e6bpilot

After 0900 DOT awards for tomorrow:
FOs: zero (3 trips still not awarded may go premium or get split and exported)
CA: 29 premium open time awards

That’s just daily open time.

You can see the disparity here. Scheduling isn’t trying to kill the premium open time market, as it is alive and well on the captain side. They are stockpiling bodies on the FO side for eventual upgrade.
Still around 15 unused FO AM reserves in Dallas. I didn’t bother to look at the other bases.

SlipKid

Premium on the Capt side in MCO has been dead this entire year. All summer long, senior folks were bidding straight on trash. To top it off, there are far fewer trips in ELITT than we've historically had, making it much harder to move stuff around. ELITT is like groundhog day. Same few trips in there all month long, and it's been going on for months now.

Ironically, folks still don't pick up stuff in giveaway or trade too often. There are 5 trips and a reserve block in MCO Oct. Capt TTGA as I type this, and no takers. The only trips that get picked up these days are weekday turns, and even they sit on the board for much longer than they used to.

I couldn't even trade a TWT for a weekend trip this month.

I need to be a lot more careful about bidding and ELITTing, since I've been pretty much stuck with what I've got these days, in spite of every effort (TTGA, ELITT etc.) to change it around.

It's a foreshadowing of what life will be like under PBS (not to mention vacation bidding, if we ever end up enacting the concessionary system that the minority voted for).

I've never seen it like this, and I don't see it getting better unless there is something like a new airframe on the near horizon.

Get used to 87 tfp, 13-14 day months folks, heck, I already have.

SlipKid

Damn, that is definitely not the case in MCO, and hasn't been for most of this year. We had a -14 DTC on one of the days over labor day weekend, and only a few trips went premium, all senior to me. The rest went straight or reserve. Same thing the first week of August.

emoss1974

Good to know.


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at6d

Hell we have 74000 number guys bidding open time at straight pay in PHX. I’ve bid nearly 80 premium trips so far this year with zero results. Just saying.

SlipKid

I have no clue how many I've bid on, but it's a lot. I have gotten exactly 2 premium trips in 2018.

Caveman

Manning as an item is a big yaaaawwwwn to this group, and subsequently the groups representation as well.

Best to focus on flag ties, mini bases, paid parking, upgrade math, the vacation vote and the really important stuff.

For those pining for the miracle 787 around the corner rumor as the answer...The training center expansion is for ab-inito, not another airframe or acquisition.

I'm hopeful that once some tough qol & schedule flexibility issues are faced as the new reality for the foreseeable future, the sentiment regarding addressing manning and how it greatly affects the job here will change.

Until then, 1/2 a muffin shared by a dozen will have to do.

Peacock

Why would they need a ton of sims for ab initio? It seems like a contracted flight school would make a lot more sense.

e6bpilot

Agree, the sims would not be for ab initio. That would not be something handled in house.

I do agree that manning is a big issue. It has crushed my pain per dollar earned ratio these past couple of months. In the summer I managed to eek out a pretty good schedule using open time, but it was way harder than last year and almost entirely soul crushing AM trips.

I am flying less these days than I used to, mainly due to getting the raise to fifth year pay, but I still have a kid in college and a family to maintain, and to be quite honest I don’t like going to work all that much.

This too shall pass, however. Looks like it is going to get pushed through to the captain seat fairly soon and I bet by Summer we will be approaching a fairly normal manning level in the right seat.

The open time market has always been seasonal and base specific. PHX and MCO have always been a little more on the senior/desperate side when it comes to open time, especially for captains. A lot of straight bidding at below min rig levels goes on, even during peak season.

SimMonkey

Pretty much nonexistent this year. It was an eye opener and making me rethink how I bid my schedule.