SeniorReserve

I must say, I was shocked, but his opinion was very prevalent in my new hire group chat.

Small sample BUT it seemed to be focused (most but not all) on a particular background, most of whom are double dipping on ExTO and orders. Those who spent a decade or more at a regional know the game, but I was taken back at the attitude and lack of knowledge regarding airline labor and contract negotiations.

hoover

ah yes. I totally forgot about straight bidding v POT. Do you think we as a group will start bidding only POT again? This last summer I saw several times that there would be a POT award but everyone, literally everyone bid it straight and there were enough trips that at least half of the bidders would have gotten premium. Not blaming anyone just curious if this will be the new norm for the next few yrs.

flensr

There are a handful of people who look for bases where they're out of reserves and trips are being bid at premium. They wait until the last second and submit an out of base straight bid to snipe it. That's the only way they'll get the trip because they're out of base and sometimes even over the cap, so they're basically lowest priority. Then they sick out, never having had any intention of flying it in the first place (obvious by looking at their board and seeing that they can't get there even if they wanted to). Easy way to get a couple TFP, and they're "not hurting anyone they know" since it's out of base. These are often trips that are badly sub-rigged day trips that aren't even worth 6.5 unless bid at premium. After they sick out, they tend to turn into re-routes, wrapped up in STC, or just assigned to reserves so even someone picking it up as extra fly can only get the sub-rigged straight pay instead of the premium amount.

It's also obvious that it's not an auto-bid mistake because the bids come in at the last second.

Basically it's a way to draw just a bit from your sick bank by taking what could be an potential short/easy premium assignment from another base. It hits LAX particularly hard because they run out of reserves and have so few OT trips, that when these trips show up that might get awarded to a junior guy at premium they end up sniped by guys at other bases at straight time who then sick out. It's basically stealing a premium trip from a junior guy at a base that's small so OT is already rare to begin with.

I've documented a couple of these and noted who is doing it because it's pretty anti-social and I think it's worth knowing who you can't trust.

LUVisLost

So is this Karl or Bob?

e6bpilot

Every time the kompany signals that they are unhappy with SWAPA, a whole crop of "if you don't like it here, leave" guys crop up on this forum. Good people suffer from Stockholm Syndrome too. I just try to use love and logic to bring them back to reality.

LUVisLost

I appreciate your effort...I really do. I’m more of a sledge hammer myself....

Lostboys97

I would love to come across you on a lonely street corner.

Profane Kahuna

Woah down on the anti-military hate please.

Plenty of us that are HAPPY to have a union and collective bargaining for once in our lives.

We are all in this together.

cactipilot

https://onemileatatime.com/breeze-airways-pilots/
Maybe Gary just had flashbacks to the 70's, when this was Southwest.... ?

hockey916

I doubt he meant anything nefarious about his statement. I agree we are all in this together and most past military get the game. Generally speaking though, for those barely out of the military or new to part 121, they don’t know the game yet. I think he was just illustrating they don’t know what they don’t know yet.