Sked: when the Co. doesn't give you enough bodies?

[glasspilot1]

Question for crew schedulers through out the industry:

I'm a pilot for AA (former TWA). AA shows no signs of recalling pilots or F/A's in the near future. All the reserves are flying at or over guarantee every month. How do you handle covering all the trips with this shortage? Do you blame the company or the pilots? (The smart pilots intentionally don't answer their phones on their days off. Unless they want to fly extra.) The company loves to blame crew shortage trip cancellations on "excessive sick leave".

Comments?

 

[hoover]

My very first job was as a crew scheduler. Usually you don't have time to call around looking for volunteers. So you just draft/extend/reroute crews within the terms of the working agreement (if there is one) and the FARs.

 

[glasspilot1]

My very first job was as a crew scheduler. Usually you don't have time to call around looking for volunteers. So you just draft/extend/reroute crews within the terms of the working agreement (if there is one) and the FARs.

Thanks Hoover!

Thought my thread would generate more activity than it has. AA really runs into problems when there's a hub "meltdown" (usually WX related). I was flying a few weeks ago and a line of weather affected DFW. I was reassigned a total of 4 times in the next 2 days. No reserves available as they were ALREADY flying trips. I really don't care a whole lot when I'm already on the road. But I giggle when I'm home on my days off and the phone rings: "Ahh, we really need pilots to fly some open trips this weekend". Ya, right! And with almost 3000 pilots on furlough I don't look kindly to those few who do extra flying. They're just helping the company with a situation they themselves created. As long as they can get enough pilots to do this it will delay the recall.

 

[DX Rick]

"Give us a call on the ground......."

 

[glasspilot1]

Update: AA has just announced pilot recalls starting in January! This thread must have set their ears ringing! (Ya, right)

 

[glasspilot1]

Bump

Bump.

Just one last attempt to get responses to this thread. I promise not to bump again!

 

[arthompson]

I'm Junior Manning Daily. So yeah it's really hard to staff an airline with no bodies.

 

[ArcticFlier]

No involuntary JM at SKYW, which means you can actually answer your phone. Kinda fun saying "no thanks". Proper staffing, and reserves could be used for what they are there for.

.........poor planning on your part, does not constitute and emergency on mine.

If you do pick something up (within 240 hours), it's at time and a half.



AF

 

[glasspilot1]

Proper staffing, and reserves could be used for what they are there for.

How true! AA delayed recalling for so long it will takes months if not years to catch up to proper staffing. All reserves are flying over guarantee every month. So are they really reserves? No, they're lineholders with less days off and no ability to choose their sked.