What do you guys think about rotating reserve with an immunity seniority of 15 years? AA has it and it works well.
Be aware, however, that there is no immunity cap at AA. How long you serve reserve is based on the overall seniority at your base. At SLT, most months the most senior reserve has 11-12 years, and a couple of months ago it dropped to 8 years because there were so many junior people on that month; backup reserve (lineholder, but can be moved to reserve if operations require it) goes to maybe 14 years. At DFW, reserve regularly goes to 17-18 years and some months may go over 20 years.
But, it is for a
maximum of 3 times per year after your first 3 years on the payroll. (The first 3 years, you are one-on, one-off reserve). In fact, you have the same reserve months each year unless you are among the most senior f/as who may or may not be on reserve in a given month. For instance, I am on reserve next month. I will be on reserve again in March, then July, then November. I can bid on to or off of reserve (at my seniority on to has better chance of happening than off of
). If I bid on to reserve, then someone junior to me is bumped off reserve and becomes a lineholder that month. That's why they tell us to bid regular lines as well as reserve lines on our reserve months.
The Catch-22 is that this not only changes my reserve rotation, it also changes the reserve rotation of the person who was bumped off reserve. As this person is one of the most junior in the base, they will be on the following month's reserve list; so, instead of November-March-July, they will now be December-April-August. There are protections built into the system; so that the most junior people not only will serve a maximum 3 months per year, but they can not be made to serve two consecutive months unless
they bid on to reserve in that second month.
If I am on reserve, there is NO passing. I fly what crew scheduling tells me to fly. Due to Operational Necessity, I can be flown up until noon on the first day of a block of days off. However, scheduling does not like to do this unless they have no other choice. If they fly me until noon of a day off, they have to "roll" my days off; so, if I was supposed to have Tues-Wed-Thurs off and I fly up until noon on Tuesday, then my days off don't end until noon on Friday.
Reserve assignments are done on the basis of legality first--if I have only one day available to the company, or I have already flown/been on call 4 days straight, they do not assign me a 3-day trip. Then, the person with the least amount of time gets the longest trip. There's no problem with 7-day legalities unless there is an off-schedule problem with the weather, etc. because the reserve lines are designed with no more than 6 days on at a time. The scheduler might have more than one trip you are eligible for and he/she
might give you a choice from among those trips, but they are not required to do this.
As far as the problems that rotating reserve might cause for the commuters...tough noogies. Commuting from another city is a privilege, not a right. If you worked in an office and chose to live in another town 90 miles away, your company would still expect you to get your fanny to work on time each day. And, if that means you have to spend 2 hours commuting instead of 30 minutes, that is not the company's problem. Your longer commute is the result of your choice to live 90 miles from your workplace.
And, the argument that your base has been changed against your will doesn't fly either. In the 16 years I worked at Texaco, they assigned me to 4 or 5 different offices in different parts of Houston. I chose to stay in the same house so I had to adjust my commute. And, I had friends who had to pick up and move to another city because the company closed the office they were working in. It happens. If you like the job well enough to stay with the company, then YOU are the one who has to adjust.
All that being said, don't think for one minute that there is no whining and complaining about reserve by AA flight attendants--me included some days. But, at the same time I try to remember that at my age and seniority, reserve will always be part of my job at AA. I can either be miserable about that or deal with the job as it is. Beside that, on reserve months (particularly when I was based at DFW) I get trips that I won't LIVE long enough to hold on a bid basis.
