ASA Ready Reserve

[CheeseHead13]

Fair enough, the point being that people wait 45min to call and think they've only got 15min to be assigned something. Not the case.

Yes, this is absolutely not the case. I received an FOM violation for not calling block plus 15mins. You must call within 15 minutes of blocking in!

 

[CheeseHead13]

Also, if you are on a RR assignment and given a trip, you are now a converted into a regular reserve pilot not a RR pilot. So when you return from your MGM round trip, still inside your original RR window you must call to be either released from your assignment or placed back on RR until the end of that period. I had an FO get screwed by this. He didn't call when we got back and he called at 10:01 to be released and they gave him an assignment. I believe it is explained in MOU 31.

 

[sunlitpath]

Nothing said here is in anyway in violation of the contract, and they can read all they want. They will screw you at the first opportunity. Your only defense is to know the contract intimately, and hold them to it. Ignorance of the contract by any pilot is an injustice to all the rest, because they will exploit that ignorance to the nth degree.

How true it is. Let's not forget that an adversarial relationship is not only expected by management, it is an airline tradition.

 

[sweptback]

If you are a reserve pilot at the airport, do not notify yourself for a trip or extension until the last possible minute (right before the leg departs or you duty out, whatever comes first). Remember you are under no obligation to answer your cell phone while at work, they must ACARS you (which they are terrible at doing) or otherwise notify you (put a note on your release, have the station tell you, which also never happens as it should.)

The reason for this is two-fold. First, if you notify right away, now you are "legal to start, legal to finish". If they tack on an overnight, and you divert in the middle of the trip which would put you over 8 hours including the overnight, tough cookies, you're still going on the overnight. Not so much if you haven't notified yourself... now you are over 8 hours and they can't legally assign you anything.

Also, the 11 hour rest in domicile only applies when they schedule you. If you are scheduled for 11 hours of rest, but due to operational delay you are delayed 2 hours, guess what, you just got 9 hours of rest. Now, they can't take you below 9 hours, but still, you lost 2 hours of rest (which would have covered your drive to and from the airport, riding on the bus, etc.) Had you not notified yourself, you would just be receiving your assignment at that point, and could say, "I need my 11 hours of domicile rest," which would cause them to either give it to you, or take away the trip and give it to somebody else.

Not notifying yourself (while on a non-ready reserve trip) until the last possible chance is the best way to protect yourself on reserve. If they get you legitimately before you planned to notify yourself, well, you got beat. But usually that doesn't happen and you get a bit of a benefit from waiting.

 

[SpaceShipEarth]

If you self notify for a trip that duty's in within three hours of your reserve on call period starting Than you are no longer obligated to answer your phone as that period is within 4 hours of a scheduled departure..... HOWEVER this now means your 16 hours duty starts when you duty in and NOT when you normally go on call as you did NOT go on call since our contract says you don't have to answer within 4 hours of departure. In other words, you won't time out as early if you self notify for a trip starting within three hours of the start of your call period. Make them call you. Period.

 

[ace6453]

Unless they screw up and completely remove you from reserve for a day, I can not think of a single reason for you to self notify.

 

[ASACRJFlyer]

Ready Reserve

Also, keep close track of every time scheduling ASSIGNS you a Ready Reserve. The contract specifically says you may not be ASSIGNED Ready Reserve more than 6 times in one month. It doesn't say you have to duty in to get credit...

As an example, let's say you get 2, back to back Ready Reserve assignments (don't you just love it when they do that?!), but on the first day, you get tagged with a 4 day trip. Just because they removed that second RRR from your schedule doesn't mean it wasn't assigned, and therefore, counts toward your 6 assignments.

Print your monthly schedule every time you're tagged with a new RRR as proof of the assignment and when you get 6, whether you went to the airport for them or not, you're done with Ready Reserve for the month.

 

[twott driver]

Do not answer your phone on the first contact attempt, and do not self notify unless it is absolutely to your benefit to do so. Period.
Would agree with the sentiment about calls during an assignment that you are already on. You are not obliged to do so, and will probably screw yourself over.

 

[CheeseHead13]

Wow! Is this FlightInfo? We actually have an informational thread going

 

[ASACRJFlyer]

This thread is doing something that we've needed for a long time and that is to educate our reserve pilots about the (weak) protections that this contract affords our reserves. I will say this, I can guarantee that pilots will be reading the next contract we get to vote on very closely for loopholes and vagaries that the company has proven they will exploit when it suits them. Weak language = A "NO" vote from us!

We don't want to make the company unable to compete for business, we just want some solid quality of life protections against a scheduling department that sometimes fails to see us as people with lives and families outside of work.