ACARS and Out Times

[JerryLundegaard]

I was told that most ACARS units can be programed to send different out times at once, such as wheel motion to both maintenance for aircraft block time and the station to determine better eta's, or the main cabin door closing times to crew tracking for payroll and duty time caculation.

Is this true?

 

[AKAAB]

It's true on the A320, but management gets to choose what starts the clock - wheels spin, parking brake off, all doors closed, etc.

It's a major issue at JetBlue right now because management wants the flightcrews to GSC, close up, complete the checklists, and receive a push clearance before we turn the parking brake off - which coincidentally is what our pay/flight time is based on right now. Similar problem when we block in - main cabin door gets opened while the #1 engine is still running as the crew waits for ground power to be hooked up. In this case, the pay clock stops even though the engine is still running and the shutdown checklist isn't completed.

Working for free is not a very popular idea...