that's the conundrum we're always in w/ "pure seniority"... much bigger subject, but "pure seniority" would allow the #1 pilot to grab his/her full stretch of all vacation weeks back to back, the the #2 guy, etc, etc... Man I have no qualms whatsoever w/ seniority but the idea of anything that affects "pure seniority" being bad is I think a bad concept.

I think I know the contract pretty well but can’t think of any examples of how the contract abrogates seniority? Care to share a few examples?

A base trade certainly isn’t one of them.

Agreed, this is an example of anomaly rather than the rule. It's hard for many to imagine stagnation, no bids, and shrinking ASMs even though industry history suggests it'll happen again. When that day comes (not if), it'll be good to have base trades.

The number 1 pilot can take all their vacation in a row, if desired. But only two blocks of vacation total in the primary award.

Base trade and PBS....

3rd snapshot has even more volunteers to SFO 777, both FO and Cap. Amazing how many guys will commute from ORD to SFO just to keep flying the HKG trips because wife #2 is there. I wonder how they will rationalize this commute to wife #1?

There is also a situation with seniority trip trading. Say you try to swap to an open trip and a pilot junior to you also wants it. If a pilot senior to you wants the trip the pilot junior to you is trying to drop, it will give him the junior pilot's trip and give the pilot junior to you the open time trip to repair his schedule.

PDRed and legal, and it said that a lot of trip trading happens this way.

I had this happen once. Primo trip opened up and I wanted it, but saw a guy senior to me also wanted it. After I got it I looked and found out that the only reason I got it awarded was because my trip didn’t go into open time, but was wanted by a guy who was in the top 10% in base, so the only way he could get my trip was if I got the open trip, because I didn’t have a drop in, but a 1-for-1 trade.

It is incredible. And if they actually live at ord and don’t commute there, someone should tell them they aren’t wife #2s only husband...perhaps they already know that.

Sure whatever you like to think but the truth is the way this is going down just takes away more cash from this company that we should be negotiating for right now.