9 year FA on What We Need

[jimntx]

Gar, I'm not trying to be tacky, but a lot of your objections involve points that apply to the way you do things now. Are you suggesting that any changes to the f/a access to the system not require any changes to the way you and your colleagues work?

As a former consultant I listened to a lot of people in different jobs in different industries say, "Oh, we can't do it that way." When I asked why not, 99% of the time the reply was "Well, we've NEVER done it that way before."

If you do what you've always done, you will get what you have always gotten. All I'm saying is that reserve access to open time is working well at one other airline (that I know of for sure), Frontier. I don't understand why it would not work here.

Another suggestion, save all the programming code for the current way. Make sure that everyone knows that if they abuse the new system--i.e., "ruining" their block of days by plotting nothing but turns--we will return post-haste to the old system. (By the way, I find it hard to believe that reserves would be plotting only turns if left to their own devices. At my base, the major complaint about reserve lately is that all the multi-day trips go to the MU parkers leaving only the turns for the reserves. )

 

[Garfield1966]

Hey, like I said. For the most part I have no problem with your idea. If it woks for you great. How ever there are times wen if we are short on manning, we have to have control over who plots what so we can best utilize our manning. As long as I have people to cover the trips I have open, he rest is gravy.

 

[jimntx]

Which brings up another point. I don't know about other bases, but at SLT we have had reserves falling all over each other for the past few months. What surprised me the most is that we have fewer actual reserves this month than we have had for several months.

The reserves have not been flying their guarantees (I only flew 65 hours in November on reserve. I heard, but can not prove, that there were a couple of reserves at SLT that ended up with less than 30 hours because on the days they were good, there wasn't anything to assign them.)

In November over 25% of the active base was on reserve.

We have 68 reserves for December, but we also have 26 people on availability. If you subtract the NOBIDs (31) from the active base roster and the number of f/as on relief lines (18), we have 27% of the active base either on reserve or on availability.

Our base roster continues to grow--base total is now 423--but the number of bid positions continues to drop. We lost another 8 positions from November to December. If we have similar situations in other bases, how can we be short on manning?

Well, other than building reserves lines where we only had 7 Ready Reserves on Thanksgiving Day (which thankfully were not used), but 32 Ready Reserves the following Tuesday.

 

[Garfield1966]

I think that is mainly due to the holiday flu. No one was calling in sick in the first part of Nov or Dec. I have taken about 15 sk calls today for 2 bases in only 6 hours. We will need the high number of reserves to cover all the open time between now and Dec 31. IOR has a page of open time for today that will not be covered even though the reserve hours are rock bottom.

 

[kuro_kuma]

I only bid availability, aka glorified reserve.

Not something I *like* but as a commuter who doesn't have a choice unless I decide to abandon my disabled parents, it's what works best for me. Believe me, I didn't suddenly decide to go from 8 minutes to the parking lot to 6 hours from a different state to be in a better place. The commuter policy also doesn't apply (which is fine, since it's not as forgiving as it's made out to be) to me, and knock on wood, have never missed a trip in 5 years because of avbl and since I leave waay earlier than I usually have to. However things can happen even if commuting responsibly, similar to a sig alert on the 405 freeway (and I've made it before non-commuters btw). I wasn't going to throw in this blurb, but I know there's this thing with commuters to certain individuals and how some of us feel like it's a sense of entitlement, which it always isn't. The assumption has been tiring.

I know avbl is a big thorn to some, it's the only way I can pick trips that work for me and allows me the minimal time away (plus it saves me about 400.00 in zed fare charges because I commute ONCE). The changes I'd like to see go back to the way they were, and I can only assume helps cs some is the ability to work into avbl days on makeup. It doesn't have to be that flexible, but what sucks is when there's nothing in open time for the next day because there were no pvds given or they were snapped up in a matter of 30 seconds...then suddenly you're only good for a turn on makeup since that next day is now a DO, when originally you had 5 avbl days where a 2d-3d was originally possible. Maybe it's too much to ask, and confusing, but I think those on avbl who had nothing to pick up or wasn't auto plotted should beable to still pu a 2-3d trips on mu when there's all the sick trips that need to be covered. I've been able to pickup turns about 50% of the time on makeup with a short call out sitting at my crashpad, but it would be nice (and, I could be wrong), but better for the operation. I've had cs want to give me a longer trip to save some reserves but was unable to because of this.

Also, as we know, turns make up like 90 percent of whats available in open time. Although it's a PITA, I can appreciate why we can't pick them up if it's not on either end of an avbl series so that avbl day isn't standing alone (which somewhat supports my argument about turns only on makeup above). The problem I have is, not being able to pick it up more than 4 days in advance. Is there a reason why this is in place? Especially now when there's rarely anything to preplot and I'll see 10-15 turns that are unattainable. The kicker is, by the time we can pick them up, there has been so many TTs with open time, what's left are the 4 leg-5 hour turns with the 3 hr sit if even that.

Either way, I'll still bid avbl as long as it's in place and appreciate it for now. But, if these changes could be made (and possibly benefit the operation), then it would make it easier for avbl f/as who prefers it over the lines they'd beable to hold. I think some of these new rules were put into place when we had more 2-3 day trips and only a few turns. It's different now.