Donnie
Sorry if the advice on bidding for what you want doesn't strike a chord with you but it does fly in the face of accepted wisdom! It appears that you are towards the bottom of the seniority list (impression given by your comments - if I'm wrong, ignore me, most do!). Granted, the bottom of the list is going to miss out if, and a big if, the current seniority based ruling on Long Haul bidding remains. I'm not convinced it will.
Already an anomaly that gave the senior Winter Designated Long Haul Pilots (WDLP) an advantage has been removed - essentially the summer guys did all the dross and got penalised when the better winter stuff came along. So, progress, slow but progress. The feeling is that the whole process is long overdue for a revamp and MFF would probably precipitate that. There will still be a process of demand -v- supply and that way round. The only logical way to sort that is by use of seniority but as an exercise, what would you propose?
Other factors include the question "why 767 in the winter and 757 in the summer?". At a guess it is because the Long Haul programme is at it's peak in the winter and is very crew hungry. We have seen the company operating LH out of all sorts of bases so could it be that they plan to extend that and use local based pilots rather than the Gods from afar? Couple that with the fact that MFF is unlikely to happen at MAN and LGW and you could need suntan cream sooner than you think (I'm guessing you're DSA?).
Remember also that the ratio of crews on the Beach Fleet -v- the Fischer-Price Fleet will change and I would see you competing on a seniority basis much more at base level rather than globally. Surely one of the stated aims of MFF must be to try and rein in the astronomical costs of pilots operating away from their base? That said, with current management...................
As for long nights in the books to suffer the Friday IBZ, don't fret, see it as a bit of variation. People do opt out of LH as well. The bottom line is that seniority has always been good to some, not so good to others. Until seniority is replaced that will remain so. Until now I have done well out of it so it would be trite of me to say "I sympathise". So, being trite, having enjoyed being in the right place at the right time, I sympathise with guys who haven't had such a good run! If it's any consolation, my wise (?) crack about the Beach and Fischer-Price Fleets is about to come back and haunt me - I'm on my way over to The Dark Side because that is where I see the future.
Anyway mate, keep yer head down and yer bum up, if nothing else, enjoy the flying and the T & Cs which by any measure are the envy of many and I look forward to meeting you on the line. God help me!
