Well duh! Of course that is correct. But that's not we were talking about. The post I was responding to did not mention scope. Nice try, though.

 

That.

As for the touch drop vacation method, rather than making everyone play lawyer-pilot/PBS bidding expert whose vacation results depend on how awesome you program the system (among other things) how about keep vacation as is but increase the daily credit to something that actually means something and adds value and a powerful credit to your line. No PBS shenanigans required. As in 5 hours/day, minimum. 5.5 or 6 would rock the house for every one, all the time, regardless of how many thousands of lines of bidding code they wrote. A vacation week on one's schedule that builds in 35-42 hours of credit in a 7 day period would let every pilot bid around that as they saw fit and as an added bonus junior pilots wouldn't be punished by senior pilots "phantom" bidding trips that got awarded and then dropped during some special bidding slide technique. The problem with vacation is 3 hours a day is extremely weak for a line holder and downright pathetic for a reserve. Daily credit, not touch drop, adds the most bang for the buck for every pilot all the time...junior, senior, line holder or reserve. Senior pilots would, of course, get more vacation weeks (as they should) but with a 5-6 hour daily credit, a week's vacation would be a big deal to anyone, all the time, as it should be. No lawyer bidding required.

 

Satch,

Don't shut up and for God's sakes, please don't color. (We pilots aren't known for our arts and crafts skills.)

I hope you understand that we are all in this together, that's all. No one wants anyone to get furloughed. We all should want everyone to get paid.

Just remember, we are only a little over 10 years removed from when the B scale was in full effect at most carriers.

Put the crayons down and pick up and oar, so we can all row in the same direction. K?

 

Whats happened to this discussion, if it gets off page one everyone loses sight of the issue.

 

l o s e s.

 

Just a little off Thanks

 

It could be implemented with PBS. PBS would simply disregard your vacation and award the trips you bid. The trips touching vacation would then be dropped and returned to the pot to be available for the next pilot to bid.

The problem is the nature of the system we run has changed from the touching trips days. Back then for the most part the longest trip we had was 4 days long. Now we have 13 day trips. A week of vacation would be a month off for most pilots. Even with just 6 day trips a pilot would make sure to touch two of them.

The solution to restore both the jobs lost and the vacation value is simple. We up the daily value of the vacation and make vacation pay and credit so a pilot actually has to take the time off. It would require a large increase in manning. If we went to 5 hours per day of vacation and it was pay and credit the company would have to increase manning by 1000 pilots with the majority of the jobs being Captains positions.

 

Sounds good! Let's do that! You can pull some strings, right sailingfun?

 

Lets also work on an "any day vaction" concept.

 

I copied the following from a post in another forum. I think this is very well said:
__________________________________________________ ___________

Is ALPA really suggesting that we water down the most significant opportunity to place real value on our experience for the sake of unnamed, faceless, non-dues paying future pilots that may or may not actually be interested in applying for a low paying airline pilot job? A job that has already been devalued in part due to ALPAs selling out of high paying major airline pilot pilot jobs for low paying regional pilot jobs?

Why are some of us more interested in protecting pilots that technically don't even exist at the expense of those that have sacrificed now for decades?

If the FAA wanted to create an instant pilot shortage crisis by making the new hire requirement 10,000 hours, making us such a hot commodity that we were instant millionaires, should ALPA still fight for the rights of pilots to be qualified at 500 hours?

Seriously, who is ALPA supposed to protect, long time dues paying members or fledgeling pilots that may someday pay 2% of a $25,000 salary?

Piloting experience will ALWAYS be a subjective value. One can argue endlessly back and forth about whether how many total hours, military vs civilian, Purdue vs Riddle, are better than another. Ultimately, it is the actual PILOT that is the true measure of ability and expertise. Some pilots, (myself included) were not able to become military pilots not due to ability, but rather due to the arbitrary fact that they didn't have 20/20 uncorrected vision.

Many of us have flown with pilots with tons of experience that are weak pilots that have been advanced by the system, or flown with a (maybe low time) gifted pilot that has natural instincts. That being said, the more total HOURS a pilot has, the better chance he/she has been tested enough to show a record or pattern of success or failure.

So why carve out special exceptions based upon someone's arbitrary bias of who makes a better pilot at how many hours? All pilots are born with their own level of natural abilities, and while some training may be better than others, the pilot still is a human being that is limited by his/her own ability. Having a high level of hours for entry allows for more time and more checkrides for that person to be evaluated for their ability to fly millions of passengers over their career.

So ALPA wants to protect military pilots that may want to apply for airline jobs in the future. How does that possibly advance my career and how does that justify all the dues that I pay?