Any "Latest & Greatest" about Delta?
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2015
Posts: 1,760
Agreed. I just spent 17 days ensuring the integrity of our international flying schedule. Four of those days required travel away from home, but I worked all 17. If the market didn’t value on-time performance and high completion factors, reserves wouldn’t be necessary. We are working on reserve, just not that hard.
Does anybody have a method to determine if a bid month will have a lot of black vs. blue days? I have a primitive method of looking at the chart in the bid package that looks at the fleet, base, and # of trips between 1-14 days. I take the total number of trips and multiply by the average trip length for a general estimate of the total work, and when I compare one month to the other I get ZERO useful information . I seriously can't figure out why two months with fairly similar flying quantity, ALV, and staffing seem to have such disparate blue/black days. I know there's a bit more vacation to account for outside of summer months but I'm totally perplexed how during the summer even bottom feeders on RES could arrange their schedules however they chose within contractual limits but now that we're in the "slow" season, 28/30 days are black and there are days with numbers like 24 required, 9 available. Appreciate if anybody could shed some light on this subject.
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2012
Posts: 612
I just look at the RLL value and compare it to the number of pilots in category. The RLL roughly estimates the number of lines in my experience. If the RLL is 118 and the number of pilots is 130 then you know it’s going to be a rough month.
For Nov my category the RLL was 120ish and pilots avail was 142. Not great but not awful. Result was mostly blue except for couple of weekends and the holiday period.
For Nov my category the RLL was 120ish and pilots avail was 142. Not great but not awful. Result was mostly blue except for couple of weekends and the holiday period.
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2008
Posts: 19,599
Does anybody have a method to determine if a bid month will have a lot of black vs. blue days? I have a primitive method of looking at the chart in the bid package that looks at the fleet, base, and # of trips between 1-14 days. I take the total number of trips and multiply by the average trip length for a general estimate of the total work, and when I compare one month to the other I get ZERO useful information . I seriously can't figure out why two months with fairly similar flying quantity, ALV, and staffing seem to have such disparate blue/black days. I know there's a bit more vacation to account for outside of summer months but I'm totally perplexed how during the summer even bottom feeders on RES could arrange their schedules however they chose within contractual limits but now that we're in the "slow" season, 28/30 days are black and there are days with numbers like 24 required, 9 available. Appreciate if anybody could shed some light on this subject.
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2011
Posts: 1,086
I look to see if Extra X day is offered. If it is, that usually means fat on reserves
Thanks for the RLL tip. I looked at a few months and that method is definitely easier and more reliable than my failed method but not foolproof. I had a very easy March with RLL of 246 and our Nov RLL is 250 where I'll likely be flown to guarantee. On the flip side June was also pretty easy and RLL was 212 which backs this technique. Finally, enough senior people are still bidding RES that anybody in the category can have a line if they wish, this has been true for 3 months straight.
Been awhile since I've been on reserve...short call conversions aside, bunch of folks in a 5 day bucket with a handful of us in a 4 day bucket. Four day trip comes up who gets it first? Junior 5 day bucket or 4 day folks? Again, everything being equal with no flying yet it will be the 1st of the month. Thanks.
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2016
Position: Looking left
Posts: 3,378
Been awhile since I've been on reserve...short call conversions aside, bunch of folks in a 5 day bucket with a handful of us in a 4 day bucket. Four day trip comes up who gets it first? Junior 5 day bucket or 4 day folks? Again, everything being equal with no flying yet it will be the 1st of the month. Thanks.
I believe your hypothetical 4 day trip would go to most junior guy in the 4 day bucket.
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2012
Posts: 612
Been awhile since I've been on reserve...short call conversions aside, bunch of folks in a 5 day bucket with a handful of us in a 4 day bucket. Four day trip comes up who gets it first? Junior 5 day bucket or 4 day folks? Again, everything being equal with no flying yet it will be the 1st of the month. Thanks.
Ive found it a very opaque process so results may vary.
Last edited by Rooster435; 10-28-2018 at 09:21 AM.
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