Interesting how this manual intervention policy has affected the rosters of those in the top bid group this month. A number of guys bid for ULR flights and a decent string of days off. CRS gave them what they wanted (that's what it was designed for). It allocated the hours within the bracket, which worked out just slightly into productivity.
Then, our friend came along, and inserted a couple of extra flights to ensure those strings were broken. Result; top bid guys doing 90-95 hrs (purely to screw up the days off), and others in lower bid groups with rosters around 70-75hrs.
What an example of biting off your nose to spite your face. Spend money out of the productivity budget just to ensure that nobody can commute, or indeed simply have a reasonable rest between ULR flying)
This also shows management's immaturity in operating a safe ULR operation. They want ULR flying with minimum rest, but refuse to accept that once someone has done their share of hours, that they should then have time off to recover.
During the dark days of the Airbus "factoring", ULR flights were mixed with night turnarounds, leading eventually to a large increase in fatigue related illnesses. I thought the company had learnt their lesson that this was counter-productive in the long or even medium term, but it seems management here has a very short memory.
Best thing we could do right now is help those who have manual insertions..take their turnaround flights if you're able, and let them have their days off strings. That will negate this ridiculous "unofficial" policy, at least for this month, and force them to publish the policy if they want to stop swaps that create a long string. I for one am happy to help out this month if I can, because I'm not just not interested in doing ULR-night turn-ULR patterns when it's my turn to bid for a decent roster. )Ironically I'm bottom bid this month and have an easy, mid 70's roster..amazing)
Anybody have any other suggestions how we can put up some passive resistance to this short of bulls**t?