Contract 2022
01-20-2022, 10:59 AM
#471
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2008
Position: DAL FO
Posts: 2,192
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.
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.
You probably won’t like this but the answer to reliably knowing your schedule and letting the PBS award play out is: be very senior.
I purposely bid my relative seniority down by upgrading, but offset that by having recently moved to base, so yes I choose to “play the game” and be more flexible, at least for the remainder of my seat lock. Although I will admit, senior WB FO is looking very appealing when this mini tour is over.
I’ve been the plug in categories and I’ve also been #1. With hiring at 200/month practically anyone can be senior if they need absolute schedule control.
Everyone else is on a spectrum and can (should!) match their AE decisions to balance what’s going on in their life outside work.
*and again I’m not saying rotations aren’t complete **** lately. Currently on a min rest day over, not sleeping and will be flying through the WOCL tonight. We fly airplanes 24/7 but the worst legs should be mitigated with less punishing rotations.
01-20-2022, 11:36 AM
#472
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Sep 2014
Posts: 867
Yall are making this too difficult. Every category I've been on I've used all available tools to drop trips. MD88, 73N. 717 I was on RES so I used multiple tools to get most Holidays off at 99% in category. You don't have to be ultra senior to do this. All you have to do is instead of scrutinize.... IMPROVISE
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I was a junior CA on ATL MD88 for 3 years. I figured out a way to get at least half my weekends off EVERY month and pick up trips that were held by those way senior to me in category. Part of that strategy was spending a couple hours of my day on the 20th swapping around my schedule and then employing the strategies many have mentioned on this thread. I would then spend a couple hours of my time during the month to continually refine and improve my schedule. Sure, I usually didn't get the major holidays off, but I knew that was the cost of being a junior Captain.
It's easy to sit back and b**** about your crappy schedule. It's hard to BUILD a good one after your schedule is awarded via PBS.
01-20-2022, 11:46 AM
#473
Banned
Joined APC: Sep 2015
Position: 3+ hour sit in the ATL
Posts: 1,982
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.
It was convenient you had someone to swap with you, what if not?
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.
Most of know this and are not talking about that, what we are talking about is month-to-month the ability to drop is gone for most. That is a direct function of under staffing and red lining the optimizer. It hasn't always been like this. I had more flexibility as a 2 year guy on the -88 then I do now. That is going backwards, we want forward movement.
Bottom line - It takes effort but almost anything is achievable if you abandon the notion that PBS awards are the final answer.
I don't think we are saying PBS awards are the end. I don't think you need a PhD in how PCS and PBS work to make your life somewhat controllable is required either. The kompany is playing fast and loose with our lives and we are left with some folks on here telling us "well if you didn't commute, sniped BES better, just ignore you family etc etc then you'd see how great our scheduling tools work". I think that is BS and something we need to fix in this next contract.
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.
It was convenient you had someone to swap with you, what if not?
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.
Most of know this and are not talking about that, what we are talking about is month-to-month the ability to drop is gone for most. That is a direct function of under staffing and red lining the optimizer. It hasn't always been like this. I had more flexibility as a 2 year guy on the -88 then I do now. That is going backwards, we want forward movement.
Bottom line - It takes effort but almost anything is achievable if you abandon the notion that PBS awards are the final answer.
I don't think we are saying PBS awards are the end. I don't think you need a PhD in how PCS and PBS work to make your life somewhat controllable is required either. The kompany is playing fast and loose with our lives and we are left with some folks on here telling us "well if you didn't commute, sniped BES better, just ignore you family etc etc then you'd see how great our scheduling tools work". I think that is BS and something we need to fix in this next contract.
01-20-2022, 11:57 AM
#474
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2007
Posts: 4,677
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..
I'm not trying to call anyone out here, but life is hard when you're lazy. There are a ton of tools and techniques to improve your QOL...... In EVERY category. You need to get really smart on the contract, learn the tricks and tips (like those offered earlier in the thread) and be AGGRESSIVE.
01-20-2022, 11:59 AM
#475
Banned
Joined APC: Sep 2015
Position: 3+ hour sit in the ATL
Posts: 1,982
I'm not trying to call anyone out here, but life is hard when you're lazy. There are a ton of tools and techniques to improve your QOL...... In EVERY category. You need to get really smart on the contract, learn the tricks and tips (like those offered earlier in the thread) and be AGGRESSIVE.
I was a junior CA on ATL MD88 for 3 years. I figured out a way to get at least half my weekends off EVERY month and pick up trips that were held by those way senior to me in category. Part of that strategy was spending a couple hours of my day on the 20th swapping around my schedule and then employing the strategies many have mentioned on this thread. I would then spend a couple hours of my time during the month to continually refine and improve my schedule. Sure, I usually didn't get the major holidays off, but I knew that was the cost of being a junior Captain.
It's easy to sit back and b**** about your crappy schedule. It's hard to BUILD a good one after your schedule is awarded via PBS.
I was a junior CA on ATL MD88 for 3 years. I figured out a way to get at least half my weekends off EVERY month and pick up trips that were held by those way senior to me in category. Part of that strategy was spending a couple hours of my day on the 20th swapping around my schedule and then employing the strategies many have mentioned on this thread. I would then spend a couple hours of my time during the month to continually refine and improve my schedule. Sure, I usually didn't get the major holidays off, but I knew that was the cost of being a junior Captain.
It's easy to sit back and b**** about your crappy schedule. It's hard to BUILD a good one after your schedule is awarded via PBS.
I think you totally miss what we are talking about.
This thread is about contract 2022.
The fact you spend most of your post doing precisely what you said in the first sentence you were not going to do says a lot.
I don't have hours every day to sit around and hawk iCrew looking at open time and the swap board. That's great you've made it a cottage industry in your life. Most of us don't.
Guess what, I can get weekedns off anytime I want via PBS, senior enough to do that all day long. Same for most holiday's (all or nothing type games). I've tried the swap.drop etc thing but whe you don't have enough folks that doesn't work. Besides most would rather hang for the GS. It's very convienient you are yet another one of us that seems to have trips others are willing to pick up on the swap board. Or you are staffed in your BES you can actually drop. Or maybe you bid reserve and fill it up, yes,we are all aware of strategies.
Our point here is that it should not take massive machinations, and a lot of luck, to be able to simply drop a trip when you need to without doing cheetah flips to get it done.
Our staffing is crap, the kompany runs rough shod over our PWA at will, and you come here to tell us we're ****ing lazy. Nice work hoss. Sure you enjoy the kindergarten level of verifying sick time too?
No, I want improvements for all of us across the board. That starts with staffing us properly. Keeping us flying OUR passengers, it then moves to making it a $$$$ as possible to RR us. and on and on as so many have pointed out here and in other threads. Our contract needs fixing. simple as that.
01-20-2022, 11:59 AM
#476
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2018
Posts: 3,258
I agree with your post (the majority of which I edited out).... but I am a little amused that you spent about 4 hours a month to massage you schedule(less than 10 minutes per day avg, as if that is a huge investment of time) to "BUILD" a fairly decent schedule as a junior capt. I would call that an excellent return on investment on time spent.
Last edited by Buck Rogers; 01-20-2022 at 12:29 PM.
01-20-2022, 12:04 PM
#477
Banned
Joined APC: Sep 2015
Position: 3+ hour sit in the ATL
Posts: 1,982
Do yourself a favor and stop caring so much about Delta. If the system is so jacked up that you can't shuffle a few trips for a medical procedure on your day off, swap for the highest time trip you can find and drop it with sick leave. It is a negotiated benefit and the cost providing that benefit INCREASES when we are understaffed. The 100 hr verification is a minor inconvenience compared to trying to rebuild your entire schedule. Again, sick leave is a contractual provision. Paying out more sick leave is a cost the company has to bear when we are "running a little hot". You don't have to fix the company's staffing problem, call in sick.
In that same bizarre instance of the Delta scheduling multiverse, NYC330Bs were rolling thunder in Dec, Jan and soon to be FEB. In the 2019 multiverse, those were "vacation" months if you bid RES.
One of the best things I've ever heard at Delta was a crew scheduler who said, "You pilots really know how to work the contract", which sounded alot like "We didn't think you'd do that"
In that same bizarre instance of the Delta scheduling multiverse, NYC330Bs were rolling thunder in Dec, Jan and soon to be FEB. In the 2019 multiverse, those were "vacation" months if you bid RES.
One of the best things I've ever heard at Delta was a crew scheduler who said, "You pilots really know how to work the contract", which sounded alot like "We didn't think you'd do that"
Not going to divulge anymore info than that.
Historically Feb has been a "lean" month so that is when we sched it 6 months ago. Turns out my ALV for Feb is about 80 and we have no blue days now (just checked). It would be nice to drop a few trips, I don't need the money, I do need the time. I'd rather not but that is the way it goes.
I for totally disagree with you on the sick verification. It is a PITA. Maybe for you it was great, but those I know that have had to do it (you know from broken legs being out for x tme etc) said it was a PITA. SO I got diarrhea and can't fly, I sick out, now I need a docs note. Hmmm, so now how the **** you go about doing that after the fact? Its a PITA. It needs to go as well in this next contract. Aren't we the only major that does this?
01-20-2022, 12:05 PM
#478
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2018
Posts: 3,258
How did his 4 hours a month turn into "hours every day"? Even the most senior guys spend several hours a month massaging their schedule. It will always be that way no matter how much they fix staffing or improve the rotations.
01-20-2022, 12:07 PM
#479
Banned
Joined APC: Sep 2015
Position: 3+ hour sit in the ATL
Posts: 1,982
I agree with your post (the majority of which I edited out).... but I am a little amused that you spent about 4 hours a month to massage you schedule(less than 10 minutes per day avg, as if that is a huge investment of time) to "BUILD" a fairly decent schedule as a junior capt. I would call that an excellent return on investment.
01-20-2022, 12:07 PM
#480
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2007
Posts: 5,660
I'm not trying to call anyone out here, but life is hard when you're lazy. There are a ton of tools and techniques to improve your QOL...... In EVERY category. You need to get really smart on the contract, learn the tricks and tips (like those offered earlier in the thread) and be AGGRESSIVE.
I was a junior CA on ATL MD88 for 3 years. I figured out a way to get at least half my weekends off EVERY month and pick up trips that were held by those way senior to me in category. Part of that strategy was spending a couple hours of my day on the 20th swapping around my schedule and then employing the strategies many have mentioned on this thread. I would then spend a couple hours of my time during the month to continually refine and improve my schedule. Sure, I usually didn't get the major holidays off, but I knew that was the cost of being a junior Captain.
It's easy to sit back and b**** about your crappy schedule. It's hard to BUILD a good one after your schedule is awarded via PBS.
I was a junior CA on ATL MD88 for 3 years. I figured out a way to get at least half my weekends off EVERY month and pick up trips that were held by those way senior to me in category. Part of that strategy was spending a couple hours of my day on the 20th swapping around my schedule and then employing the strategies many have mentioned on this thread. I would then spend a couple hours of my time during the month to continually refine and improve my schedule. Sure, I usually didn't get the major holidays off, but I knew that was the cost of being a junior Captain.
It's easy to sit back and b**** about your crappy schedule. It's hard to BUILD a good one after your schedule is awarded via PBS.
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