Comair CX all flights for 12/25 & 12/26

[CarjCapt]

Twelve (12) years ago the MEC and CVG LEC scheduling chairmen and management went to Montreal to investigate a new scheduling software to replace SBS.

Today SBS finally dies, and look at the result.

 

[skyslug]

we have new scheduling software, it's Sabre I believe and it was supposed to be up and running this month! Scheduling told me they're still training people and it's now supposed to be up in Feb. It's apparently great system. Sure would have been nice to have it up NOW!!!

 

[trip]

General must be out of town or he would be all over this. Just stand-by!

 

[Wacopilot]

He is stuck somewhere commuting on Comair!
Glad we could help,
Ha....Fa ra ra ra ra ra ra

Waco

 

[phishn@daves]

Reminds me of the movie Christmas Vacation, where they are having the duck, and the waiters are singing Ra ra ra ra ra fa ra ra ra

You mean "A Christmas Story"!

Please don't confuse the genius of that movie with Christmas Vacation. Both funny movies.

BTW, nice that all of you guy's can have Christmas off, happy holiday's.

 

[Stifler's Mom]

Inexcusable. With the technology available today, there should be a backup system in place, no matter how archaic it may be.

I wonder how much money Delta is going to lose because of this? All of these people will remember their experience on Comair/Delta next time they are given the option of choosing an air carrier.

Anybody know who was responsible for the deicing fluid running out at CVG? Is that the city, airport, or airlines?????? Another fuk up at the worst possible time.

Merry Christmas from the airline industry.

 

[Hovernut]

Inexcusable. With the technology available today, there should be a backup system in place, no matter how archaic it may be.
Anybody know who was responsible for the deicing fluid running out at CVG? Is that the city, airport, or airlines?????? Another fuk up at the worst possible time.

Merry Christmas from the airline industry.

Looks like the 'Delta Dollars' press is going to have to work overtime, or maybe they'll just hand out cold hard cash like in the past.

You'd think CVG with a rail terminal, river port, and interstate intersections would be able to get bulk supplies in a jiffy. Or, that a major system hub would have sufficient storage to absorb such events!

Backups you ask? Every reputable company that has a large stake in IT, such as stock traders and bankers, have a DR plan (disaster recovery) where operations are archived and mirrored on off-site servers that are available to immediately take the load.

 

[chperplt]

All of these people will remember their experience on Comair/Delta next time they are given the option of choosing an air carrier.

Chances are they won't and will rebook on Delta next year. People are generally stupid that way.

Anybody know who was responsible for the deicing fluid running out at CVG? Is that the city, airport, or airlines?????? Another fuk up at the worst possible time

Blame the weather... or ice storm to be more accurate for that. The airport carries, and had on Wednesday, a 7 day supply of fluid. That 7 day supply was used up in one day because of the ice storm and low temps. The trucks that were bringing a new supply were not allowed to continue to the airport because the roads were shut down because of the aforementioned ice storm.

If the airport or airlines are to be blamed for anything storm related, it should be not shutting the airport down at much sooner.

 

[miles otoole]

I doubt it will be the "stupidity of the traveling public." Funny how pilots love to quote this. Think of the average pilot. Now realize that half of that are dumber than him/her.

They'll go to travelocity or expedia and pick the cheapest flight. Don't tell me you or your family doesn't do this.

 

[Ben Dover]

Crap anyone seen an EMP gun? Mine got lost when I was commuting through CVG the other day.

 

[DDpaysoff]

You

Ain't seen nothin' yet.

Wait until you talk to the people stranded for days.

 

[Crossky]

Wow, well Merry Christmas Comair Pilots! That's unfortunate, I sympathize with those affected negatively.

Seriously though, what did airlines do to plan, coordinate, and execute crew scheduling duties before the age of computers? I would guess they had more employees, used lots of paper, pencils, and chalk boards. Don't mean to be arrogant, but it seems a little silly to me that they've cancelled all their flights only because their scheduling computers are down. The pilots, schedulers, and dispatchers know the regs, the phones still work, we have solar powered calculators, and the pilots still have their schedules, on paper at least. You would think the company, like Clint and the Marines, would "improvise, adapt, and overcome" (Heartbreak Ridge movie). The payroll and scheduling computers could catch up when the system is fixed.

Did you get what you wanted for Christmas?

 

[RJFlyer]

Man, and I thought our computer systems sucked... our POS usually only goes down for 2 or 3 hours, just long enough to keep me from catching that last DL flight home...

 

[V-1]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20041226/ap_on_re_us/airport_aggravation



U.S. National - AP


Comair Begins Recovery From Holiday Snafu

35 minutes ago U.S. National - AP



HEBRON, Ky. - Comair put some of its passenger planes back in the air Sunday after canceling all 1,100 flights systemwide a day earlier, and the airline hoped to be operating a full schedule by the end of the week, a spokesman said.


AP Photo



"The situation is still pretty fluid. Our goal is to operate as many flights as possible," said Nick Miller, a spokesman for the Delta subsidiary that is based at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.


Comair's computer system that manages flight assignments crashed Friday night after it was overwhelmed by cancellations and delays caused by the winter storm that socked the Ohio Valley. The computer shutdown forced the airline to cancel all of its Saturday flights.


Comair carries 30,000 customers to 118 cities on a typical day. Passenger numbers increase slightly during the holidays, but Miller said he did not known exactly how many people were affected by the cancellations.


Miller said he did not know how many flights there would be Sunday or the destinations.


He said technicians were continuing to repair the computer system.


"Obviously, we're working to get as much of the schedule back up and running in the subsequent days so we can hopefully resume our full schedule no later than the end of the week, sooner if possible," Miller said.

 

[michael707767]

Question for any of the CMR people. I heard on CNN that the computer system that went down is the one that schedules pilots for flights. Is this true? And if it is true, is there not a way to at least schedule some flights by hand? Thanks.

 

[V-1]

Seriously though, what did airlines do to plan, coordinate, and execute crew scheduling duties before the age of computers? I would guess they had more employees, used lots of paper, pencils, and chalk boards. Don't mean to be arrogant, but it seems a little silly to me that they've cancelled all their flights only because their scheduling computers are down. The pilots, schedulers, and dispatchers know the regs, the phones still work, we have solar powered calculators, and the pilots still have their schedules, on paper at least. You would think the company, like Clint and the Marines, would "improvise, adapt, and overcome" (Heartbreak Ridge movie). The payroll and scheduling computers could catch up when the system is fixed.

While the inept management of the airline during the last few days is inexcusable, let me try to respond to a little of the above.

1. They've not "cancelled all their flights only because their scheduling computers are down". Many aircraft are temporarily disabled due, in part, to the weather system that moved through the area a few days ago.

2. The phones do work...but not well when you have 2000 crewmembers trying to call the handful of schedulers available. Christmas Eve, almost no one...including dispatchers, was able to contact Crew Scheduling.

3. The pilots, schedulers, and dispatchers know the regs., though some Flight Attendants don't. Regardless, this is a moot point if you reference #2 above. Nothing can get done without coordination and agreement between the three workgroups, and when one of the three isn't able to handle the call volume, let alone handle the tremendous workload that has just been forced on them by the failure of an ancient computer system, coodination cannot occur.

3. As pointed out above ("I would guess they had more employees") the efficiencies afforded by computer systems - regardless how archaic, become a double-edged sword when the system fails. I don't know if Comair has enough human schedulers to manually sort out the mess the weather, aircraft mechanicals, and scheduling system failure has thrown at their feet...while still maintaining operational integrity. Don't forget there are over 3000 crewmembers, almost all of which are operating different schedules due to the emergency operations declared in the wake of the winter storm.

4. While in the movies, and perhaps in war, it is acceptable to "improvise, adapt, and overcome", this type of behaviour in a system as intricate as an airline's operation is likely to make the situation even worse...not to mention the rules that will have to be broken to accomplish this. The last thing Comair needs is hundreds of crewmembers flying airplanes around to places without the company's knowledge. There has been a lot of hard work by scheduling, dispatch, and crewmembers alike to "improvise, adapt, and overcome"...however there are well-defined limits we will not cross.

Comair has had crews stuck in hotels for six days in some locations, that I'm aware of.

I agree there is no excuse for not having a good back-up plan in place. I also believe there is no excuse for using a scheduling system that was put in place when Comair was half the size it is today. The responsibility for creating the system in which employees work is given to management personnel. The fallout from the failure the airline experienced this weekend must be directed towards this same management.

 

[JetPilot_Mike]

deleted

 

[michael707767]

You know, ultimately this is Delta's fault. Delta owns CMR. It's Delta's name on the tickets. Delta is responsible for ensuring it's subsidiaries and code share partners can do the job they were hired to do.

 

[Stifler's Mom]

You know, ultimately this is Delta's fault. Delta owns CMR. It's Delta's name on the tickets. Delta is responsible for ensuring it's subsidiaries and code share partners can do the job they were hired to do.

Funny thing is, Delta bought Comair and ASA to prevent this sort of thing from happening. From talking with Captains who were here before Delta owned ASA, they always mention how much worse things were before the purchase. To that I can only say YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[surplus1]

Funny thing is, Delta bought Comair and ASA to prevent this sort of thing from happening. From talking with Captains who were here before Delta owned ASA, they always mention how much worse things were before the purchase. To that I can only say YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Funnier thing is you obviously don't know what you're talking about and, apparently, neither do the "captains" you're talking with at ASA. ASA and Comair were purchased by Delta for two very different reasons. Perhaps things were "worse" at ASA before Delta bought them, but they were not worse at Comair. In fact the exact opposite is true.

In any event, that has nothing to do with this particular problem.

Tell your ASA captain friends to speak for themselves.