DaGreenBanana

I’m curious what specifically in your contract enables pilots to count on the ability to “drop their entire schedule” month after month. Can someone enlighten me?

Halon1211

if there is enough reserve coverage above a certain threshold, a line holder may drop their trip.

offmyrocker

and I just did it. Thankfully with a lot of ease.

LandGreen

The cliff notes: We have a red/green system. Each day is either green (if there is enough reserve coverage to drop a trip that is on that day), or red (if there is not enough reserve coverage to drop a trip on that day). The contract requires the company to begin a month with a minimum of 75% of the days green at the beginning of open time. There are also provisions on how reserve buffers are determined month to month that dictate how many days above 75% end up green to make sure the company doesn’t play games with the remaining 25% of the days. I’ll spare the details here, but essentially it is mutually agreed upon by the union and company each month based on reasonable historical data. It depends on seat/base but often times the majority of the month is green at the beginning of open time.

We have two separate rounds of open time. The first round is open for a few days and is seniority based. All requests are submitted over these few days and processed/awarded at once. Then another round starts and is on a first come first serve basis for drops/swaps/ and adds for the rest of the month and these requests are processed instantaneously (server demand permitting).

If you are fairly senior and are awarded Monday-Thursday trips, you have a very good chance of being able to drop your entire schedule in the first round of open time if that’s what you’re after. The more junior, or the more weekends you work, the more you may need to log on periodically and watch the grid but most of the time it isn’t too difficult to drop trips. I’m looking at the reserve grid now for my base/seat- the rest of June is green and in July there are 4 red days total as of right now. FWIW this July is also the busiest (most departures) the airline has ever had.

Qotsaautopilot

That was a pretty good synopsis. In the summer precovid days tend to turn red pretty quickly so if you didn’t get a drop or move the days of your trips (that depends on the grid as well) in the first round chances are you weren’t going to be able to once the server starts to basically crash at the opening of the second round.

This summer may be different as many habits have changed with Covid.

Lets also not ever forget that red/green language was blatantly violated for years and we had to win it back in arbitration.

BKbigfish

Two main factors have made the grid more favorable (for line holders) since CBA 2018. PBS implementation and the inability of reserves to drop. With PBS the top 50% gets largely what they want on the first go so most of them aren’t having to fiddle with their schedule like they did with line bidding. I will tell you my involvement in open time went from 24/7/365 to essentially zero once PBS was implemented. The inability for reserves to drop days is a net positive for line holders as you’re not racing to beat the reserve guys before the day turns red anymore. Not saying I agree with the change (I think reserves should be able to drop days to some extent) but as far as the grid goes it’s definitely greener for much longer than it was in the past. Some of that could also be COVID weirdness and being a little fat on pilots at the moment.

flensr

The most impressive part of red/green is that except for irregular ops or when they're scrambling to find people and end up having to offer move up and premium for everything, it actually costs the company LESS to permit pilots to drop. Unlike other companies that only offer trades, dropping straight into open time ensures that the company *usually* isn't paying 2 people to cover the same trip on days where reserves go unused. That's a big savings to the company in exchange for an awesome QOL feature.

Obviously it can be mis-used if the company under-hires or over-schedules (or creates a fake job action by using negative red/green buffer numbers) but most of the time it seemed like a great deal to me.

In hindsight I'm more and more convinced that the current contract was the result of the company over-playing their hand with the fake work slowdown, made obvious by the negative reserve buffers published in open time. They botched that in a big way and less than 3 months later had to admit to the investors that growth was constrained by the old contract rather than on NEO deliveries. Again in hindsight, that was code for "ok you win". While I'm obviously an outsider who lived the current contract for only a month, the next offer while not perfect still seems pretty good in hindsight.

njd1

How is pay handled for a dropped trip?

I presume the price for the freedom and flexibility to drop trips is that if you don't pick up something else later in the month to cover the loss you make less than awarded that month, potentially dropping below guarantee. Right?

Or do you just magically get pay protected for it and I've been abused in the regionals too long to assume that there are la la lands where pilots are treated with a modicum of respect?

king10pin02

if you drop a trip you lose the pay. we are treated very well by the company/scheduling most of the time. still need to know the contract

Cyio

Why would a company pay you to drop a trip and how would not paying be disrespectful?

perhaps I am reading your question wrong but if you choose to drop something, that is on you.