Morbid curiosity. Upgrade times?

SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
"Efficient" is making sure that there are never cancellations or delays. It's not "making sure that every pilot never has any free time on their work days." We've lost sight of that over the years. And SWAPA is chief among the offenders at leading the way on that garbage.
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It’s a changed world since you left. Scheduling no longer works like this

 
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
"Efficient" is making sure that there are never cancellations or delays. It's not "making sure that every pilot never has any free time on their work days." We've lost sight of that over the years. And SWAPA is chief among the offenders at leading the way on that garbage.
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Reserve here is "fair". You won't get assigned more than 16 days a month (31 day mo) unless you pick up more or other peoples reserve blocks.

YOU can have a fly or pass preference, and fly ahead of someone who has a pass. Also it goes by utilization, if a 4 day reserve guy has 5 days of utilization this month, and another 4 day reserve is available, and he has 0 days utilization this month, the trip will go to the 0 utilization guy, unless someone bids it and picks it up. That reserve can also try to give the trip away and stay on reserve as well. When we run lean numbers (aka right now) reserves get used. Its a fact, reserves also trend to go junior so there are rarely any senior guys sitting reserve unless they wanted it.

The company tried to stack the reserves deep, which resulted in low utilization but WAY overmanned the system to the point there was NO open time. And anything that did went senior, so it benefitted no-one. No-one liked it. No-one likes being JA'd but the majority would rather have trips in OT with the occasional JA add on flying then fighting over a low paying crappy trip in the OT system. Also it cost the company a BUTTLOAD of money to pay tons of people to sit around.

SO again.I ask, how is reserve utilization "Inefficient, or poorly run"? I think there is a balance, you want to have enough reserves to cover, but not so many that the system is just bogged down and costing the company millions.
 
CoffeeIcePapers said:
I got awarded my home base in December. I can't wait to sit around in my underwear waiting to get called at home, 20 minutes from the airport. I'll be the plug, but I don't care. I'm never going to preference to fly.

My dream has always been to be last out on reserve.
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You're in the perfect situation living in base. I used to do two weeks on, two off, reserve and it was so good I bought a condo in Palm Springs and considered it my second home for a couple years. We worked like 5 days out of two weeks and it was 12 on, 12 off for a reserve day. I liked being on call at night cause it was better staffed, you worked less, and you slept through it if you didn't get called. It was awesome. Sadly, they started using people all the time and it became a bad deal.
 
mikecweb said:
Yea those upgrade times are fairly useless.

MEM75CA routinely goes down to almost one year because it's that bad. 5 years later you still are 90% sitting am reserve waiting to drive 240 at 2:30am to fly to casper, wy.
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I’m doing it in a couple weeks, hopefully. Except change Casper for Copenhagen.

I can’t take anymore hotel room lockdowns. The 777 is fun, but “no amount of money…“ as they say.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
So unless the contract is written that way. On the day of, our airline doesn’t look at seniority. It looks at day availability (eg, matching 4 days available to a 4 day trip) and the guy with the lowest credit. That’s who get the trip. Why keep pounding the junior guys with trips getting them to 75 hrs while leaving some senior fart at 0? Doesn’t make financial sense. They use them out somewhat evenly.
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That's because your contract has garbage work rules.

Crockrocket94 said:
No-one liked it.
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That's because SWAPA is nothing but a bunch of hoes who haven't figured out over the decades that it's better to get soft time for no work. In fact, SWAPA led the way on this, and it caused the gutting of the other legacy contracts in the post-9/11 world. Now the legacies are filled with former regional guys who never knew any better, so the good contracts have been lost. And you cheer it on.
 
Congrats to all the new captains! The answer to the question how long is "before you know it." - and I think that is demonstrated by most of the majors. For my part, I switched legacies in 2016 and despite COVID, am inching ahead of my financial projections had I stayed at my previous carrier, but not by any ground breaking amount- the benefit$ start to takeoff only around the year 7 mark. So as they say about system bids, the same rings true for jobs: "apply where you want to work, and want to work at the place you applied."

*this month is my first month of reserve ever, but I live in base. At previous carrier, widebody reserve had the issue of sitting at home doing nothing for long stretches. Which is great(!)- until you stop being current on landings. Never will forget how many times I called scheduling Wendy to remind her "I'm timing out on landings", to then not be assigned anything until *boom* I'm on scheduled days off and they try to assign a trip (while I have guests from Germany). Too late! Send me to SEA/BNE/MIA. Then follows a call from the chief pilot "you have to fly a trip today. And tell the captain you need both legs." Oy.
 
GypsyPilot said:
Ha ha.

The exaggerated vocal fry guys are always the biggest tools. Not sure why they think it sounds cool to talk like that either. Makes them sound like morons.
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So many people take operational issues as a personal slight. I've never understood that. If you're not comfortable with how close a plane is, stop and wait. Even if you have as serious safety concern about what was going on, calling the ground controller out on frequency likely isn't going to lead to a resolution, especially if you're gonna be a penis about it.

I hope the captain at the end of the video was getting the phone number to apologize for the FO being a dingus.
 
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
That's because your contract has garbage work rules.



That's because SWAPA is nothing but a bunch of hoes who haven't figured out over the decades that it's better to get soft time for no work. In fact, SWAPA led the way on this, and it caused the gutting of the other legacy contracts in the post-9/11 world. Now the legacies are filled with former regional guys who never knew any better, so the good contracts have been lost. And you cheer it on.
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It’s not just one airline. Others utilize reserves too based on credit.
 
Screaming_Emu said:
So many people take operational issues as a personal slight. I've never understood that. If you're not comfortable with how close a plane is, stop and wait. Even if you have as serious safety concern about what was going on, calling the ground controller out on frequency likely isn't going to lead to a resolution, especially if you're gonna be a penis about it.

I hope the captain at the end of the video was getting the phone number to apologize for the FO being a dingus.
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yup. People forget quite frequently that we get paid by the minute.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
It’s not just one airline. Others utilize reserves too based on credit.
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Yes, young Padawan, but it wasn't always so! This is a method of "efficiency" that the airlines extracted during concessionary bargaining, and pilots were so focused on pay rates and profit sharing that they forgot to claw back their work rules. A reserve pilot flying every reserve day back in the 90s would have been unheard of (well, except at Southpest).
 
CoffeeIcePapers said:
I got awarded my home base in December. I can't wait to sit around in my underwear waiting to get called at home, 20 minutes from the airport. I'll be the plug, but I don't care. I'm never going to preference to fly.

My dream has always been to be last out on reserve.
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My company has people sitting reserve in my home town. When I can hold it, I average working 3 days a month.
 
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
Yes, young Padawan, but it wasn't always so! This is a method of "efficiency" that the airlines extracted during concessionary bargaining, and pilots were so focused on pay rates and profit sharing that they forgot to claw back their work rules. A reserve pilot flying every reserve day back in the 90s would have been unheard of (well, except at Southpest).
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I mean. You may as well bemoan the loss of pensions while you're at it. The golden days of aviation are gone. And if I was running an airline, I wouldn't want some prima donna sitting home for 60 days collecting a paycheck either.


I'm borderline reserve and regular line. Last I flew was a football charter team and I've been home 10+ days now with no flying, and it doesn't look like I'll get a call today. When the wife asks "why aren't they calling you?" is a signal perhaps I've been home too long :)
If I go 14+ days without flying, I miss it.
 
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