GS-Alpha
You put that all much better than I could
Indirectly, it forces me to work over CAP almost all the time.
Yep..and if I may by way of explanation for those interested in the detail.
Under Bidline you used to be able to work high (above CAP - the monthly target in notional credited hours, not hours that get paid off in cash), put the excess credited hours above the CAP in your "bank", and then when you had enough credited hours built up you could drop a trip from your roster in exchange for paying the banked credited hours back to the company ( a Personal Bank Withdrawal or "PBW"). There used be a limit on the credited hours you could build up (40 hours in Longhaul last time I looked) - go above that and there were sanctions - temporary loss of bidding rights, so routinely people would bid high and then low, (leaving gaps on their line) vs. the CAP across the months (which was the whole point of bank in the first place, it was a smoothing device to allow you to bid high
and low). Remember the large gaps in Longhaul Rosters mentioned by some in previous posts? That's one of the reasons why they existed.
What has changed is that nowadays people are consistently bidding above CAP to avoid leaving gaps on their line because a change to the rules now means the company can drop trips into those self same gaps (aka "FA"). That in turn means their banks are building up towards the 40 hour limit - pilots need to get rid of banked hours somehow.
Now once upon a time you could contact ops and request to drop a trip as a PBW, and as long as you had enough credited hours in the bank and unless there was a manning crisis it was done. Nowadays the company is very very resistant to work being dropped (even though we have people on Reserve/standby) so they are increasingly limiting PBWs or taking the line, in Longhaul at least, of saying: ..." you must do the trip, but we'll take the hours out of your the bank in return for cash.", so as GS-Alpha has said it's effectively forced paid overtime for cash. Some may well be right in claiming that CAPs haven't increased that much on Long Haul, but there
has been a increase of hidden work above CAP across fleets...and a massive loss in flexibility for the individual. Also TBF to shorthaul, exactly the same may be happening there, but I have no idea of the reality so I can't comment on that...
I'll close this ramble by saying I think the vast majority BA pilots know and acknowledge that Short haul got stuffed by the move to EASA FTLs, but to consistently claim by way of contrast that Longhaul is a sunny upland that has hardly been touched by recent changes is, sadly, something of an exaggeration.
HTH, hope it's of interest.