The SWAPA Ride Report: Upcoming Scheduling Implementation and Contract Q&A

In this week’s edition, Matt McCants from the Communications Committee teases the multiple scheduling implementation items coming in early 2025. From Release to Check-In to ELITT enhancements, all Pilots should be aware of how the Q1 and Q2 schedules could be affected by the upcoming changes. There’s also a quick tip on how to access the last 10 emails on the SWAPA App, and the Contract Administration Q&A covers several popular scheduling topics like short notice reserve assignments, and how to properly use Training Golden Days Off (TGDOs).

Follow us online:
Twitter - https://twitter.com/swapapilots
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/swapa737

Transcript

Happy Holidays and welcome back to the SWAPA Ride Report for Friday, December 20th, 2024. 

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

I’m your host, Matt McCants with SWAPA Communications.

So this is Episode 28 of Season 1 of the Ride Report, and looking into next year, I imagine Season 2 episodes are going to feature a lot of what we’re going to tease today – a bevvy of scheduling related implementation items on the horizon.

Q1 will feature the reserve release to check in, the 60-minute RAP change limit, as well as less restrictive 7 and 28 day cumulative FDP and block limits when correcting month to month overlap. February line guarantee is 84 TFP - now recall that was in exchange for no more than 15 RAPs in a reserve line for every month of the year.  Note that in the past decade, only 5 of those 10 years had any Line Guarantee aka “the Green Bar” on the hard lines in February whereas 6-7 months each year had 16 RAP reserve lines.  Redeye flying starts on February 13th, landing on Valentine’s Day, and the 2nd quarter kicks off some ELITT enhancements like direct drop and direct pickup, ELITT across bid periods, as well as the Reserve Proffer Process.

Now that’s a lot of reserve centric items, but new scheduling features can have a bit of a butterfly effect, so now is the time to get spun up on some of the basics. The first stop should be the last SWAPA Number podcast that dropped on Monday December 16th, where the SAC gets into the weeds on some of these items. We’ll be coming out with more training materials as we get closer to going live, but the TA education slideshows and podcasts still apply too, and we’ll point to those when the time comes.  The December RP also has a recap of everything that has been completed and everything that’s on next year’s implementation schedule to help you check off these big-ticket items as they roll out.

On a related note, you can expect a new version of the Annotated contract to drop before the end of the year. We’ll attach a summary of the changes when it’s ready, and that new annotated version will also be updated on the SWAPA App. Speaking of, this is a casual reminder that the last 10 emails from SWAPA automatically populate for offline viewing when the app is opened and finishes updating. Just hit “view all” next to the SWAPA Updates banner, and there they are.

Also on the subject of connectivity, as of yesterday, Pilots are eligible for inflight Wi-Fi when traveling in the aircraft cabin – you will need a rapid rewards account number and the PNR for your travel to access the internet.  This means when you’re deadheading, on must-ride travel, non-revving, and on purchased airfare, you’re good to go. Obviously, you will not be eligible for this while operating or when jump-seating in the cockpit.

This round of Q&A has a little something for everyone, but first a well-deserved shout out to Contract Admin for recovering over $2.4M in pilot monies in the last 12 months, including pay audits and other miscellaneous TFPs. They have also answered over 35,000 pilot inquiries regarding various contract issues. Needless to say, a tip of the cap to one of the hardest working committees in the business is more than warranted.

Now let’s get into some questions. The first one is about engine runs and repositions.

I called scheduling after I did a reposition, but I didn’t see the extra pay on my trip. Do we still get 1 TFP? 

Yes, you do.  1 TFP is still paid per engine run or repo completed. The pay is on the payroll report in the override section under each pairing. You can verify that Scheduling has added it to your trip with a counter that is under each day of your pairing listed as Eng/Repo   

Time to check your passport expiration date and maybe you’re wondering the same thing as this pilot –

I have to get my passport renewed soon; will the company pay for expediting it? 

Yes, 3.H.2 discusses passport reimbursement. Part C recognizes that all fees involved in expediting the passport will be reimbursed by the company. And no, there is no cap on those fees.  Can confirm as I did this myself halfway recently.

Though there are two upgrade classes and one new hire class in January, there are still going to be many months in 2025 without either, which begs the question: How often is there a vacancy bid now? 

The vacancy bid still takes place every month. Though there has been a slow down in movement and the company[SP1]  is not contractually required to run a vacancy bid, they almost always do, even with only small changes, because the vacancy output feeds into the rest of the crew planning software. Not running a vacancy requires manually inputting the vacancies which has caused issues in the past. Also, Pilots that retire, resign, or upgrade can leave open spots and those are still bid on and filled each month. The ATL drawdown will also shake up the vacancies a bit, and the SAC will paint a clearer picture of what that will look like in the coming months.   

Here's one about receiving a reserve assignment when perhaps you didn’t see it coming:

I am a reserve that had an assignment given to me that didn’t go through open time. Can the company do that?  

So if an assignment becomes available with less than 2 hours to check-in, they can put that directly on a reserve. There are no required open time processes for pairings that become uncovered with less than 2 hours to check in. A Pilot can still Extra Fly a pairing that didn’t go through open time so long as the Reserve hasn’t OWNed it.  If there is between 2 hours to 3 and a half hours to check in, they are contractually required to run it through Short Notice Open Time, and if there is greater than 3.5 hours, they’ll run it in the next Hourly Open Time close, or Daily Open Time if it’s for the next day.  

How about some “golden days” refresher training:

I put Training Golden Days Off (TGDOs) and a Golden Day Off (or GDO) over a pairing I didn’t want them to use for my OPS Day pull. They pulled that assignment, and put my training under the GDO, next to the TGDOs. Is that legal? 

It is legal, and this is important to understand: TDGOs protect days you don’t want to go to training, they don’t prevent a pairing pull from those days.  A GDO is only to prevent being JA’d the next day at the end of a pairing you are on, they do not affect training pulls or assignments. The FAQ’s for OPS Day states that Lead Ops  can assign your training event adjacent to the assignment pulled. It does not have to touch the pull, and it can be placed on days you originally had off.  Again, TGDOs should only be placed on days you know you don’t want to be assigned training.  

That wraps up the headlines and Q&A for this week and this year. As always, if there’s something you want to hear more about on the show, please send us an email at comm@swapa.org.  The next episode will drop on January 3rd , 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.