Q for any ANC -11 pilots:

How many junior First Officers in ANC (i.e., purple nugget types) are trying/planning of bidding the lower 48?

I know this is water cooler fodder, but several of us received the email regarding our "choices" and have very limited information and time to make our decision. For example, if there are 20 purple nuggets and 18 are trying to bid back to MEM (even if it meant 727 F/O or 727 S/O), that would be important to know.


And the axiom, bid what you want, want what you bid IS applicable, but any additional info I can gleam would be greatly appreciated.

I am going to possibly reaffirm my ignorance...but, here goes...

How can Purple Nuggets bid back to the 727 without having any vacancies?

If any of them could have held a seat and put it on their standing bid below the seat they had canceled in 07-03 or 08-01.


It's too much...


On a side note--Let's go to a 2 year training cycle. Then, later, the company can selectively offer waivers to contractual restrictions when they need to move people.

Like I said...reaffirming my ignorance...

Is there any way that a MEM MD-11 guy could swap with one of the ANC purple nuggets that wants to be in MEM?

Out of the 68ish nuggets, I'm only aware of one who attempted to bid to MEM and was told he couldn't. However, the bid that happened on was before the Age 65 ruling I think. With all the good news lately about growth, expansion, and seat progression (not) there may be a few more nuggets who may bid MEM now because their commute to ANC is such a pain and this may be the last chance to bid MEM for a while. But I'd be surprised if it was a big number.

Not an option, it would be unfair to let someone bypass a system bid to hold a seat in a base that they could not hold on a bid themselves. (regardless if they have someone junior in the seat at each base). A bit more complicated than that, but that is the basic premise IMHO.

I figured that. Just wondering if there was some method available during the ongoing bid to make a swap (similar to swapping training dates - pending approval of all those senior).

I think it's even worse than that. A number of years ago, I was interested in swapping bases with a fellow new hire who was exactly 1 number senior to me. The answer was "NO." Couldn't figure it out, as not even one person would have been affected by the swap.

That may be true, but especially in times like we are in now, guys who could have held say MEM11C 5 years ago, can't even touch it now. If you let someone do a base swap you are bypassing a bid and more than likely trumping bid seniority. Even the number 1 guy in a base may be to junior to hold a primary or secondary today in another base, so to allow swaps would be impossible under our system.