The solution to reinstating premium pay is to stop flying overtime. If 1/4 of the pilots who normally fly overtime stop doing that for a couple of months, the company will likely reinstate premium pay.
Or at the very least, reduce the amount of overtime you fly.
They will still offer premium pay when they are short staffed, like summer, holidays, and maybe weekends. They just don't want to pay premium for a day turn on a Tuesday in September.... I agree with you though, the less we pick up open time the more often they will offer premium pay. I agree with others about pilots here will still pick up trips aggressively. Hope we are wrong, but they will.
Frankly I honestly believe the new dependability policy and the make up of this new PEA are the way management wants our pay structured for the upcoming union vote and subsequent negotiations. They know from their BluePilots.com plants and from other sources that many pilots were withholding their cards till the PEA release and that a union vote would follow shortly after. This is their opening position for negotiations.
I don't think we will get the same premium system back in a CBA. It was a benefit that dispraportionately helped the most senior. It certainly helped the company in heavy months, but it also cost them needlessly in the trough months.
Premium pay frankly is one of those things that cause pilots to only care about maintaining there own comfy bed, maybe without it we can actually think about better pay and benefits for the whole group. If it ever was to return, I would rather see a premium between 78-100 hours and back to straight pay above 100 hours (no pay caps), but that is just my opinion.
Either way, this is likely to be a very uncertain and tumultuous several years ahead of us and most would be wise to avoid the situation entirely by going to companies that have good contracts, high paying widebody aircraft and big retirement numbers. Our slow growth may not even be possible in the coming months/years due to pilot attrition and training backlog (assuming we can even get new pilots to show up).
Sadly I still fly with some NO voters. They aren't necessarily happy with management, they just don't like unions because of their extremely conservative political ideology. Not many, but some. Good thing we only need 50%+1.