Since our concessions of BK we have more and more lines built to the max cap for the month. The contract gives the pilot the option to waive up to 2 additional hours or have the company drop a trip to bring them below max. Being that it is DEC and many had trips over christmas the best option would be to take the trip drop and enjoy a few extra days over the holidays. Also, when the company counted on filling much of the open flying that popped up from the weather problems with guys willing to work on their days off and have a tripped dropped for them of their choice. If given a choice a guy would almost always tell them to drop the Christmas trip.

The other big issue that bit them this month was that Christmas was on a Tuesday. The company masses the reserves on the weekends and gives less coverage for reserves during the midweek. This is their bet that ruys with Mo - Thur. trips will generally fly them. Of course after all of the trip drops from the weather and the weak reserve coverage over the holiday period it wound up biting them in the behind. My guess is that our Dir. of Crew Resources will take the fall for this and be "seeking opportunities outside of united" in the very near future.

Lambourne

This is reminiscent of NWA several months ago & management finally gave in when they realized pilots were not going to help for nothing

When Denver had a snow storm on Dec 27, servisair/penniville ( the main contract de-icer for the a,j and west pads) ran out of type 4 fluid. United sold them a few thousand gallons for $14 a gallon. I can only imagine what servisair charged F9 and the others for that fluid.

PS.Servisair is the same company thats under investigation for not training their employees properly. Interesting read..........
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/new...ulty-training/