Dropping/Trading shifts

[av8sean]

When I worked as a bagger at US Airways, trading or dropping shifts was dead easy... you could basically work as little as you want.

How does it work as a pilot? Are you allowed to drop/trade pretty easily?

[DE727UPS]

Not where I work.

[CapnJim]

Trading shifts is a piece of cake where I work- provided there's something you want to trade for. Dropping is doable, albit difficult, as the company assigns an arbitrary number of needed reserve pilots for each day, usually around 40. Some guys manage to drop thier whole schedule down to nothing; some can't trade to save thier soul.

[MQAAord]

Swapping a trip with one in open time is generally not a problem, as long as the trip you want to pick up in on the same days as the trip you want to swap out of. That way, the company doesn't suffer any staffing differences on those days. At AA, as a F/A, we could only swap into a trip that was of equal or greater time than the one we wanted out of. Also, we could swap a 3-day for a 4-day.

Swapping with another pilot is an option too, provided you can find a way to communicate with other guys who may want to swap too! Some airlines have electronic bulletin boards where trips are posted for swapping. At some airlines you communitate via hand-written notes/flyers tacked up on bulletin boards in the crew lounge.

Just outright dropping a trip can be tricky. It often depends entirely on staffing levels, which in this min-staffing day and age are generally NOT favorable to dropping a trip! Some airlines completely disallow dropping on any holiday, regardless of staffing.

Sadly, your best bet, if you REALLY need a day off, is to bid for it off and if you don't get it, call in sick. Now, personal emergencies are entirely different, if you find yourself in the midst of a genuine emergency, call your cheif pilot and they should be able to work with you so you can attend a funeral, deal with clean up from a house fire, get a new tire to replace the one that blew out on the way to work, etc.

[kellwolf]

Depends on the airline and the contract. Right now, I don't think anyone can drop anything for the month of December. You're solely at the mercy of scheduling on dropping stuff. The swaps are done by hand instead of an automated system and by one person, so that has a tendency to get backed up. We're TRYING to get the company to turn on the automated trip swap feature of our scheduling program, but no luck yet.

[seagull]

Ours is pretty good. Dropping depends on staffing, sometimes easy, sometimes no dice. I have found that I could make deals with other pilots (company email works great) when I got in a bind. I once was able to swap off all the days except for one, and I got that down to a short, one day trip. I really needed to be off that week, so I swapped someone else for their 2 day trip. Good deal for both of us, as I got the days off I needed and he worked one less day for the same pay. We can swap the whole thing, pay and all, or just the trip and maintain the guarantee (like I did in that case). We can also swap with open time. No limitations on it, aside from staffing models. the computer decides, but the company is good about extenuating circumstances.

[DE727UPS]

Can you drop below guarantee and not get paid? I guess they can do that at SWA.

[seagull]

Originally Posted by DE727UPS

Can you drop below guarantee and not get paid? I guess they can do that at SWA.

I know of no limitation on it, AFAIK you can drop it down to zero credit hours, contingent on staffing. There are limits on the number of trips that can be open in a given seat on a given day based on reserves, etc.