Well, you know the 30 year f/a is in no danger having to do reserve; so, I fail to see why you even think this should be an issue. If it doesn't affect the senior f/a, it is of no concern to the APFA.
Or....we could go back to the way it was done for decades and that is, regardless of category, all FAs who have a schedule conflict at the beginning of the month literally go on reserve for the first 5-7 days of the month where Crew Sked can plot whatever they want on those days.
Does that make junior FAs happy? Because, if you are senior enough to hold a bid free of schedule conflict, then you have no worries. It does reduce the amount of trips you may want to bid.
Ever since we got rid of the schedule conflict obligation, reserves, out of base flying, reassignments, reschedules, etc., have all gone up. Also, reserves get DHD'd on the last day of the month to another base to layover and cover flying out of that base the next day which literally makes them a reserve for the next month. All due to schedule conflicts at the beginning of the month. Many then lose their bid flying in the first week of the new month and have to scramble to try and get the time back. We all know how difficult picking up flying is right now.
Negotiations is about trying to find solutions to very difficult scheduling issues while trying to protect our work rules. As we all continue to learn, every new solution creates a whole new set of problems. Always has and always will. The goal is to try and figure out what those new problems are ahead of time. Hence, the surveys.
Good for APFA for asking the members what they think....ahead of time.
Your choice: participate or not.
And for pete's sake stop thinking that there are any miracles out there. Get real and get with it. I'm so sick of the undermining by the same people day in and day out.
There are those out there that view the VTF test as some secret deal that aids AA, yada yada yada. The VTS was NOT supported by AA. It is done as a test to gather statistics for APFA and to prove, hopefully, to AA that FAs will "volunteer" to fly for more money and to reduce reserves. The mere fact that AA was willing to pay a reserve ON TOP of guarantee was huge, if only for 6 or 8 weeks.
Again, the test was to gather statistics. How anyone could create a conspiracy out of this just boggles the mind.
I wish we had it at my base. I would have loved the opportunity to bump up my paycheck. In that so many FAs have turned our contract over to the bad TT services and forced the buying of trips out of open time to make any money and have violated our oder of open time continually and have put the good TT services in harm's way, it would have been nice to not have to PAY for work. Oh well. I guess the new belief is those WITH money get to MAKE money around here or get their choice of base....if they PAY for it.
Of course, our contract doesn't allow for that but why honor the contract?
Anyone who has paid for an illegal trip out of open time or a place at a base out of seniority has created a huge hurdle for the APFA negotiators and has violated their fellow FA's rights and has completely undermined the collective bargaing of a union.
OK, rant over.
For most domestic junior f/as, holding vacation in a reserve month is our only hope of getting much in the way of vacation pay. Since we seemed to be doomed to hold either reserve or availability (glorified reserve) for the forseeable future, I can tell you that those who have an availability line on their vacation month get screwed royally by scheduling. A f/a at SLT who had vacation in October and was on availability had an availability line built for her that had 9 days off during her 14 day vacation block.
