New Reserve System at EK - Deathly Silence

[quarefellah]

Hi All,
Maybe there is heated discussion on the airline specific forum but I'm astonished that no mention has been made here. Maybe we're all as happy as TCAS says we should be after all??

As for that other topic on EK basings - in your (and my) dreams!!! How could the Fabulous Money Circle be kept going if we lived overseas??
Happy Flying

[Uplink]

The new reserve system is one thing. The fact that it takes precedence over annual leave and I quote;

"When choosing Annual Leave in the Leave Award System be aware that, if the leave conflicts with your reserve month, the leave will have to be altered and coordinated with the Leave Planner"

I think I am right in saying that we have a hard enough time trying to obtain peak leave. It has taken me several years to obtain finally the leave I wanted. This now is one more barrier to cause problems for us.

I would be moderately happy if you could have the reserve put either side of your leave month.

What do you guys think.

[Ghostflyer]

Uplink,

As you say we never get leave where we want it; so it shouldn't be a problem anyway!

Seriously though, and I didn't vote for the system, if reserve happens every 11 months then you have a less than 10% chance of it interfering with your peak leave slot. As you only get that slot every 3 years or so the odds are even less. Maybe we've found a strength of the system: If you get the leave you want so rarely you have less chance of being disappointed:{

Ghost

[BYLAW]

First, I don`t believe the 65%. That is a too high percentage for any poll, it means that at least 80% voted! No way . Even 70% would have been a high turn out and don`t tell that only 5% said `no`.

Second, this `plan` was already on the drawing board and has been implemented basically overnight.
It gives an enormous flexibility to rostering which it desperately needs because of this medievel instrument called Adopt, as well put on the portal.

Also it is again an T&C change, and not for the better. A whole month of reserve seems like a nightmare to me.

[what_goes_up]

@ all
We did that one month reserve system at Swissair/Swiss on the MD11 fleet as well and it worked well for us. It helps a lot to stabilize your roster. So like this you have only one month a year, you don't know what you will work. With the old system when you were called out of a stand-by it easyly interfered with your following duties and assignment had to change part of the rest of the month.
We lived quite well with it and few would want to change it back.

[BigGeordie]

Has anybody had experience of a month of reserve at a time in other airlines? How well does it work in the real world?

[Quod Boy]

My concern is you will not know what your days off are in advance.?

Obtaining more than the mandatory 1 in 7 or 2 in 14,I suspect unlikely,as Standby can be assigned to occupy a day,free of charge,rather than XX.

Had the "deal" been on offer before a vote,perhaps a different outcome,and where are figures on the vote,with 1200 pilots that means approx voted yes.Doubt it.

Am I wrong?Having no experience of it I dont know,but other airlines may have had pilot discussion before doing so.
QB:cool:

[what_goes_up]

Big G
you mean SWR was not the real world?:D
Of course it depends a lot on the frame how it is handled. It made the remaining 11 month a bit more convenient and forseenable.
Quod Boy
No for this month you basically don't know about when the off days are. They were planed as per FDR but rarely happened like this. But then again it stabilized the rest of the year. I personally liked it better than having a block of three or five days a month or whatever the system is.
But I am sure there are different opinions.

[Vorsicht]

What a fantastic new management tool.

Goes something like this.


(TCAS): "We need to change the reserve system because we know of one more cost efficient, but the boys probably wont like it. What shall we do."

(Brown nosed office guy wearing long sleeve shirt and tie): "I know, lets introduce a poll on that new portal thingy. Who cares what the results are, because we dont have to tell them what the real policy is anyway. We'll work out a system that suits us, run a quick poll, tell them the results were, lets say, 65% in favour (No need to publish the results because this isn't a democracy after all)."

"We'll have the plan on the shelf and should be able to roll it out in a month or so, and we'll be able to tell them that it's the plan they voted for, what do you think?"

Man management at EK is a wonderful thing.

[donpizmeov]

I can actually see a few positive things coming out of this new Reserve system. It will mean an end to having strings of days off being broken up by those free RSV days. And when we do get a month of RSV, we will get paid for them.
I guess we will have to wait and see what happens re crewing and days off during these months. But with the exception of interfering with leave, I can not yet see a down side.
Will have to wait and see I guess.

Don

[White Knight]

Good call there Don - it's a month of free pay:D :D How did that slip thru' the net??

[Maxx Motoring]

I voted no because they didn't publish the rules of the new reserve system before the vote, and manage never changes things to add costs which means more work for pilots.

The worst part of the new system is that you're actually on Reserve for 30-35 strait days, they'll only assign your day's off in the month the day prior, depending on coverage, so you can't really have a planned life. Great for company flexibility though.

[Trust]

Has anybody thought about asking the EK cabin crew, as they have been doing this for years?:hmm:

[Uplink]

Hey Vorsicht,

Shouldnt that be Brown nosed office guy wearing long sleeved shirt and tie AND smelling of B.O.