Question for ASA Pilots

[Varmint]

I agree with my brother dispatcher at SkyWest , we welcome all pilots to sit with us when you have time to kill. I believe if we all work together we could get along much better. just remember that Dispatch is different than scheduling, maintenance or ramp tower.

I welcome a dispatcher to come ride with me on a five leg day. Before you leave to ride, make sure the trip has the typical two aircraft swaps. Sounds simple and easy but those two swaps equate to two concourse changes, dealing with other peoples crap aircraft that they have delayed causing you now to inherit their delay, dealing with multiple crap mels like APU inop, and putting up with aircraft with no crew closets. No crew closets require you to shove four days of crap into the overheads (which smashes everything in your bag and scrapes your bag up) or put it in the back and risk it getting lost.

You say quit whining and that stuff does not seem like a big deal....well, come out on a 13.9 hour duty day when its cold and raining and there are hours of ground delay programs. With the delays, you are doing all that crap above on a compressed schedule trying to get somewhere so you can go to sleep for your required 8 hours of rest.

90% of that is not your fault...but it all begins with the simple aircraft swap. Your smarta$$ flightinfo signoff (at the bottom of each post) about "keeping the aircraft" equates to the "ghost" smartass remarks on the radio. Touche.

 

[John Pennekamp]

Now OPS Freq???? That's a different story. As far as I'm concerned that place is open mic night at the Improv.

If you are going to work at ASA, you better have a healthy sense of humor, because it is the only thing that will get you through the day.

LOL! So true!!!! :laugh:

 

[OpsCheckGood]

The following is a true story which happened to ME a couple of years ago!

Doing a ferry flight to MCN. Get to the A/C there is nothing wrong with the plane. No MELs, we have a good release. CAT A ferry flight (MTC convenience only) right? As soon as we rotate ut of ATL the "tower" tells us to call our dispatcher. Wierd, but o.k. Dispatcher: Did you guys take off already?
Me: yes
Dispatcher: o.k. "cool" call me when you get to MCN

upon arrival in MCN I call. Dispatcher asks is we had a ferry permit when we left. I explained we did not but one wasn't required since it was a CAT A ferry. He said o.k. "just wanted to make sure we were on the same page." An hour later sitting in MCN ops waiting on a DHD flight home my phone rings. It's a different dispatcher. She said "captain, I just wanted to give you a heads up that your dispatcher is filling out paperwork on you saying you took off w/out a permit!"

I filled out my paperwork on the flight to ATL complete with a copy of the release and quotes from the ferry flight section of the FOM. By the time I landed in ATL I had two voice mails form the chiefs saying the FEDs were in their office!

I was legal, and MUCH thanks to the lady dispatcher that gave me the heads up so I could have my ducks in a row when I walked in. But don't give me the "dispatchers are the victim" crap here because my 9 years in this business have taught me that some of the ones on "my own team" are the most dangerous.

 

[fltdspx]

I welcome a dispatcher to come ride with me on a five leg day. Before you leave to ride, make sure the trip has the typical two aircraft swaps. Sounds simple and easy but those two swaps equate to two concourse changes, dealing with other peoples crap aircraft that they have delayed causing you now to inherit their delay, dealing with multiple crap mels like APU inop, and putting up with aircraft with no crew closets. No crew closets require you to shove four days of crap into the overheads (which smashes everything in your bag and scrapes your bag up) or put it in the back and risk it getting lost.

You say quit whining and that stuff does not seem like a big deal....well, come out on a 13.9 hour duty day when its cold and raining and there are hours of ground delay programs. With the delays, you are doing all that crap above on a compressed schedule trying to get somewhere so you can go to sleep for your required 8 hours of rest.

90% of that is not your fault...but it all begins with the simple aircraft swap. Your smarta$$ flightinfo signoff (at the bottom of each post) about "keeping the aircraft" equates to the "ghost" smartass remarks on the radio. Touche.

gong on a four leg day with you would be fine however when you go to work you have no idea if you get to keep the aircraft or not it's a crap shoot, so that's what it should be. If I'm not mistaken after talking to a few IPs I was told that when you guys come into ATL expect a swap if you don't get one feel lucky. I'm not say it's fair or not that is not my job.. I am a dispatcher not a aircraft swapper. I agree that IF most of you could keep your aircraft then just maybe you guys /gals could actually get out on time ( of course then again there is the ATL ramp to deal with. Dispatchers get frustrated too maybe not on the same level but it does cause us to have to do extra work once again it's not our call on the swaps ..sometimes it does work out but as you all are aware most of the time is doesn't. What you guys also don’t realize is we have 1 to 5 cities a night red tagged for a/c to overnight in that particular city for mtc…so hey guess what if you bid the lines/trips that overnight in BTR, CAE, MEI, and SHV and cities like that then more then likely you will have to take a particular a/c there for mtc on the overnight. And if you have to swap before then, the sector manager is trying to set up the plot to get that a/c there towards the end of the night. Hell we are still trying to catch up from all the crap you wrote up during contract negotations..so when you get swapped thank your little ALPA buddy for writing up the damn ice drawer or the coffee pot that we have to fix in SHV!!!!

 

[XPOO]

Perhaps things would be a little easier if Delta could see the crew links and try to park crews as close to possible as the aircraft they will be swapping into. UA does this in ORD as much as possible and I think the ORD crews have noticed over the past year.

 

[jke406]

gong on a four leg day with you would be fine however when you go to work you have no idea if you get to keep the aircraft or not it's a crap shoot, so that's what it should be. If I'm not mistaken after talking to a few IPs I was told that when you guys come into ATL expect a swap if you don't get one feel lucky. I'm not say it's fair or not that is not my job.. I am a dispatcher not a aircraft swapper. I agree that IF most of you could keep your aircraft then just maybe you guys /gals could actually get out on time ( of course then again there is the ATL ramp to deal with. Dispatchers get frustrated too maybe not on the same level but it does cause us to have to do extra work once again it's not our call on the swaps ..sometimes it does work out but as you all are aware most of the time is doesn't. What you guys also don’t realize is we have 1 to 5 cities a night red tagged for a/c to overnight in that particular city for mtc…so hey guess what if you bid the lines/trips that overnight in BTR, CAE, MEI, and SHV and cities like that then more then likely you will have to take a particular a/c there for mtc on the overnight. And if you have to swap before then, the sector manager is trying to set up the plot to get that a/c there towards the end of the night. Hell we are still trying to catch up from all the crap you wrote up during contract negotations..so when you get swapped thank your little ALPA buddy for writing up the damn ice drawer or the coffee pot that we have to fix in SHV!!!!

Paragraphs, punctuation, and spell check. They're your friends. At least they should be. Lay off the hooch, my man.

 

[Oakum_Boy]

But don't give me the "dispatchers are the victim" crap here because my 9 years in this business have taught me that some of the ones on "my own team" are the most dangerous.

They'll throw you under the bus right or wrong with an ASAP report. Nothing you can do about it.

 

[atlcrjdriver]

90% of that is not your fault...but it all begins with the simple aircraft swap. Your smarta$$ flightinfo signoff (at the bottom of each post) about "keeping the aircraft" equates to the "ghost" smartass remarks on the radio. Touche.

Varmit, i feel your pain especially on a 5 leg day through wx in atl. Yet, you are barking down the wrong tree. Dispatch has nothing to do with A/C rotations, aircraft routing and the sector teams do. If you call your dispatcher and request a swap they ask the sector mgr/ aircraft routing to see if it is feasible.

MTC req. dictate aircraft rotations with little to no input from crew scheduling. This is how it is done for most airlines including the majors.

 

[John Pennekamp]

Hell we are still trying to catch up from all the crap you wrote up during contract negotations..so when you get swapped thank your little ALPA buddy for writing up the damn ice drawer or the coffee pot that we have to fix in SHV!!!!

BC,

I was kinda with you right up until here. I don't appreciate your characterization of us and our "little ALPA buddies". It smacks of the typical GO pilot bashing we hear about.

Besides, your PAFCA negotiations aren't going so well either, and if you guys wanted to shake things up, many guys like me would support you without question. So don't give us crap about a so-called write up campaign during our negotiations. It's folly to make stupid public accusations you can't prove about illegal job actions, especially when some of us know who you are.

We ARE on the same team. Let's start acting like it!

 

[fltdspx]

BC,

I was kinda with you right up until here. I don't appreciate your characterization of us and our "little ALPA buddies". It smacks of the typical GO pilot bashing we hear about.

Besides, your PAFCA negotiations aren't going so well either, and if you guys wanted to shake things up, many guys like me would support you without question. So don't give us crap about a so-called write up campaign during our negotiations. It's folly to make stupid public accusations you can't prove about illegal job actions, especially when some of us know who you are.

We ARE on the same team. Let's start acting like it!

WF

You are taking it the wrong way. The routing of A/C is due to having to fix write ups regardless how or why there were written up. All I am saying is that the more that gets written up on A/Cs then it appears the more A/C swapping has to be done to route that A/C to a MTC base for repairs. What illegal job actions are you referring to? I know nothing of such going on here and whether you know who I am or not makes no bearing on my opinion.