Sim Evaluation

[ZBBYLW]

6 crossings a month ???!!
@#$! that

junior schedules seems to be that, bunch of CDG / LHR , 24 hour layover, good thing is you are gone 48 hour, compares to the brutal 4 dayer 12 legs pairing we get on narrow body.

To each his own. I’d much rather do 3 legs a day on a NB and be within 2 time zones than do a long red eye, stay up, reset your body clock, then do it again on the way back.

How come you guys didn’t go for a WB cap on the last world standard premium elite contract ?

[flyingcanuck]

junior schedules seems to be that, bunch of CDG / LHR , 24 hour layover, good thing is you are gone 48 hour, compares to the brutal 4 dayer 12 legs pairing we get on narrow body.

To each his own. I’d much rather do 3 legs a day on a NB and be within 2 time zones than do a long red eye, stay up, reset your body clock, then do it again on the way back.

How come you guys didn’t go for a WB cap on the last world standard premium elite contract ?

A cap is a bandaid solution. We need better pairings and rules. Schedules are shit on the NB because of the cap and the scheduling program "unstacks" senior schedules to make it all work.

[yycflyguy]

6 crossings a month ???!!
@#$! that

junior schedules seems to be that, bunch of CDG / LHR , 24 hour layover, good thing is you are gone 48 hour, compares to the brutal 4 dayer 12 legs pairing we get on narrow body.

To each his own. I’d much rather do 3 legs a day on a NB and be within 2 time zones than do a long red eye, stay up, reset your body clock, then do it again on the way back.

How come you guys didn’t go for a WB cap on the last world standard premium elite contract ?

Because of the word "seniority"

Once you have it on most WBs you can either fly productive pairings to get your number of days down per month

or

bid long layovers get paid 4 hours a day THG to sit in a pub in Europe which minimizes the number of hours my ass in the chair.

The narrow body 16 day cap backfired spectacularly for guys above 50% in any NB seat during busy months as they got optimized and ended up working 16 days doing flying they want to avoid anyway.

[Hangry]

junior schedules seems to be that, bunch of CDG / LHR , 24 hour layover, good thing is you are gone 48 hour, compares to the brutal 4 dayer 12 legs pairing we get on narrow body.

To each his own. I’d much rather do 3 legs a day on a NB and be within 2 time zones than do a long red eye, stay up, reset your body clock, then do it again on the way back.

How come you guys didn’t go for a WB cap on the last world standard premium elite contract ?

Because of the word "seniority"

Once you have it on most WBs you can either fly productive pairings to get your number of days down per month

or

bid long layovers get paid 4 hours a day THG to sit in a pub in Europe which minimizes the number of hours my ass in the chair.

The narrow body 16 day cap backfired spectacularly for guys above 50% in any NB seat during busy months as they got optimized and ended up working 16 days doing flying they want to avoid anyway.

No pilot should have to work 20 days so another can work 9. Seniority be damned. Let’s modernize and give guys and girls a semblance of QOL. From a relatively senior pilot.

[Rooster69]

During every negotiations, we always talk about improving QOL, but in the end, it always boils down to more money with little improvements in Blocks, pairings and reserve rules.

[TheStig]

Hangry, I disagree for the reasons yycflyguy stated. I took a look though the July blocks. YUL 330 seem to be the worst, the junior reserve pilot was 16 positions from the bottom to avoid the 17-18 day blocks of YYC, BOG, and CMN layovers. A couple of the junior block holders have ART bringing them up to 19 days, I didn't see any 20 day months.

The YUL 777 flying is similar, YUL-CDG-YUL 5.5 times per month for 87.5 hours and 16 days, a few pilots utilising their 'special days off' to get weekends off they otherwise wouldn't have held off. The difference between the 330 and the 777 is that the senior pilots (eg FO's with 18+ YOS vs junior FO's 1 year of service on the 777) are working 9 days of 3 NRT pairings.

If there was a cap on wide body flying every July and August every single pilot would be working to that cap. I think we're much better off negotiating other benefits rather than handing over that control to the company. The ability to choose whether you'd like training inside or outside of the DBM would be a good start, as would increases to THG or DPG.

[altiplano]

^ ^ ^
That.

Other than when you are assigned a position in your first week at the airline, everyone junior in a position chose to be there. They could go to a position with a better relative seniority and have a better schedule. Or wait not very long in any NB FO position and find themselves well up the list. You want to be a junior NB CA for the money? You want to be a junior WB FO? That's your choice and it's a trade off.

Plenty of people make the choice to not take those higher paying positions giving other pilots opportunity. The positions we choose are all a compromise on QOL vs cash and there's opportunity there for people that are willing to work more for the money.

Socializing schedules creates more pain than it removes.

Optimiser C, ie. unstacking to meet 16 day maximums, is a failure. Instead of seniority respected and a handful of junior block holders working 18 or 20 days and everyone else having a significantly better schedule, virtually everyone except the top few get unstacked and work 16 days. The company builds the pairing package to have everyone at work as many days as possible. They are not interested in building efficient pairings that would have 2/3 of the pilots in the blocking window in less than 11 or 12 days... They want you sitting unpaid in hotels for 32 hours in cities like YYC and YHZ and YOW as a free sort of reserve coverage. They want their 16 days out of you. That's productive in their view.

The answer is ADG. We go up to 4:30 next year, and it's only a start, we need 5:30 in the next contract and we need full paid DHs. Watch the DHing and unpaid sits evaporate. We need better rigs on THG and DPG too. Maybe 3.5:1 and 1.75:1 or duty -4hrs, FAs have it, should be an easy achievement.

[yycflyguy]

To each his own. I’d much rather do 3 legs a day on a NB and be within 2 time zones than do a long red eye, stay up, reset your body clock, then do it again on the way back.

How come you guys didn’t go for a WB cap on the last world standard premium elite contract ?

Because of the word "seniority"

Once you have it on most WBs you can either fly productive pairings to get your number of days down per month

or

bid long layovers get paid 4 hours a day THG to sit in a pub in Europe which minimizes the number of hours my ass in the chair.

The narrow body 16 day cap backfired spectacularly for guys above 50% in any NB seat during busy months as they got optimized and ended up working 16 days doing flying they want to avoid anyway.

No pilot should have to work 20 days so another can work 9. Seniority be damned. Let’s modernize and give guys and girls a semblance of QOL. From a relatively senior pilot.

You are confusing “work days” with “days away from home”. When you look at my block I’m away from home 18 days but I’m only working 8 days. I value minimizing ass-in-chair-time and love THG pairings for that reason. So it’s a big @#$! no, on the idea of a capping WB and the idea of forcing it on everyone contractually when it sorts itself out via seniority is kinda dumb.

[medievalpilot]

has anyone applied and got rejected. and then reapplied? what has the response been like when you reapplied?

Anyone from OTS or Jazz plz comment

[altiplano]

I don't totally disagree, capping doesn't work. I for one like productive (min days away) and if I can't get that I prioritize easy (min legs) - but either way, days away on pairings are work days. It doesn't matter if you're flying or not. Maybe you make the most of it sitting in a pub in Europe or maybe you're sitting on your ass in Edmonton waiting to get out of there... you're not at your base, you're under the control of the company, you're at work.

ADG will improve credit - ie. Europe 48 hour layover with about 14 hrs of flight time credit, 64 TAFB

Current 4:1 THG pays only 16 credit hrs. - 5 trips needed to be in a typical blocking window (20 days)

4.5 ADG will bring that to 18 credit hrs. 4-4.5 trips to be in a typical blocking window (16-18 days)

5.5 ADG which we need to push for in 2027 would bring that to 22 credit hrs. 3.5 trips to be in a typical blocking window. (14 days)

All that will minimize your time, and almost everyone's time in seat and time away from base and with the extra days off you can sit in a pub of your choosing wherever you want.

[crystalpizza]

we need 5:30 in the next contract and we need full paid DHs. Watch the DHing and unpaid sits evaporate. We need better rigs on THG and DPG too. Maybe 3.5:1 and 1.75:1 or duty -4hrs, FAs have it, should be an easy achievement.

And get rid of DPG and replace it with CDG - calendar day guarantee - like the US carriers have (about 2:00-2:30 hours) in conjunction with ADG. That would totally obliterate those day long sits at outstations as even with 4:30 ADG they can technically still have you fly a productive (~7-8 hours) day on Day 1 and 3, nothing on Day 2 and still satisfy min ADG for 3 days. With an additional 2.5 hours of pay for the middle day they'll have to pay you to sit away from home as well on top of everything else. Bye bye 32 hour layovers after that.

[altiplano]

I support that.

As is the company wastes our time freely because they don't pay for it. Whether it's long sits between flights, or extended layovers in cities with multiple flights passing through daily. They pad the schedules to have us at work more.

[sstaurus]

I don’t want the cap eliminated either. I agree with Hangry, no one should work more than 16 just so senior guys can work less. Get rid of the optimizer, sure, then it’s the company’s problem to either fix the pairings, reduce the flying, or hire more guys. Or some mix of the 3.

[rudder]

The problem isn’t the flying, it is the contract.

Poor rigs.

Get’m in 2027? 2028? 2029?

[flyingcanuck]

They'll just claim they can't do it because we don't have the staff. It's why we don't have ADG or improved Vacay credit tol the end of the contract... Don't know why it's our problem