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Standby Duty at Flex

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JetFlex

Member
Joined
Oct 18, 2007
Posts
8
Just a thought; the company has previously said that they would have to put people on duty and have them sit in FBO's (crew rot) if people were not answering their phones after 10 hours of rest. I know it's been slow, but I see crews on standby day and now evening shift (until midnight) and I hear more and more folks are not answering their phones until the end of their designated rest (not just 10 hours of rest).
So has the company begun the crew rot practice?
 
Ya'll are crazy to fight this fight.

I land at 1800. Nothing till 1500 the next day. My rest starts at 1900 and 10 hours later at 0500 I'm off rest and I'll answer my phone. But by you're crazy logic I'm on rest till my scheduled duty on at 1400 for my 1500 flight.

I would much rather man up and answer the phone than play the "no calls on designated rest" game because the company WILL WIN that battle. They will simply make me duty on after the 10 hours and could make me go sit at some FBO from 0500 to my flight at 1500. No thank you.

I never am told to just go sit at some airport without a reason to be there and the surest way to make our company start that silliness is to not answer the phone and to start playing the "rest" game with them.

My .02
 
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Thank you Mr. "I love Management". If you are willing to let them run your QOL like that then fine, by all means go for it, just don't be upset when your partner won't answer.
 
I agree with you in part Glasspilot. My concern is that it has already started. Crews are flying a leg or two then sitting standby for 6 hours. Or sitting standby then flying. The standby blocks have increased significantly and the number of people not answering phones has also increased. Please note I'm not for or against either practice. And I respect anyone's position as there are certainly two distinct sides. I guess I'm just curious to see what others are experiencing and if it's possible that the company has put the "crew rot" practice into policy as more and more pilots are not answering. If so we may have passed the point where they needed to enact the procedure but just haven't informed us as of yet.
 
Ya'll are crazy to fight this fight.

I land at 1800. Nothing till 1500 the next day. My rest starts at 1900 and 10 hours later at 0500 I'm off rest and I'll answer my phone. But by you're crazy logic I'm on rest till my scheduled duty on at 1400 for my 1500 flight.

I would much rather man up and answer the phone than play the "no calls on designated rest" game because the company WILL WIN that battle. They will simply make me duty on after the 10 hours and could make me go sit at some FBO from 0500 to my flight at 1500. No thank you.

I never am told to just go sit at some airport without a reason to be there and the surest way to make our company start that silliness is to not answer the phone and to start playing the "rest" game with them.

My .02

I know about 3,000 of my coworkers that share my "crazy" logic then.
 
Because you are partial to living inside.

:laugh:

That there are pilots that see this is as acceptable is absolutely mind-boggling to me.

You're on duty, or you're on rest. There is no inbetween. If you're on the hook to go to the airport at the company's whim, you're on duty, and it should be treated as such. That doesn't mean you have to rot at the airport -- it just means you have to be available when they want you, and that means you're on duty. There's no reason that duty period can't start at the hotel if they need someone on-call.

I'll give you a real-world example, since this is how NetJets operates. Here's how my day was scheduled today: 6am show for an 8:30am flight. I wake up at 5, and overnight, the company has pushed back the showtime by designating my first hour as "duty at hotel." Great! I turn the ringer back on on the Blackberry, roll over, and go back to sleep for an hour. I'm on duty beginning at 6am, because I now have a present responsibility to report for work should the occasion arise.

I land at what turns out to be our destination for the night around 2pm. The company keeps us on duty at the FBO for three hours, then releases us from duty at 5. Tomorrow's schedule begins with a 10am showtime, which leaves me 17 hours free of duty.

My overnight consists of going out into town, walking around the harbor, stopping to get some Mexican food, enjoying a few Margaritas 'til late, and maybe catching a movie before bed. Why can I do this? Because my rest period is planned, and I know I don't need to wake up before 8. So I plan to go to sleep at midnight, get a good solid rest, and be able to put in a safe day tomorrow.

If you had the same schedule, your phone could ring at 3am, just a few hours after going to bed, and there's no way you'd be safe to fly. Then again, it might not ring. So what do you do?

Do you go to bed at 7pm, just in case? A lot of good that does you -- even if you managed to get to sleep that early, now you're up at 3-4am, and if your original schedule holds, you'll have been up for 6-7 hours before showing up for a potential 14-hour day. You'll have been available for duty to the company for 21 hours (3am to midnight.)

How is that safe?

 
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I would much rather man up and answer the phone than play the "no calls on designated rest" game because the company WILL WIN that battle. They will simply make me duty on after the 10 hours and could make me go sit at some FBO from 0500 to my flight at 1500. No thank you.

And if they do that, they're out of duty time for you by 7pm. They're shooting themselves in the foot by doing that. By "manning up," as you put it, you let the company have you on the hook for damn near 24 hours at a stretch, because you're making yourself available not only for your duty period, but for much of your rest period beforehand! They get you for free from 5am 'til your normal show time of 2pm. Then you may get a 14-hour shift on top of that. 23 hours of availability for work. Nice.

How do you plan your rest when you could be woken at any time from 5am 'til early afternoon to go to work? As I said in my last message, how is that at all safe?
 
Why would you feel obligated to answer your phone during your designated rest period?

At CS the policy is that you do not have to answer your phine during rest. Scheduling can on extend rest, not shorten it. So if we get a call during rest, it will be to extend your rest. I chose to answer mine, especially when they have previously assigned me a 0400 standby. Don't know your policy but CS pretty much honors the policy they implented.
 

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