It doesn’t matter. You can have a week vacation and still fly more.

Your vacation time is worth less than JB and you accrue less “sick” time which isn’t as versatile as JB. You can also sell back unused PTO at JB.

it matters to me. I’d take 21 days of vacation at 4 hours/day (NK at year 6 for example) vs 14 days at 5 hours/day (JB at year 6). Btw, we can cash vacation time at NK.

🤦‍♂️

Read the story instead of the headlines.

Read the contract comparison guide.

How many hours are those 21 days of vacation worth?

35 per week.

a week of vacation at spirit is worth 30 hrs.

a week of vacation at JetBlue is worth 35 hours.

Spirit min guarantee is 72 hrs so the company has to find you 42 hours of flying for the month

JB min guarantee is 70 hrs so the company only has to find 35 hrs of flying, yielding more days off in a vaca month.

spirit accrues 5 hrs of sick time per month

JB accrues 6 hours of PTO per month

thats 12 hrs less time or roughly 2.5 less sick days per year.

if spirit pilots choose to sell the sick time they have, they sell it at a $30/hr discount to JB pilots.

That's the sort of comparison I am looking for, does anyone on the NK side have a counter?

Credit means more than weeks under PBS (vs line bidding). The biggest improvement B6 needs for vacation is more steps (and earlier steps) of vacation increases. It’s ridiculous that you need to be here basically 11 years to get your 3rd week and 21 years to get your 4th week.

At spirit, more weeks equals less time off. That’s what the numbers say.

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!

page 62 has a graph that explains all in picture form.

You still don't get it. Dropping and swapping RSV days is current JB book, and it's NOT going away.


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I was giving insight as to why our reserves don’t drop or swap. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.

You also can’t make claims like “it’s not going away.” You nor does anyone else know what’s staying or going away. Just relax, man

Shhh he’s on a roll.

Correlation doesn’t equal causation, but that won’t stop bluedriver from latching on to the idea that dtz only works if reserve conditions are horrible.

You’re right, what was I thinking? Haha

We also get 2 inviolate days with each vacation week that can be distributed how your like i.e. both in front, both in back or one on each side, also I think you can choose to have them paid or not if I remember right so long story short your 7 days of vacay are actually 9 also you can shift your vacation left or right, never done it myself so someone else would need to elaborate

Inviolate days must have credit assigned to them. This can be either from banked vacation time, or you can reduce the credit of the vacation week and reallocate it to those inviolate days.

Vacation weeks can be shifted up to three days either direction.

99.99% sure they can be unpaid, since that's what I chose

line holders can choose whether the INV days are paid or not (comes out of vacation credit). If a reserve chooses to add INV days to a vacation week, they will be paid. There isn’t a choice for reserves

I am not making that argument. But some of YOUR OWN have admitted as much. Maybe you are referring to a Bluediver post. Simply saying that in the JCBA, RSVs will be able to drop and swap RSV days. I'll bet money on it

Dang, won’t even write my name out :(

Jokes aside, I explained why reserves can’t drop and how that benefits lineholders in regards to DTZ. I proceeded to share a few ideas on how to make it better. You and diver can’t wrap your head around any of it and argued every step of the way. This is a public forum so it is what it is.

You can bet whatever you want, but I can pretty much assure you that a lot of pilots here are willing to die on the DTZ hill (insert small sampling size comment here). True for every pilot? Idk. Is it DTZ popular among our pilot group? Yes. So expect a fight on this provision.

Idk why you think JB pilots have all the say in this. You need our vote to get a JCBA done. So instead of being dramatic about reserve rules, how about you think of a creative way for all us to win and then email your rep with that idea.

I am loving your optimism, and I know you’ve been at one regional before here, but there’s a pretty good bet you’ll be disappointed in the power of our NK vote. You’re assuming our group is 100% united and that we haven’t sold anything for a $ before…

And as for your genius reserve rule reworks, YOU should be emailing reps that as well. I know you’re bright enough to know what the J in JCBA stands for.

DTZ and reserve rules are NOT the same provision of the contract, nor are they directly related. You, as a lineholder, benefit from the bad reserve rules, but that doesn't make them connected from the standpoint of the contract. You can die on the DTZ hill, I don't care where you die. And the point is, maybe we all decide to keep DTZ, not my fight, but perfectly fine with that outcome. But, what you don't understand is, we will be keeping the ability for reserves to drop and swap days. That's not going away. What happened to keeping the best from both contracts??? It is entirely possible to keep DTZ and RSV schedule flexibility. You just don't want to, because you want your QOL/money at the expense of others. Classic pilot pulling up the ladder behind them.

Either way, die wherever you want. RSVs will be keeping their ability to drop and swap.

I will add that when I say reserve pilots will be able to drop and swap trips, there are already protections that prevent Blue pilots from checkerboarding. So that excuse isn't going to fly.

I can't see the career track of CFI to Spirit or JB reserve for five years as any sort of sacrifice whatsoever.

We have guys who bid RSV on purpose for QOL, and guys like me who cycle in and out on purpose certain months for QOL. It is not at JB, nor is it at big airlines, nor should it be just something the new guys suffer through.

What happened to the "best of both contracts"?

correct. It’s a bid category, not hazing.

Not against fair reserve rules. Thought about bidding it myself once or twice. Are you on Catnip? Pretty jumpy to the keyboard around here. Just an observation. For example, now I going to go away from here to shower. Don't trust my Otterbox, so no phone in the shower. I also won't be able to play for the whole afternoon. Maybe the whole day. Oh, the angst!

Wrong. UA has had the worst RSV rules in the industry for years. Their new CBA has some improvements but overall they still suck.

I agree with your sentiment tho. Seeking the best of both lineholder and RSV QOL is a must.

So much to unpack, but I’ll keep it short.

1) Reserve rules, grid rules, and DTZ go together. Not under the same provision under the CBA, but affects how DTZ to utilized. This was explained by me in details in one of the threads in the JB forum.

2) I’ve said that we have senior folks bidding reserve too because they won’t get called, but you won’t acknowledge that statement.

3) According to you, my regional was more professional than NK because said regional had very similar reserve rules to JB. You know who got to drop/swap/add, very few people because it was a free for all between reserves and lineholders. Having been there and done that, I’m not interested. Language will be VERY important in whatever we get.

4) Before you get your panties in a bunch again, I’ll say that if we can make DTZ work with good reserve rules that make sense, I’m all for it. This is something I’ve stated 5 pages back, but you enjoy arguing in between flights.