While PBS sucks, if you're bidding 20% and not getting what you want it's probably user error.

Flame away.

Ok, so how does this work? Lets say you pick up a trip with a 1300 departure, you fly a turn, then fly to an overnight with rest scheduled to begin at 2100. Where would the callout windo be and how long is it? You have to plan your commute to include it I assume?

IAD,

Do you have access to www.coair.com? or can you access it thru the "flying together" website? If you can I would HIGHLY suggest you navigate to the Continental Flt Ops section and download the current CAL contract. Section 25 is where you should begin, our reserve rules are difficult to explain here. Rest assured they are the worst in the industry and to make matters worse scheduling makes up their own rules (passed down from supreme high commander abbott). I am glad you guys are here (more NO votes on a TA), but please come with your eyes open.

I realize this didn't really answer any of your questions, but our reserve rules would require pages of "what if's"

liquid

I bid the same every month, and every month is different. Sept is great, Oct sucks. What am I doing wrong?

It sounds like there are no rules. Only getting bent over by crew scheduling at will. I vote NO, and I haven't even seen the TA yet.

Well we do have some rules... got a copy of the basic 121/91 FARS? yup that should cover most of them... yea it's THAT bad.

As a side note this is the reason the "company" keeps coming back to the table with the CAL scheduling section, max flexability. They have ZERO interest in a UAL style contract and will fight like hell to stop it.

liquid

Yep. They're calling it, so-appropriately, "meat on the hook." When a CAL line pilot starts a trip, he's basically a reserve pilot who happens to be flying a trip. During poor-planning-ops they can cancel a trip 24 hours prior, modify the trip limitlessly, return you later than the pairing end time, and reduce rest (and much more), all by fiat and at minimal cost to the company. And let's not even get into reserve rules of rolling days off, downline 24-hour breaks, and losing pay for calling in sick.

Apparently, the UAL contract does not allow the same freedoms. The contract is such that the schedulers have to do more asking and less telling, and what changes are made to a trip are more expensive to the company.

A good example is accepting reduced rest to affect an on-time push. At CAL, it's just assigned and the only recourse is to call in fatigued with loss of pay. At UAL, the CA must approve it, and if they do approve it they get 5 hours of override/add pay, even for just a few minutes of less rest. Oh, and I believe their contractual min rest is 10 hours, not near FAR as at CAL.

Of course, the CAL folks are pretty shocked to be faced with such a difference in core philosophies of the two contracts. They can't imagine not having meat-on-the-hook, and the UAL pilot reps can't imagine their pilot group accepting such a concept (even in BK they kept dignity and respect provisions like first class DH).

It's a big reason they can't get out of the scheduling section of negotations.

iadfo,

How it works is this:

If you are short-call reserve (B reserve), you can aggressive pickup 1200-1300 local base time. Say you see that four-day trip in open time with a 1200 report time/1300 departure and pick it up. Since you are a B reserve, you will then have to check your schedule again at 1500 LBT to see if scheduling added a call block prior to your show time. It is up to scheduling to look at the trip you picked up and see what call block will work for you to be on call and still legally complete that day. I have had it happen where my first day was long enough that they did not give me a call block before report. However, that is rare so you will most likely get a call block prior to the trip you picked up.

In the example you gave with a 1200 show/1300 departure and scheduled rest starting at 2100, scheduling might give you a call block on your master schedule that shows 0800-1159 LBT. That would mean on call from 8AM until your trip report time. Your duty day would begin at 0800. And, yes, you need to make sure you plan your commute to be in position at the beginning of your reserve call block.

In that example, what would your call-out (time from call to push-back) be from 0800-1159? Thanks.

We can be reassigned, but they have to at least attempt to restore the original trip downline. In the event they can't, we're required to be back in base no more than 16 hours after original arrival (can be extended to 20 for mechanical issue), and we get trip guarantee or actual whichever is greater.

Called operational integrity, and if approved by both crewmembers independently allows reducing rest to FAR's. Otherwise we have 9 hours behind the door at the hotel as a minimum (so 1/2 hour to the hotel, + 9 hours, + 15 back to the airport, + 30 minute preflight = approx 10.5 hour min layover under normal ops). F/A's have 9+45 block to block if we accept Ops Integ, so that generally becomes the min at the smaller stations for a layover time. Other restrictions on operational integrity include only one leg back to a hub followed by rest. No add-on flying after the reduced rest, so we'd either have to go home or to a layover with contractual rest before continuing...

I believe that the UAL pilot group as a whole has never been more angry and disillusioned with UAL (UCAL, now) and their tactics. We collectively accepted (right or wrong, mostly wrong) the strategic bankruptcy, but the paradigm has shifted and I'll be damned if we intend to give even an inch. With that, this whole shebang could take a while as I refuse to give anything back, and fully expect to regain a lot including scope to ensure that the collective "we" will have jobs if UCAL survives. Doesn't matter what the job pays if it doesn't exist because we allowed it to be outsourced...

Scott