re: the discussion about leave above, it is a perfect example of Airservices stuffing something up for no reason other than incompetence.
As the person who developed the precursor to the current system in Airservices that was originally used on one specific group, the following is how the system was originally designed before a focus group got hold of it.
The 18 months and the points are completely screwed. Originally, the leave was done on 3 consecutive 6 month blocks. People would bid for leave in a 12 month period to have 6 months approved in 6 months time. What that meant was that say we are in January. You would bid for July -July and the July-December would be approved with the following Jan-July displayed for all to see. Come July, you would then be able to bid for Jan-December with Jan-June approved. You could change the unapproved 6 months if you wanted. Each person was given an allocation of starting points and additional points each year. You could then use those points to bid for leave in A, B or C class. A 2 points, B 1.5 points and C 1 point obviously depending on how much you wanted that leave. You could do adhoc leave in the current 6 months (ie the first 6 months of the 18 months) for zero points. The reason for the second half of the 12 months being displayed but not approved was for planning so that you could se if someone was going to have a block of A leave when the approved bidding period started for your own planning purposes/negotiation with others. New people to the group would get an average.
You also received two 'power balls' each year which could only be used xmas and Easter. These did not have to be used, would not expire and had no maximum limit. This meant that you could save them one year then the next year bid all 4 and guarantee xmas off for example. As an example, A class leave was beaten by A class plus one power ball. When two or more people had the same leave class (A, B or C), the individual's remaining points at the end of the common leave period decided who would win.
Hope that makes sense. It was invented when two individuals I worked with abused the old first come first served method and put in for school holidays for the next 10 years effectively shutting the door on the rest of us. Even the abortion system that exists now is better than the old way. People quickly forget about the leave embargos that used to go on.