How about how they do it now PP.
Dude just fly the line with your way of thinking we'll go backwards on this next contract.

 

The long term best interest of this pilot group is my concern, not what makes life easy on the company. Having said that, this is a negotiation and knowing what your opponent considers important is essential. To answer your question, other companies operate without FSB by lacking some of the line holder reassignment protections that we currently have, or they simply take longer to recover. Now, please answer mine. Without FSB, what solution would you propose that both the company and pilot group would accept to cover last minute issues without giving away our current line holder protections?

 

Field standby has never worked anywhere I have worked except to abuse crew. DL doesn’t have fsb and it seems to be working good enough.

Even the regionals are getting rid of it

 

I'll just say this: I certainly did my share of SC and FSB last summer. I was never used while on FSB, but I was used several times off SC. Anecdotal, sure, but.....

 

Been a long time, but I preferred FSB to SC as a commuter. Less time on the clock away from home. I’m all for giving it away and putting limits on number of short calls if the company wants to give that to us for free, though, without reducing lineholder protections. The only way I could see that happening is to raise the g-line and in some cases where the LPA is near the max, reduce flying or growth. That just doesn’t seem realistic to me, but who knows.

 

It is my understanding that at Delta it is much easier to reassign line holders to cover last minute disruptions, where doing that is harder at United due to our line holder protections. A friend at Southwest says that they don’t have FSB, but they’re all basically on reserve once they show up since the company can reassign at will, and often do. Since Jersey won’t answer my question, I’ll ask you. What solution do you think would be acceptable to both the company and the pilot group to cover what FSB currently does? I agree with others. The vast majority of the pilots are line holders and that is where we spend most of our career. Giving up line holder work rules to enhance reserve won’t get the pilot votes. Keeping or even improving our current rules while simultaneously rewriting reserve rules probably won’t get the company vote. Since it takes two sides coming to an agreement to get a contract, what is the solution? I see a possible solution that both sides would agree to would be keeping FSB, but put rules in place defining when it can be used, how frequently, possibly bid deliberately, and what the add pay would be. The company would find it acceptable because they still have the option, and those on reserve would see it as an improvement since there would be rules that limit involuntary assignments and provide additional pay when it is.

 

Nicely stated. It's not so much the act of, but the issue of transparency, definitive limits, and compensation for efforts above basic reserve.

 

I’d be curious to see the number of trips given off FSB that could have been covered just fine by one of many on SC.

Having someone on FSB just generates unnecessary urge by crew desk to use them while they’re on the hook. Usual tactic is to DH them before they expire to cover a trip in another domicile the next day so they “save the bullet” there. Just in case. Bet if SC paid 5 hours to show in <1 hour they’d see comparable response.

 

I can see the need for FSB for some widebody international where the whole crew pumpkins if it takes a while to replace someone but that’s about it

 

I have no problem with FSB as long as it comes with a major pay incentive and there’s transparency in who gets it assigned and why. If the company feels like it’s critical to maintaining ops then they can pay a premium to keep it.