Unless your name falls under a certain list, there is no way your caustic attitude would allow you to grace a United cockpit.

 

Can someone explain this argument to me? I agree that when you bid reserve you are going to give up some QOL, and that's on you. But to not want to improve it if you can? Do you truly think no one should ever choose to be on reserve? Do you think everyone is there by choice? Does that mean you think new hires should be 747 captains because reserve should only go to those who don't have a choice to be on it? In your mind, who should be a reserve 747 captain?

 

747 Captain on RSV isn't a fair example… as they have a small domicile, limited schedule, and not a lot of surprises. Why anyone would bid RSV Captain on anything other than a 747 is a mystery to me unless you live local… but just my opinion… each his own.

I'm all for making RSV life better… but would prefer we spend the bargaining power on improving mostly line holder issues… but FSB and rolling RDOs for global needs some work still...

 

So the three times that I was bumped from line holder to reserve, were MY fault?

Guess I need to get my mind right.

 

I'd like to preface my comments with the fact I am very new. However, I'd like to offer an analogy of our union to society in whole. Imagine that we represent our entire society and the company represents our government. If the government wants more than they can tax a small group. If 30% of the population smokes than they can always pass a bill to tax the smokers more. And they can rinse and repeat as often as they like with as many small groups as they like. Reserve is the same premise. It makes an easy target to force us to "spend our negotiating capital" the union has a responsibility to represent all of us and if someone wants to sit reserve in Germany for their 787 in SFO than I support that and expect the collective group to support that individual just as I would expect the majority to support my individual needs and everyone else's individual needs. To some reserve fixes are the most important item, to others maybe it's vacation pay or sick leave or scheduling etc. etc. one thing for sure, if we don't support each other's efforts to improve everyone's one important item than surely none of our QOL issues will ever get resolved. Instead of insulting each other for our individuality let's start embracing and supporting it. Ben Franklin once said" if we don't hang together, than surely we'll all hang apart." Incidentally if we support each other instead of only focusing on our one important item then all our important items get fixed. If every minority item gets fixed then all of our QOL improves in every area. Thanks for allowing me to preach to the choir, I'll get off my soap box now.

 

I am on reserve and choose to commute and I would love to see the old LC/SC bid come back. I'd happily give up some of my min guarantee to never be exposed to SC or FSB, and perhaps some way to take the guarantee I've just given up to incentivize the SC/FSB so the company can't say it's not getting enough coverage or forced to spend more.

 

Agree. Despite the apparent need by many senior pilots to denigrate the need to protect and improve upon ALL pilots lot, reserve rules are an important part of our contract. A group of UNITED pilots will sit reserve on every fleet. Whether or not they chose this is irrelevant to whether we should spend negotiating capital to improve that section of our contract and their lives. That is how unions work.

 

Sometimes. Tell that to Heppner. He took reserve off the table when the company had a counter proposal to our proposal. I thought that's how negotiating went.

 

Don't you think it's more of a commuter vs non-commuter thing than a senior vs junior thing. The MEC negotiated contract provisions (PS passes and paid moves) for bumps and bids with limits. Non-commuters have always had a better time with reserves than commuters. The MEC has done things to make it better for all, fifo reports, open id reports, aggressive pickups and similar but that's only as good as the crewdesk wants it to be. There's a good chance we'll always see a system that favors the non-commuter. It's just the nature of the scheduling system but if there are more commuters than non-commuters maybe more change will be made.

 

If you don't think reserve rules need improvement, you weren't there this weekend to see double-digit short calls doled out at airports that were closed and had no scheduled flying for 36+ hours. Plus 2x normal FSB.

We aren't the selfish ones.