Drum

Thanks OOfff, dang I'm agreeing with you again

You can't snipe QOL BES, or as I say it play russian roulette with that. It just does not work

We simply need to be staffed properly and we need to have the rotations not optimized out to the nth degree. Simple as that. Until this happens our schedules in the NB world (that is the majority of us IRL excluding Trip7's magical mystery machine)

In Feb for my BES there is one, yes one blue day. That is the 22nd. I have a medical procedure that I need done it is scheduled for that month. I tried to bid a blank line in PBS, got denied. OK, fine at least that honors seniority. Now, I have a month full of trips I can't drop and most likely won't be able to swap since there are not enough of us to fly them. I'll end up burning sick time for this. Which I didn't want to do as now I get pushed into the 100 hr verification bucket and all that crap. I'm working with my CPOs on that now. Collecting doctors letters etc. It's a PITA. I've used my IVDs for the season up as well, we've had such terrible staffing over the year, I needed to drop those as well.

Now if we are staffed this would be a non-event. I'd be able to drop trips and be done with it. Now its a cluster to make this work out. Most likely I'll burn up 80 hours of sick time.

This is not flexibility Trip. This is a direct result of intentionally under staffing the airline and putting ALL the burden on us. That's BS and dangerous to boot.

Glad you have the unicorn tail right now. Most of us a holding onto something else, and it stinks.

LeineLodge

Same seniority as you. I’m currently 85% in category. Thanksgiving, Xmas and New Years (didn’t even want it) off.

Thanksgiving I swapped reserve days using bad day/worse day.

Xmas somehow got an APD but would have gotten it off by rolling thunder if necessary.

New Years - rolling thunder.

Just this morning I fixed February with another bad day/worse day swap to clean up some inconvenient unstacking that would have conflicted with an annual family ski trip. No blue days were part of this solution.

Next year I’m already moving pieces around the board. Week after thanksgiving for VAC and will be placing some supp days back to Thursday to assure I’m off. Will slide the remainder of that vacation as late in December as possible, etc etc.

Bottom line - It takes effort but almost anything is achievable if you abandon the notion that PBS awards are the final answer.

Trip7

Ok. As a RES ATL717A I simply YSed until I was full to get XMAS and Thanksgiving off most years. Didn't work in 2020 because of COVID reduced skeds there wasn't much to pick up.

This times 1000.


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LeineLodge

None of that goes to say that rotation quality and adequate staffing levels aren’t in the toilet.

Just pointing out a few techniques and that there is almost always a way to adjust a schedule beyond just banging your head on the “capped reserve days” screen.

Whoopsmybad

This. These things need corrected so that the only people that can get them aren’t the super senior. I’m not adverse to a full schedule, or long trips, and the drop trip tips are golden, thanks! But the quality of the trip construction is my “complaint”.

ELSE START NEXT

Trip7

To echo Leine I'm also not stating Rotations aren't in the toilet. I live in ATL and ran away from the ATL base and the 717 because of short flights and long duty days. System-wide looks like the Airbus took the blunt of the short flights from the 88 and 717. But at least you have a comfortable cockpit and the NEO is on the way

TED74

I’m curious…are you cool with what you describe lasting in perpetuity for the rest of your time here? Sounds distasteful to me, even if your eventual schedule looks how you want it to look. I know all of our situations are unique, but for a whole host of reasons my family really benefits by knowing my schedule for the following month by mid month the month prior. I know I’m not alone in that respect but also know many pilots have far more flexibility than me.

Bottom line - when a large percentage of pilots say things suck, I’m inclined to believe them. It’s really just empathy and trust that your union brethren have legitimate concerns that may or may not apply to your personal situation.

Whoopsmybad

Rolling thunder can work recently. But if your BES has no GS, you are SOL.

GogglesPisano

The vibe of some on this thread follows logic similar to:

"If you're fatigued, just call in fatigued," as a solution to fatiguing trips rather than building less fatiguing trips.
"If the cockpit is dirty just submit code FW739IOD72%^&765GJD on the ACARS," rather than actually cleaning the cockpits every night.
"If they haven't hooked up power and air call Ops," rather than implementing/reinforcing change at the ACS level.

DWC CAP10 USAF

This!

Believe it or not, NYC 73B only gave out 6-9 GS, for the entire month of Dec until the week of Christmas.

Rolling Thunder was not possible….

in NYC….

on a narrow body….

In December….

What a strange time!