Yesterday you have received an email from the Chief Pilots Office, announcing the start of the vacation bidding for the year 2021. With this email, we would like to explain one big change in the “Two Step Vacation Bidding System” concerning the V-Day bidding and allocation process.
Based on the result of the V-Day (formerly VOFF) Survey in December 2019 and to reestablish their original purpose, the bidding and allocation process for the V-Days as part of the “Two Step Vacation Bidding System” was amended in order to increase the individual success rate. Please click here to read the Letter of Intent (LOI), that was signed on 18 June 2020.
The History of the V-Days
Before digging deeper into explaining what has been changed, a brief reminder about the history of the VOFF days, which are now referred to as V-Days;
The VOFF days were originally introduced in 2006. Once allocated they replaced the block of CODays in that roster period. With the Off- Day scheme that was introduced in January 2020, the VOFF days have been re-labeled V-Days and replace, once allocated, the A-Days in that roster period (calendar month).
Why was a change needed?
An increase of the individual success rate is especially important for colleagues with lower seniority during the highly requested vacation periods, because this bidding possibility should enable them to combine a probable low number of vacation days with V-Days in order to get a relatively decent guaranteed block of days off for possible vacation planning.
What has been changed?
- The revised allocation process for V-Days remains seniority based.
- Every pilot will be able to submit up to 8 requests, listed according to priority, including a preference, whether the V-Days should be located before or after the respective vacation period.
- Each pilot is entitled to have a maximum of 3 V-Day blocks per calendar year allocated.
- With the previous allocation process all requests for one pilot were processed (and eventually allocated) before moving to the pilot with the next lower seniority. With the revised allocation process, the request with the highest priority for one pilot will be processed (and eventually allocated) before moving to the pilot with the next lower seniority, processing this pilot’s requests. The aim is that every pilot gets one request granted before the next pilot in line gets his/her request and so on. Once the requests of all pilots have been processed, allocation starts again from the top of the seniority list. Follow this link to a flow chart illustrating the process.
With this method a fairer distribution should be possible, where colleagues with a higher seniority are most likely getting a larger number of vacation days during the peak times anyhow and colleagues with a lower seniority are now more likely able to get V-Days during the peak times.
- Additionally, every pilot can now specify for which vacation period the “split & wrap” option of V-Days is valid for. The approval to split the block of V-Days and attach them before and after a block of vacation days can increase the chance of getting the days close to the targeted period.
If you have any questions regarding the V-Day bidding and allocation process, please feel free to contact us at cvboard@alpl.lu.
Please click on the following links to download the ALPL Vacation Calendar 2021 and 2022.
