LeineLodge

I hesitate to say this out loud on the forum, but I like you guys so . . . .

I envision the spill week from NOV into DEC going uber senior in the future. Using the spill/slide where you slide days in either month independently, one could (with sufficient seniority to ensure the slides) use that one week of vacation to cover up Thanksgiving and Christmas. Same could be done for Christmas/New Year's Day, etc, etc.

Of course, if someone is senior enough to KNOW that they're going to be able to slide over holidays, then they could just bid those days off in the monthly PBS request anyways. Another strategy, would be a guy bidding 2 weeks of vacation that start in the last few days of NOV - he then slides back a few days to cover up Turkey day, and then slides the other 10ish days backward to take the end of DEC off. These strategies can be augmented/improved by sharpshooting Purchased/SUPP Vacation days as desired.

^^^Btw, public service announcement: if you want to place purchased/SUPP vacation days without company concurrence, you must do so before the end of March (subject to minor limitations in APR/DEC/JAN per PWA.) Once the vacation year begins on APR 1, any of these sharpshooting opportunities require company concurrence - ie: the week you're attempting to purchase/PB in must be available.


Now look at this flashy bulb thingy (still don't know how to post pics) and forget everything I just said before next year's vacation bidding

UGBSM

Having vacation days in a regular month increases your pickup limit quite a bit. So you can make more money by picking up more trips than you normally would. Having a vacation week split over two bid periods just increases the number of months in a year that you can do this!

And... now you can slide those split vacation days separately! It used to be that a split vacation week was immovable. Not any more. Thank you PBS committee!

LeineLodge

Agreed, those guys quietly do a lot of good for the pilot group and don't get enough thanks.

It's better to have the option to slide at least the vacation days "in-month" than not at all. This is a nice improvement if you choose to use it, or you can choose not to and it will work like it always has with a spill week.

tsquare

Sure, you can work harder and make more money, and that's great if that's what you choose to do. (Unless you are a progressive socialist ) What would be interesting would be to look at the average daily value of trips in a given category, and see how many days you would have to work in order to be as (productive) as you would in a reserve-vacation month. With an ALV at 72 hours, in order to get back to even.. (84 hours with 2 weeks vacation), how many trips would you have to work to get to that level? At least one I would think would be required to just break even. Again, if you wanna work hard and make more money, that is fine, and available, but with 31 days and 2 weeks vacation 84 hours comes with only 9 days on the hook. Also factoring in 117 I am not so sure you can even be used all of them... Just a thought.

Imapilot2

With your rep at XJ before you flowed are you sure you want to start that conversation?

redship

Thanks for the info about pay in a vacation month.

Bucking Bar

The answer to your riddle is; when Delta offers a Delta job, those jobs instantly become the preferred job for applicants.

If you can not staff (Expressjet, or Pinnacle) then staff "Delta" at those current book rates.

The savings through relieving the Company of what amounts to 14 different fleet types (a CRJ pilot, or mechanic can not walk across the ramp at LGA and fly another certificate's airplane under our current structure) and 8 redundant management structures funds the narrow minded ambitions of folks like UGBSM.

Delta is currently evaluating a push for a MPL, which they will call a "restricted ATP" and ab-initio training to fill future seats. One idea even has Delta paying for training. Of course Delta (in the United States) can't really keep these pilots from going to other airlines after Delta has invested it's money. Further, Delta's model already has most of mainline at 12 year pay.

Economically Delta can invest their cash in ANA style puppy mills (ie Pan Am Flight Academy or Comair Academy with subsidies), or provide a better career. As a union member I would like to see us work to improve the career while maintaining or improving standards for training and competency.

Bucking Bar

Look at our Company's 8K report.

Delta's SJ arrangements accounted for 21% of the company's 2011 revenues ($6.39b) but 47% ($929m) of Delta's 2011 operating profit.

Arguably based on what Delta reports to regulators, DCI is a much better performer than either Delta, or NWA (was).

IMHO this explains why more RJ's are the Company's second largest CapEx for refleeting behind the 737-900 acquisition.

NERD

Liars figure and figures lie

DALMD88FO

T,

You need to read PBS notepad 14-01 I guess you can now move days of vacation that spills. Here is a paragraph from it, however it goes into detail about how to do it also:

Slide VacationBeginning with the March 2014 bid period, an enhancement has been added to the functionality for the Slide Vacation bid feature. As a reminder, this bid feature is available for both Regular and Reserve bidding. Prior to this month, a bidder was only able to slide vacation days so long as the entire vacation period was contained within the current bid month. With this enhancement, bidders will have the option to be able to slide the vacation days of a vacation period that are contained within the current bid month. The in-month portion of the vacation that crosses into or out of a bid month is treated as its own block of vacations days and can be slid through the PBS processing. Please note, the restriction of moving vacations days into or out of the current bid month still exists.