As many of you have not flown reserve in several years, we felt it was a good time to issue a refresher with the Reserve Handbook and its updates.
Please click HERE to view the newly updated Reserve Handbook.
As always please reach out to me or to your local office if you need further clarity or have any questions.
In Solidarity,
Wesley Lesosky
President, Air Canada Component of CUPE
(This applies to Air Canada Mainline only)
The Union has been contacted regarding specifics around the voluntary extension process when on reserve.
We have compiled some information below to help make this process easier for you to understand and follow.
Should a reserve member wish to volunteer for voluntary extension, one of these 3 conditions must be met:
• The Maximum Monthly Limitation (80 or 85 hours) has been reached;
• No Reserve availability days remaining in the month (ie C or R days); or
• You have been released pursuant to Article B8.11.01.
B8.11.01 An employee who, at the termination of his/her last duty period, has accumulated seventy-seven (77) or more hours of flight time credits, and has at least two (2) scheduled reserve duty days remaining will, at his/her OPTION, be released from further reserve duty in that month provided s/he cannot be assigned at that time. If s/he is assigned a pairing s/he will be released on those reserve duty days not involved in the assignment. The option to decline such pre-assignment as per B8.28 does not apply.
You cannot volunteer for VE on inviolate days off (GDO’s). You can only volunteer on non-inviolate days off (RDO’s).
Any hours flown on voluntary extension will be paid over and above your MMG (75 hours).
Reserve blockholders can forfeit up to 3 non-inviolate days off (RDO’s) for VE but you must still maintain a minimum of 10 days off per month.
Reserves can volunteer for a pairing that operates on an overlap into reserve days in the next month. However, hours flown into reserve days in your next reserve block month will be absorbed within your MMG and will not be paid over and above your 75-hour MMG.
When operating a pairing on voluntary extension that overlaps from one reserve month into another reserve month, your maximum monthly limitation in the second reserve month does NOT get extended to 100 hours. This also applies if operating a VE pairing on an overlap from a regular block month into an RSV block month.
If you have any questions with regards to the Voluntary Extension process or other reserve concerns, please reach out to your local or to reserve@accomponent.ca.
In Solidarity,
Wesley Lesosky
President, Air Canada Component of CUPE
Please note these rules are specific to Air Canada Mainline Reserve Members
Article B8 in our Collective Agreement speaks to the Reserve rules regarding non-inviolate and inviolate days off.
We have recently had an issue in which a member on reserve was asked to work into a Guaranteed Day Off. We have filed a grievance. In the spirit of trying to foster a strong knowledge base for our members we wanted to give a small backgrounder on Guaranteed Days off while on reserve status.
A Guaranteed Day Off (a.k.a. inviolate day) is just that, a guaranteed day in which you can have some stability in your schedule and set aside these days for important things like doctor’s appointments.
We negotiated new language for Regular Days Off (a.k.a. non inviolate day) in our last round of bargaining. This included a premium for working into your RDO’s because we felt that days off were important. Generally speaking, when there is a premium paid, employers face a deterrent.
We did NOT negotiate a premium for GDO’s because they are inviolate and not to be flown on. There are limited circumstances in which you may be required to work into a GDO.
In IRROPS situations things may happen that are out of the company’s control. On a GDO, in an IRROPS situation, you may be required to operate back to home base after a layover into a GDO. This typically happens when one books crew rest, flight cancellation and delays causing a misconnection away from base.
The information below is an excerpt from the Reserve Handbook. If you do not have a copy of the Reserve Handbook you can find it “HERE“.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you are not sure what your rights are, we encourage you to contact your Reserve Committee at reserve@accomponent.ca, contact your Local Union office by clicking “Here“ or reach out to 247@accomponent.ca. It is a strong base of knowledge that will give us all confidence in voicing our rights. We sincerely believe that knowledge is power.
Jesse Matthews & Chanelle Gauthier
Co-Chairs, Reserve Committee
We are happy to advise that the Union was able to reach an agreement with Air Canada about preselects and when they can be removed. Please click HERE to view the settlement. The agreement involved a grievance filed for a reserve flight attendant who was awarded a preselect overseas pairing which was removed and given to someone on …
Hello everyone! After many years of our reserve members being able to rely on Wesley Lesosky as the Component Reserve Committee Chairperson, two new co-chairs have been appointed to take over this position, and we would like to introduce ourselves – we are Jesse Matthews and Chanelle Gauthier. It is a great privilege to be …
English
French
