as someone who can’t vote yet (half winger), I’d love for QOL rules to be the focus of a new TA. Yea, pay could be higher, but as someone on reserve through this summer, I got absolutely hammered by scheduling only to maybe barely hit or break reserve guarantee.

Our reserve rules are literally a reason for someone to not work at United. If I were a scheduler, I’d put everyone on short call or FSB every day because…why not? (and that’s what they did, if not some mediocre trip) There’s basically no reason for them not to. I’d aggressive pickup when I could, but it didn’t always work, or sometimes I was on a 6 day silo. Long call is a pipe dream for some of us.

if you think you can never be at risk of being on reserve again, I won’t try and change your mind. But if people skip United because of work rules, it’s still going to impact you when they continue to build 90 hour lines and there are 190 unfilled CA positions because nobody ever wants to be on reserve again.

Bingo. I will never willingly be on reserve here again, even in base. I also know that I may not have a choice which is why I’m dead set on at bare minimum not making reserve worse.

#MakeReserveSenior

i almost wrote that, in an ideal world, reserve should be going to senior in-base people (because they want it and reserve is good). No way that’s happening with what’s we have.

also, global reserve….shouldn’t be a thing. All those flexible days? No thanks. Regular is bad enough. There’s another reason all the new hire widebodies go last in class (with few exception)

before too long, every base/equipment will be global. I mean, Cleveland got global just because they do a few Lajes trips. It’s nuts.

reserve will never go senior.

the only reason one would bid reserve by choice is counting on the fact that you won’t be used.

given our staffing and the standings trends this will never happen. it is all about
pilot productivity

You could make reserve profitable. For example, make field standby lines, 16 days off minimum, and you get add pay for anything flown outside of your original FSB block. Incentivizes the company to only use you for actual emergencies and to get you back ASAP. More nights at home, nice pay bump. I’d do it over a 12 day off 89 hour line.

Pure FSB lines are already in the contract. Has been for 20 years. Pays 90 hours. The company can build them but choose not to. When they built them back in the day, bottom reserves couldn't hold those lines. They already have tools available to make reserve better. They just want to make them worse while making us pay for the changes.

I know, the goal is “make reserve senior”, and maybe we should push for FSB to be taken out of normal reserve and be made pure FSB lines only. I feel like there was 0 creativity between ALPA and the company on this TA. It’s basically “here are a couple mutually beneficial common sense minor tweaks (Longer overnight for a downtown hotel, first class meal options for crew meals, both likely save the company money and are also a net positive for pilots), a bunch of concessions, and here’s some cash”. So FSB lines exist but aren’t used- we need to work on language to incentivize their use. Maybe you can only assign X number of FSB to reserves for every Y number of FSB lines offered. Maybe open up APU on the day before your first reserve day to allow some add pay opportunity for reserves. Maybe only make X percent of a base global reserve. There has to be some tweaks that could make reserve attractive to those that live in base without seriously hurting operational integrity. We should be able to make reserve attractive for reasons other than “I hope I stay home and don’t get used”.

Reserve should go senior in the winter and junior in the summer. Winter is usually easier and you're not missing much pay. Some guys already bid reserve for Christmas ✞ off.

FIFO has to go.