It is part of the contract. Every bid package, every month--for years I might add--on about page 20 has a great detailed description of what MSL is, the contractual language about it, when it applies, and what categories it applies to for the upcoming bid month. What else do you want?

They break long trips up constantly on the widebodies. It’s expensive and involves lots of deadheads. They prefer to avoid it. I have dropped almost all my line and simply picked up broken trips as they are very good deals. Once they break them up line holders get first shot at picking them up before they go to a reserve.

Does that exception apply to using an APD too?

Mongo

That blurb is sufficient. I never even knew it was there but it's a good explanation.

MSL is what kept me off the big stuff. Schedule manipulation becomes much more difficult in those categories. This is why we had the trip parking “scandal” and other now defunct workarounds.

To expand on this, the 9 day trips are usually broken up where the first half is flown by a reserve, with a deadhead home instead of a mid rotation layover. The back half of the double round trip will start with a DH leg to the mid rotation layover and contain the round trip ocean crossing that finishes in base.

The 4-99-2 RES rule and accompanying MSL does not mean you will always have 9 day blocks of on call days. It just means that if you do have a 9 day or larger block, you can't get it broken up. The 4-99 portion means your reserve days must have 4-99 consecutive on call days. The 2 means that you get up to 2 breaks between RES on call day blocks. If you look at DTW 350 for example, you will see many pilots with smaller blocks. When you put vacation days in the month or transition from reserve to line, you have some additional flexibility. Your on call block at the end of the month doesn't need to be a 4 day block, which is one way to benefit from the res/line transition. Additionally, you will find some category and bid pack specific bidding and PCS techniques that will enhance your QOL.

So for example, the only way to PD a reserve day on the 7ER would be to drop day 5 in a 9 day stretch? That would leave 4 on, 1 Off, 4 on. Is this right? Sounds like with anything less than 9 days reserve in a row it would be impossible to drop a reserve day in the middle. IE seven in a row and dropping the middle day would end up with 3 day blocks which wouldn’t be allowed. Am I getting it here?

The block rules apply to moving X days but not for dropping days via PD or APD.

not sure about the application of MSL though

You can not PD a reserve day if it will drop that reserve block below 4 days (9 days on 350 due to MSL) in a WB category.

So is the WB "secret" to success, starting the month with 3 days of availability and then just keep adding a day at a time on the 10pm PCS run? Basically never more than 3 days of availability for SC assignments and then you have 4 days of availability starting at 10pm the night prior?