The SWAPA Ride Report: Contract Housekeeping, Reserve Q&A, and Overrides Refresher Artwork

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The SWAPA Ride Report: Contract Housekeeping, Reserve Q&A, and Overrides Refresher

June 21, 2024

This week, guest host Ella Ziober reviews the most recent versions of the CBA source documents as we near the end of the second quarter. With Q3 around the corner, take a listen to hear about the mountain of IT work being done for the next phase of implementation.

The Q&A has something for everyone this week. Whether you’re contemplating a Nashville move, have some reserve scheduling questions, or just need a recap on overrides and their differences, make sure you tune in to re-hack those currencies.

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This is the SWAPA Ride Report for Friday, June 21st, 2024.

The SWAPA Ride Report is your source for headlines, updates, and answers to frequently asked questions regarding your new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

I’m your guest host for today, Ella Ziober from SWAPA Communications. I’m one of your graphics designers, so I hope you’ll like the user interface I’ve been working on with the SWAPA App when it hits the streets later this year.

Let’s start the show with a little housekeeping on the admin side. The two sheets of Contract music you should be working off of are Master Electronic Version #2 of the CBA, which is dated May 9th, and the Annotated CBA, which will be updated later today. So take a peek and make sure you have these versions handy versus an older one.

Joint Implementation Committee meetings with the company have continued, but many of the discussions are getting ironed out with individual departments, so you’re not seeing as many formal updates as earlier in the year. Having said that, we’re nearing the end of the 2nd quarter. So in a couple of weeks, you can expect a recap of what should be in effect, and what you can expect in the 3rd quarter. Over the next two months, over fifteen thousand hours of IT work has been planned by the company on implementation work for scheduling, planning, training and apps. We’ll have some details on how that will play out, so stay tuned!

This round of Q&A from the Contract Administration Committee touches on several different topics that might apply to you, so let’s dive in, starting with a question about hotel transportation.

If I have determined that the transportation to the hotel will not depart within 30 minutes of my block in, do I have to coordinate a Lyft code through Crew Scheduling? 

No.  In that case, you have the option to obtain alternate transportation, to include premium ride share like Uber Black, and submit an expense report per Section 3 Alpha. This was also touched on in a recent SWAPA Number Podcast about hotels. If you haven’t listened to it or read the transcript, that show lives on the Podcast Page under the Communications tab on the SWAPA website.

For those of you who have bid into Nashville, or plan to in the near future, this one is for you:

I was awarded BNA on the initial vacancy bid, but I’m not planning on moving to the base immediately.  How much time do I have to qualify for the paid move? 

You will have 24 months from your award date to qualify for a paid move. For more information on paid moves, Section 3 Kilo of the CBA will get you started. The Annotated CBA also goes on to talk about Nashville and Flight Ops Communication by explaining that, in accordance with Flight Ops Update 24-06 on January 30, 2024, “Regarding the BNA domicile opening, Southwest will provide paid moves within 24 months of the award.” Lastly, if you’re looking for the relocation form, that can be found on Comply365 under MyForms > Flight Ops > Pilot Relocation Form. They will confirm you are eligible for a paid move, then direct you to their contracted moving company. If you have already moved and would like to apply for reimbursement, you will still need to fill out the form to begin the reimbursement process.

Now we’re nearing the end of the month, so how about a question about overlap-

As an overlap correction, Scheduling switched my lead out reserve block from an AM to PM RAP due to rest illegalities created by my lead in trip.  Is this permitted?  

So yes, this is a legal overlap solution…for now.  New overlap correction rules will not be fully implemented until the end of the 3rd Quarter, 2024. There’s also a lot of good information about month-to-month overlap corrections in the Scheduling Handbook. A good place to start is page 88, where the Monthly Scheduling Timeline lives. If you haven’t already, you’ll want to put these dates in your mobile device calendar so you always know what part of the scheduling cycle you’re currently living in. Page 94 is where the Month to Month overlap rules are explained in detail, so give these sections a read and you’ll be an expert moving forward.

And as always, if you’re unsure if something on your board is legal, please reach out to Crew Scheduling or contract admin.

Here’s another question about reserve:

While on reserve, I was assigned and acknowledged a trip the day prior to the start of the RAP.  Subsequently, Scheduling changed the trip I acknowledged to a different pairing.  Am I eligible for LCO? 

Yes, you will receive LCO for every leg that changed from the originally acknowledged pairing. 

Third time’s a charm, so let’s take one more question about a reserve situation:

I had a reserve day with a RAP start of 0305.  I was assigned a trip with a report of 0850 and a release of 1710.  Since the time from the start of RAP to release was more than 12 hours, am I eligible for LDO? 

No.  Long Duty Override is based off of executed duty period which is the time between a report time and a subsequent release time.  

It’s been awhile since we did an overrides recap, so let’s knock one out:

Late Return Override is looking at the last duty period of an original assignment or original award, when an actual block-in is greater than 2 hours after the originally scheduled block in.  And remember – Late Return Override and Leg Change Override are mutually exclusive.

You might have been thinking Long Duty Override would have applied in this situation, as that is defined as any executed duty period greater than twelve (12) hours. Keep in mind, the contractual duty day is defined as report to release, so your RAP, which is 15 hours, wouldn’t come into play here.  

Now the Reserve Release Override of 50% would kick in for all legs which block in past the end of the LAST scheduled RAP of the reserve block...as long as those legs are NOT already being paid Leg Change Override or Late Return Override. So if LCO or LRO is triggered, then RRO is not.   

I don’t know how you pilots keep all these acronyms straight, but the Overrides are spelled out in detail in Section 2 Juliet of the annotated CBA. And rest assured, nothing will get past the coding in place at SWAPA, so you’ll get paid the right thing at the right time.

That wraps up the big news and Q&A this week. As always, if there’s something you want to hear more about on the show, please send us an email at comm@swapa.org.

And thanks again for joining this week’s ride report. The next episode will drop on July 5th , and if you missed anything, this transcript will be on the Podcast Page under the Communications tab on the SWAPA website.

Fly safe, fly informed.