disillusioned.. the software change began in March. If you look at any of those months versus a year ago, most of the stats were improved. To me what is important is time off, but I understand that is not the case for everyone. Credit per day, and TAFB:credit ratio are the keys to my happiness.

I am not commenting on the mix of pairing lengths. I agree they are too heavily weighted towards 4-day.

 

80% 4-day trips in SFO/CRJ for September...73% in October. And yet in March/April/May the balance was much better. Sure, the barrage of 4-days is great for commuters, but if you live in base, not so much....

 

The 3 and 4 days got better in my base. The locals and 2 days became almost non-existant. I live in base and bid for short trips. My seniority has improved from 50% down to 25% within the last year, yet my schedule is worse than ever. When I was bidding 50% we had about 15 locals + 2 days to choose from nearly every day. I was senior enough to get something in the middle. Now bidding 25% we have between 1 and 3 locals or 2 days every day. I'm just about senior enough to get the worst of the 3.

My January 2015 schedule bidding 50%: 90 credit 18 days off all locals and 2 days.

My October 2015 schedule bidding 25%: 90 credit 12 days off all locals.

I'm working 6 extra days for the same amount of pay while my seniority went up 25% in the process. This software is not helping me in the least.

On the bright side it makes me willing to take the quickest upgrade because it's not like I'm holding a decent line as a senior FO anyway. I may as well take a pay raise and sit reserve for a few years as a captain.

 

With the underwhelming jepp software *improvment*, I'd say we are trying to juice efficiency out of dried fruit. IMHO the noticeably better trips for a base can only come from the detriment of another bases trips.

The lowest hanging fruit to end 3-4 hour sits is to have the people giving us our block hours to give a hoot. Which they don't, probably never will. Short of swapping between 200/700/900 nada will be noticeably changed. Imo

 

Our pairings have not improved one bit. The majority of the trips have been minimum guarantee or credit half the duty for months and months. More crummy low credit 4 days than we ever had.
What base are you in that has improved?

 

The MSP pairings have improved dramatically.

 

Looked at 3/14 vs. 3/15.
200 RJ
Credit per DP = exact same, Credit per day = 3 minutes more in 2015, Block per DP = 4 minutes less in 2015, Block per Day = 15 minute more in 2015. TAFB/Block = 4 minutes more in 2015, TAFB/credit = 6 minutes more in 2015.
700/900 RJ
Credit per DP = 6 minutes more in 2015, Credit per day = exact same, Block per DP = 3 minutes more in 2015, Block per Day = 3 minutes less. TAFB/Block = 7 minutes less in 2015, TAFB/credit = 3 minutes less in 2015.
Again, I don't see much improvement year over year.

I am exactly the same as you. I want more time off and I want to be able to work the trips my seniority will hold. But when I am forced to work 90 hours each month, I can't get either. Our lack of work rules is allowing SW to pick up extra hours from our partners at premium pay and forcing them on to us for straight pay.

Exactly, we are not getting better schedules as our seniority improves. Our RSR's are passing along the information but then quit because they see no improvement. Interesting to see that nobody bid on the open RSR position in SLC and JP was talked into doing it while he waits for his number to be called.

I'm a happy person despite what my persona here appears to be. I just get tired of flying with people who tell me things are going to get better and I take a little sip of the kool-aid. Only to be disappointed every month when bids are published.

 

What's attrition like right now?

 

I found it interesting to see SL said that we are only losing 25 per month to attrition over the summer instead of the 40 they predicted. I'm not sure what months he considers summer, but these are the attrition numbers.

April-49, May-41, June-27, July-51, Aug-33, Sept-38

If you consider June, July and August summer, that is an average of 37 per month. When I see stuff like this, it makes me wonder if they are intentionally giving the wrong information or out of touch and don't know the right information. Either way, it doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

 

yeah that actually seems surprisingly low...isn't the fall/winter when hiring picks up usually? maybe that has something to do with people not moving on? Also I think it's interesting that you guys are getting 80 a month which i believe is more than any other regional. skywest seems to be a good job staying ahead of hiring as i think attrition will only get higher.