CRAF, required or volunteer?

[miaboeingcapt]

Those of you at airlines that are members of the CRAF program, are you required to fly these missions or is it on a voluntary basis?

 

[miaboeingcapt]

Bump. Anyone out there part of CRAF (Civil Reserve Air Fleet)?

 

[TurboS7]

Required only if you belong to Miami Air.

 

[cessna_driver2]

Do the airlines get paid for craf or is just scratch our backs we'll scratch yours later?

 

[greg20]

Do the airlines get paid for craf or is just scratch our backs we'll scratch yours later?

Airlines get paid each month for participating in the CRAF program. They are also paid an additional sum for each individual flight if the program is activated (like it is right now).

 

[TurboS7]

There are four stages of CRAF. If you want military contracts you have to be in CRAF. If you have a 121 certificate you are required to be in CRAF. Activation doesn't automatically happen until you are in stage 4. Stage one basically takes aircraft that were already doing CRAF work and says you guys are locked in. In other words if a really good finanally profitable contract came up you cannot pull your aircraft to satisfy the contract. Prior to the other day you could pull your aircraft in and out of the CRAF program by bidding for a trip or not. Each airline commits a certain percentage of their aircraft to CRAF with full activation about 25% of the availiable airline lift will be doing CRAF work. It is like the reserve program, we have activated approx. 10% of the total reservist in the U.S. there are still approx 900,000 still not activated. The same hold true for the CRAF program. We are an amazing country with amazing resources, be happy you are on our side.

 

[jumppilot03]

thanks for the explanition

Turbo,
Thanks for actually explaining that. Those of us who aren't with a 121 carrier yet had no idea what the above post were about. Keep up the good work. Jumppilot

 

[AAflyer]

AA has about 75 aircraft for the CRAF program.

We just received a message to volunteer. Current international pilots on the 767 and 777 can sign up. You can no be active in the guard.

I signed up and hope to fly some missions. I was not able to fly in the military and have great deal of respect for the servicemen and women who are in our armed services.

Flying toops and supplies over and especially troops home is the best way I can contribute.

Thanks
AAflyer

 

[TriStar_drvr]

The company asks for volunteers to crew the flights. If there aren't enough volunteers, the flights are crewed in inverse order of seniority.

I have to figure out now if the flying I'm doing is CRAF or not. I've been flying nearly nothing but military charters for the past year. If it's a CRAF flight I'm on, I get an extra 12 bucks an hour.

On the other hand, if I tell them I don't want to fly now, I wonder if I can sit at home and collect guarantee.

Before you flame me on being a lazy, unpatriotic coward, I'm not planning on opting out of CRAF flying.

 

[TurboS7]

I work with our military guy a lot. Here is the diffrence, with the military charters that you currently fly all have been bid on by your company. I see the bids and I know the exact dollar amount recieved by each carrier that wins the bid. With a CRAF flight the military calls you and says "Hey, You fly us to Kuwait-now." You fly your airplane to Kuwait, standard pricing applies. You should get automatically paid your CRAF if you are flying a CRAF flight, that is in your contract for ATA.BTW, the military must give 48 hours advance notice but movement can be sooner by the carrier for the love of God and Country.

 

[Titan5]

CRAF & the Flag

What determines whether an a/c is required to display the US Flag on it's sides? I'm trying to figure out why some a/c: MD-80's, CRJ's, etc. have the flag displayed and others such as Dash-8's, Brasillas do not. I'm not quite sure if CRAF has anything to do with it. Thanks...

 

[TurboS7]

Maybe some are flag carriers??????LOL

 

[Snoopy58]

> What determines whether an a/c is required to display the US Flag on it's sides?
...
> Maybe some are flag carriers??????LOL

Maybe it has to do with what the owner feels like putting on the side of his aircraft, and NOTHING ELSE!

There were about a zillion rumors that Southwest was "about to start flying international" when they started putting American flags on the tail, because "you have to be a flag carrier" to do that. Nonsense, I say again, nonsense! ANYBODY can put a flag on the side of their airplane!

SWA doesn't fly international, and has flags. FedEx does fly international & is a CRAF carrier, and doesn't. I somehow can't believe that EVERY MD80/CRJ out there has a flag on it and NO dash8/Brasillias do.

It's a decal, guys, not a status symbol!

[/soapbox]

 

[TurboS7]

Since CRAF opened up our flying and request for flying have dropped to next to nothing. The reason they opened up CRAF was due to the fact that UAL was charging astronomical prices for their 747 and taking advantage of the U.S. government. Touche.