (we practically never do involuntary JRM), I think it probably would, but I’ve never done one so can’t say for sure.

To spirit pilots, at least IMO, the most important things to take with us to the JCBA are “buckets” for premium assignments, drop to zero, and the reserve grid rules. For me, everything else is negotiable

Hold the train, RSVs can’t drop to zero?! Oh hell no.

Just for your insight if a B6 JFK based pilot that places themselves on the VDA (volunteer list) in say MCO where they live… gets called for an MCO 2 day (usually 1 operating leg) … the company is on the hook for the value of the trip (10) plus the virtual DH to and from JFK (5) at 200%, so 30 hrs of credit. Again little nuggets that the other group might not appreciate. When a certain segment of NK guys dig in their heels about DTZ without compromise watch consequently B6 guys dig in their heels over the nuggets in our CBA (EPS/EA/hours of svc and the like) and have management carve out these highest cost items while we fight amongst ourselves.

That sounds excellent.