Originally Posted by
VinRouge
Is it true that VS operate rotating seniority? How does that work?
What is is your average layover down route? Good social?
As riskybis says. 2-3 nights downroute. Mainly long routes (far east, west coast, Brazil soon). You'll only see the east coast 2 or 3 times a year. Social is good. Never experienced it where we don't meet up with the crew for dinner. Sometimes that's all you'll get, sometimes there will be 10 of you cycling the Golden Gate. Most trips often have a whatsapp group to arrange plans. Anything less than 15 days off per month is what I'd call busy. 18 days off in the month isn't unusual. Can't speak for Airbus or 747 fleet.
Rotating seniority...when you join you'll be put into bid group A B or C. Rotates every month. Month 1 the bid priority will be ABC, month 2 BCA, month 3 CAB. Your position in the group is based on date of joining. A new guy will be bottom of their bid group, but for his/her bid they will have the 'acting seniority' as if they were in the top 1/3rd of pilots every 3 months and will only be at the bottom of all pilots once every 3 months too. The result is that guys with less than 6 months service can have Xmas off if their group was top for December bidding, but very senior guys may end up working Xmas if their group is bottom. A senior pilot who is top of the middle bid group may have had a chance of getting their bid whereas a new pilot at the bottom of the same group probably won't, so overall seniority still has a role. Applies for roster bids and leave (leave slightly different in how the groups rotate), normal seniority rules for commands etc. It's a fair system, everyone gets some form of life and I've never heard anyone complain about it.