Mentoring Weekly Teaching Topic

 

This year the Mentoring Committee will publish a series of teaching topics to help our new crewmembers with their transition into Atlas. The aim is to cover common questions that pilots have in their first year as Atlas pilots. For questions or suggestions, please contact cameron.edwards@iap2750.org.

This week’s topic is Vacation

While vacation may seem like an easy topic to grasp, we have some flexibility to slide our vacation which frequently causes confusion among our pilots. It is important to understand your contractual rights to maximize your vacation time.

Vacation accrual is awarded monthly, based on years of service with the company provided that you were on active status for at least 15 days of the month. Crewmembers who have not yet completed their fifth year of service with the company will accrue vacation at the rate of 1.17 days per month, or 14 days per year. Crewmembers with 6 or more years with the company will accrue vacation at a rate of 1.75 days per month, which translates to 21 days of vacation for the year. [CBA 7.A]

Unless approved by the company, vacation accrued during one calendar year may not be used until January 1 of the following year. This means vacation accrued in 2020 will be used during 2021. [CBA 7.B.1] Vacation which is accrued but not used does not carry over, instead unused vacation will be paid out during the second pay period after January 1st of the following year at a rate of 3.65 hours per day. [7.A.3 and 7.B.3]

Vacations are bid in 7 day blocks of consecutive days. Bidding begins on or before October 1, closes on November 1, and awards posted by November 15. Bidding is done in seniority order by status and equipment. Remaining vacation weeks will be posted on Global Net and may be awarded on a first come, first serve basis, and subject to Company approval [7.C.8]. You may also change your awarded vacation at any time, again with mutual agreement between you and the company. To change your vacation please submit an email request to Doreen Fitzpatrick referencing the open week(s) for your seat and equipment. [7.C.9]

Crewmembers who have 14 or more days of vacation in a single bid month may request to take the entire month off. An email will be sent out announcing the full month off option for the next two bid periods, follow the directions in the email to submit your request. The company will build you a schedule for the month consisting of X days, VAC days, and AWRD days to complete a 17-day footprint for the month. There are a few things to be aware of should you do the full month off option, as this provision is not defined anywhere in the CBA, MOU, or LOC. The company may limit your ability to bid for lines in a month where you elect this provision, including 60-day lines in the second month. Should you elect to do any work or are extended INTO this month normal scheduling and pay rules apply according to your published schedule,

Probably the most asked question is about a vacation slide. A vacation slide allows you to slide your vacation days forward or backward. The most important rule to remember is that a vacation slide must remain anchored to at least one originally awarded vacation day. If vacation days conflict with a pattern,

any slide of vacation days can go as far as an OFF day. If there are three or less workdays remaining in the pattern (beginning or end, not both) after a vacation slide, those days can be designated as AWRD days (essentially unpaid OFF days).

The company can designate four weeks to be exempt from sliding, historically these weeks have been July 4th, Thanksgiving, Christmas and other busy times. You can slide out of a restricted week, but you cannot slide into a restricted week. For example, if you have the week of Thanksgiving you can slide it to the week before, but if you have the week before you can not slide your vacation into the week of Thanksgiving.

You must request your vacation slide within 24 hours of the INITIAL BID AWARDS. This means that you might want to avoid bidding for a VTO line because the initial bid award is before the VTO window opens., due to this technicality VTO lineholders are not included in the vacation MOU. The company can, however, allow yuou to slide your vacation at their discretion for VTO lineholders, but they are not required to.

Lastly if you’re on duty before an awarded vacation period, you may request to be released from duty at 1200Z (essentially a full day) on the last duty day. This should allow you enough time to travel home. Also, after a vacation period, you may request to be placed on R1 for the first workday following the vacation.

Vacation is covered in Section 7 of your CBA, please review it as well as the Vacation and Training MOU and Vacation and Training Letter of Clarification (LOC). The MOU has picture examples of the slide that are very useful.

Vacation and Training MOU:

https://iap2750.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/150428_VacationTraining_MOU.pdf

Vacation and Training Letter of Clarification (LOC):

https://iap2750.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Vacation-adjustment-MOU-LOC.pdf