I was wondering if anyone knows the history of why reserve "guarantee" has always been so low(crap pay), at least since I've been a part of the industry.

I don't think that anyone can deny that reserve flying sucks, no matter if you are at United, SWA, AA, or Jetblue. By nature, not knowing your schedule and having to plan around the "unknown" stinks. Why not give people an incentive to bid it?

Why, in this industry don't we reward those that are willing to take a crappy "unknown" schedule by giving them a high guarantee.

If we were to negotiate a high guarantee for reserve, this would have multiple beneficial effects:

1) local people would bid reserve - you get paid the same whether you work or not, so if you're local, why not bid it? If you gave it a nice guarantee, then more senior bidders would bid it. You might get a nice cross section of seniority bidding it, instead of the most junior.

2) If you have a high guarantee, some people could actually afford to move into those high "cost of living" cities, thus almost no one actually having to commute to reserve, which would increase QOL for commuters, and QOL for locals since there would be some benefit to bidding reserve(ie Win-Win)

3) The number of reserve pilots would be minimized by the company because it would cost them more, thus incentivize them to build more productive line pairings.

4) If reserve went more senior because of the higher guarantee, then if you could hold a BES, then you would be reasonably sure that you could hold a line if you wanted at 100% in a BES. A lineholder with a 72 hr line can always pick up an extra trip if they want more pay (not always as easy for Widebody guys).

I don't want to go into a discussion on what number would be the right number of hours guarantee, so as to not negotiate in public, but I would argue there is a good number out there where reserve would no longer be the worst of the worst. This would be a cost item in negotiations, but when you consider it in the grand scheme of things, wouldn't it be a win for everyone? You'd either be a lineholder with the ability to pick up extra flying if available (a good thing) or at worst be making a high guarantee. Lineholder productivity would go up since more senior bidders would bid reserve.

I think raising the guarantee to a nice level would be a simple fix to reserves to make it more palatable and hopefully incentivize locals to bid it.

It's a lot easier than making a whole bunch of new reserve work rules that potentially will **** off lineholders or make for really unproductive reserves which would probably cost a lot more than a high guarantee.

What am I missing?

 

The inertia of entrenched ideas, that's what. The only people interested in improving reserve, are those stuck with it and those who bid it intentionally. The current MEC seems to have an inkling that some tweaks are necessary, but I'm not holding my breath.

Some pilots are habitually myopic and ignore even very recent history. UA lurched backward several times since I've been here, displacing thousands of pilots, yet "reserve is a choice" is still their mantra. Your topic has been beaten to death on this and the other forum. Yet, reserve is still second-class citizenship around here.

Keep an eye on the hornet's nest you just posted and you'll get your answer.

 

Sound good to me.

Make it pay high enough that locals would prefer it.

 

Reserve should pay 5hrs every day.

 

Maybe reserve pay could float month to month. When PBS bidding opens it could show what the pay guarantee is for that month based on some calculation of what the lineholder lines are worth (average, low, or some other number). Seeing that number a lineholder could choose to bid reserve or not that month, providing some flexibility for all.

 

I haven’t seen anything negative on this idea yet...

I can understand why the company wouldn’t want to pay a high guarantee, but if it would make reserve go to locals because of the pay incentive, then it seems like a good idea.

Seems like it would be a good use of negotiating capital, without a huge change to rules that the company would try and circumvent unless we have ironclad language.

 

70-80% here won’t give up a nickle of their hourly rate to spend on reserve changes.

 

Like a log in the punchbowl, when it floats low it's the junior maggot who's stuck with a horrendous paycheck. When it floats high, the junior maggot is stuck with a horrendous line.

 

If the reserve guarantees were higher than the lower built lines, then they would go more senior (in theory) than a junior lineholder. This makes previous junior reserve guys happy since now they are junior lineholders instead of commuting to reserve.

Previous junior lineholders now get a higher value paycheck in exchange for being on reserve, or if reserve goes even higher than junior lineholder, than previous junior lineholder becomes mid level lineholder.

The only people that I could see that wouldn’t benefit from this are the most senior widebody Captains. Most pilots here at United will never be a widebody CA.

 

Agree 80 HR guarantee would do a lot!