3 man crew, senior FO, LCA has a student. Junior FO drops trip and on the same PCS run, his buddy picks up the trip. Buddy is now senior and gets training displaced. Conveniently on the last PCS run before the trip. Is this kinda thing common in the WB world?

I did not think they displaced anyone on a 3 man IOE trip, I thought it just became a 4 pilot crew

This used to happen all the time. The dude who thought he was getting bought off then calls out sick.

Correct, no one gets bought off on a 3 man trip. The student is still not qualified so can only sit in a control seat opposite an LCA. Rotating breaks mean one break would have the student paired with the other co-pilot. On a 4 man crew, the student and LCA break together and the senior co-pilot gets bought off.

Supposedly back in the day there was a guy in NYC that would sharpshoot this like crazy. He would bid senior boutique layovers like Nice or Venice and then scour Icrew for trips that had a student assigned where he was senior to both co-pilots. He’d then text the junior one and offer to trade a nice Venice trip in exchange for the OE trip. Junior guy wasn’t gonna get bought anyway so says heck ya and they swap. Guy that was senior and going to get bought off now has to work it. Eventually he got told to knock it off......

Exact scenario happened to me in ATL about a year ago......junior FO got called out of blue by senior FO offering Rome layover vice Madrid, which he jumped on, and they traded via private trip trade....just shortly before trip. I went from being released to on my way to Madrid in the blink of an eye.

Who told him to knock it off? It’s totally contractually legal.

Stuff like this, is why the senior FO doesn’t get bought off on a 3 man INTL trip anymore. This is why we can’t have nice things. Like another poster mentioned, sometimes the senior FO would make plans, knowing he was going to get bought off the trip, whether those plans included green slipping, or away from work, and then a couple days ahead of time, he finds himself the junior FO. Gets torqued off, and bangs out sick, just because.

Several years ago, it was legal to have a pilot receiving TOE to sit up front with another FO. He was qualified on the aircraft, just not theater qualified, which, you don’t arrive in theater until the last break is almost over, in most Western European cities. They stopped letting the senior FO stay home because of the games being played by the senior FO’s. Don’t get me wrong, it’s contractually legal, and I’d do the same thing, if I had hung around long enough to get that senior, but the sick calls, and swapping with friends to screw thy neighbor, all in the name of staying home, or green slipping to triple dip, probably caused a lot of problems for crew scheduling and the CPO.

Rumor was the CPO gave him a call and basically said what Big E outlined above. Said he was abusing the system and sick calls on the trips he targeted were through the roof. I agree it’s legal by the letter of the law, but like the post above says, it’s why we can’t have nice things. It’s why we can’t buy cakes in ICN anymore (9 FAs each carrying 2 free cakes out the door every morning was bound to attract attention) and a hundred other examples.

Sometimes it’s best to reward a good deal with moderation instead of taking it to the bleeding edge of what’s technically allowed because then it often goes away. Second hand knowledge on the CPO call btw so take it for what it’s worth.

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At the same time, dudes shouldn't be so entitled to the days off that they were "expecting" that they make solid plans over said trip. So many things can happen, student busts/doesn't make the commute/calls in sick, etc... I liken that mentality to the senior guy who gets all bent out of shape when "his" GS is stolen by a junior WS.