Part of the reason they are understaffed is because they are so inefficient. Especially in utilizing reserves.

A lot of the flying assigned to reserves is stuff left over from the SAP, things such as 6hr 3 day trips and 13hr 4 day trips. They could recombine those trip after SAP and put them into opentime, but instead they want the trip to be undesirable because its cheaper for them to make a reserve pilot fly them instead of paying a line holder 125% pay.

Also it has happened twice to me now as a Captain: I will see a trip on Flica the night before I'm supposed to be on hot reserve, so I call and ask if I can just be notified, the answer is no. So I report at 0500 then get assigned the trip, somewhere down the line we get a delay and I time out because I had to report at 0500 instead of 0930 when the trip started.

Also consider the fact that 50% of the pairings contain at least 1 deadhead. If you are a reserve in DAY you can almost guarantee that any assignment you receive will begin and end with a deadhead.

 

We have not upgraded 4 pilots this year. Go back and count. Get back to me. That class of 30 started in January as well.

 

Sure you can count them as upgrades based on when they finish. I'll count them from when they are awarded. Spin it however you want.

 

What about the class of 8?

 

Did I miss an award announcement this month? We had an upgrade of 4 offered in Feb, for a March class, and nothing since.

 

Yes. You did. The 2/9 class

 

............. nearly 4 hours later,.......... DENIED!!! (trip was already picked up by another pilot, SURPRISE, SURPRISE!!)

Again, it's called "stale data".

I finally had one swap approved. And it took nearly 5 hours for this one to "........ Process.......", which happened in the middle of the night.

But the computer geniuses at Sabre say that SAP is working just fine! Let's just say that I disagree.

 

Was that a 2/9 class or a 2/9 award? I don't care when they start. If it was a Jan award for a 2/9 class then I stand corrected.

Edit: splitting hairs is ridiculous. We had double digit upgrade classes consistently the last 2 years. Our upgrade is a now trickle because our growth momentum has been ****ed away.

 

It was the 1/7 award for the 2/9 class.

I think this is fun lol

 

You got me. They snuck one in while I was still hungover from New Years. Glad we're having fun this morning.

When to upgrade is a personal choice IF the spot is offered. Most people probably won't be ready at 1.5 years and 1000 hours. There's many benefits to waiting and 3 years isn't necessarily a bad thing. If our upgrade trend continues, upgrade times for late 2014 hires will be 3 years or longer. I say all this knowing that a million things could impact that. Most of those things are beyond ours or the companies control. There are quite a few things the company should have done and could do to keep the upgrade time low, compared to past times. Right now it doesn't look like they are planning on doing anything, so I'm betting upgrade stretches on as we attrite and fail to hire.