At Spirit RSV equals prison sentence.

 

You're so dramatic lol

NK is my second airline and prefer these reserve rules more than my last airline which mirrored closer to JB reserve rules.

The 4 GDO days guarantees every reserve pilots get at least 2 weekends off a month. At 93% in base, I held every weekend off by waiving my GDOs down to 2 since I live in base. And since we have a “Call Me First List” I easily credited over 100+ hours a month because I would get called regardless of block hours already flown.

93% in base got me weekends off (Friday - Sunday on certain weeks) and my preferred RAP. Flew a ton when I wanted to, sat on the couch when I didn’t (for the most part anyways). QOL was… wait for it… great.

 

I'm still looking for an NK answer on how many hours of vacation they get for 3 weeks of vacation?

In your example above, which I haven't verified accuracy, the counter argument is while they may only get 30 hours per week (if that's true), they also get to 3 weeks and 4 weeks before we do. So a 7 year NK pilot would get 90 hours of vacation, but a 7 year JB pilots only get 70. During the longevity years where JB and NK have the same number of weeks, JB may be better. In the years where NK gets more weeks, they may have an edge.

Still, we get more PTO and sick.

In the end, we shouldn't take either vacation/sick/PTO system whole, we should take the best of both, and maybe even improve from there depending on what our peers have.

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How many weekends off does a JB pilot get at 93%? Or are you just comparing yourself to your imagination again?

 

Gonna be... wait for it... even better when your reserves get to drop and swap reserve days like professional pilots.

 

There is a range, when you have longevity for 3 weeks it starts at 84 hours, then goes to 98 hours before you hit the 4 week tier

 

So you should be able to find that in our contract, but it's not a simple answer same as you. Your vacation week credits are set. We have the ability to designate how much time we want to be applied to our week of vacation. Anywhere from 12 hours to 36 hours. So we basically have 2 parts to our vacation. # of weeks we can bid. And then vacation credit hours that we then apply to those weeks of vacation. The longer you are here, the more credit you have available to apply.

 

Thanks guys. Looks like it averages about 30 hours per vacation week.

Like that you can designate how much to allocate to each week.

I think the takeaway is some years of longevity JB-NK have the same number of weeks. In those years JB credits more vacation. In the years where NK gets more weeks, they have the advantage in some ways.

JB gets a lot of hours for each week of vacation. The NK system of accruing a variable rate of hour per week based on longevity might be a way to get more weeks of vacation sooner while still keeping the high weekly credit. I really like the high credit per week because you get more of the month off when you have a vacation. But I also want more weeks, sooner in longevity.

​​​​​​Haven't looked at how allocation of weeks available for bidding compares, I do think JB distributes weeks throughout the year well. And certainly JB has an advantage in PTO/sick. And yet JB still doesn't get enough. Room for improvement there.

Shifting gears...

What are NK's requirement for TPS reports?

 

I’m not comparing anything to anyone. I’m simply saying what I personally held at 93% in base. To say our reserve rules is a prison sentence is H.S. Level dramatic. Reserve pilots can get what they want, how they bid reserve is a different story based on their living situation.

Can it be improved, yes. I said how, you just didn’t like it.

and for the record, since you probably don’t know, adding, dropping, swapping has a window where it’s done in seniority order. After that window closes and awards go out, the FCFS window opens. Everyone wins, everyone gets what they want (more or less). No one is complaining.

 

As it stands, our reserve pilots will never be able to drop reserves. NC didn’t negotiate it away, we lost it in arbitration since our pilot group decided to leap frog their reserve days making them unusable the entire month and creating a bunch or premium trip unnecessarily.

This is an opportunity at a fresh start, but I wouldn’t want anything compromise DTZ. You can speak with your rep as you see fit though!