UAL: Get Your Act Together

[wxman13]

Is this flamebait? Maybe, but bear with me. I will preface this that I respect the hard work that the pilots, gate agents, etc put in, but a lot of it seems for naught since I see so many organizational flaws with your company that will only keep driving you into the ground.

My story, briefly: I was sch'd on an ORD-SEA flight last night, wihch got delayed due to weather (like everyone there yesterday). The plane arrives, we board, and sit for a while while mechanics fix a problem with the generator. After that gets fixed, we taxi out to 27L. Number 3 in line, we learn later, dispatch calls the cockpit and informs them they would exceed their duty hours for the day if they completed the flight, so they taxi back and cancel the flight. Too bad NO ONE told the pax what was happening until we were parking at the gate. My question: the wx is obviously unavoidable, but why didn't someone anticipate the duty hours thing while working on the MX issues and try to roust up a reserve crew? My friend who is a UAL FA said it may have been that no one was legal to fly since it is/was the end of the month and would have already maxed out hours. I don't buy that since the SAME PLANE left at 6:30 this morning with a totally different crew. Anyone with insight in this, please explain.

Thanks for hearing my vent. Understand that I speak from the perspective of a dissatisfied pax, but one who at least has a vague idea of how things work.

Peter

 

[FL280]

Welcome to the airline business. Call out time for reserve crew, I dont know about UA, a guess would be 2hrs.

 

[skeezer]

I know someone will explain this more in depth but here is what probably occured. There is a 16 hour max duty day allowed by the FARs. That is a hard 16 hours that cannot be gone past. If the total flight time, plus taxi-in and debrief, will put you past 16 hours then you cannot take the runway and depart.

Example:

Flight time 1 hour (not block time but actual time in the air)
Taxi in 5 minutes
De-brief 15 minutes

You must take the runway for departure no later than 14:40 after you started your duty day.

Since they did not know exactly when they would depart due to the wx, they probably got in line in the hopes that they could get off in time. When it became obvious that they would pumpkin, they went back to the gate and cancelled.

Not sure if that was exactly what happened because I was not there. Howver I hope this helps.

Also, with all the wx delays they may not have had an entire crew avialable.

Peace!

Skeezer

 

[flyingitalian]

Its the price you pay for safety. When the weather is bad there is no way they can anticipate a mechanical problem and then put a replacement crew on every flight that "might" be late. The plane left in the morning with a crew that was starting a pairing and was well rested. OK pilot probably should have said something to the pax before you hit the gate. Situation like these usaully result in security being called because people are pissed. So maybe he did not want to get the people heated up before he was at the gate.

 

[D-Bo]

Welcome to the airline business. Call out time for reserve crew, I dont know about UA, a guess would be 2hrs.

It's 4 hours. Don't tell anyone in management though. That's one of the good thing they haven't taken away.

D-Bo

 

[Andy]

It's 4 hours. Don't tell anyone in management though. That's one of the good thing they haven't taken away.

D-Bo

Is that in writing? I thought that the FOM said it was 'an acceptable response period,' or something like that. ... interpreted by all to mean four hours. Sorry if I don't remember correctly, it's been more than three years now since UAL took my copy of the FOM away from me.

My apologies to the original poster. No, this is not flamebait. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to address your concerns.
Yes, UAL should have had their act together on this one, but it is likely that they are so thin on reserve crews that they were trying to get by without using a reserve crew. As for the maxed out hours, your flight was at the end of the month. With the number of crews so thin, UAL has been running into a crew problem at the end of every month. There was most likely a severe shortage of available reserve crews, so they were saving any crews until absolutely needed.
The crew shortages is due to UAL trying to save money; employees are a big expense. UAL is recalling 150 pilots this year, but I think that they need to recall at least double that number this year. Unfortunately, the revenue environment is such that UAL continues to lose big bucks every month and is cutting expenses everywhere to the bone.

 

[D-Bo]

Is that in writing? I thought that the FOM said it was 'an acceptable response period,' or something like that. ... interpreted by all to mean four hours. Sorry if I don't remember correctly, it's been more than three years now since UAL took my copy of the FOM away from me.

I'm F'd also. As far as the rule it's not in writing. 4 hours won't get you in trouble. Heard they're experimenting a long call out this month. 13 hours or so. Hopefully it sticks.

D-Bo

 

[RJones]

wxman13,

Hey, take the time to drive on down to MDW and jump on SWA.

RJ

 

[skykid]

or Ted

 

[blzr]

De-brief 15 minutes

It takes you guys that long to get your underware off?

couldn't most of any debrief take place from the cockpit to the crew room? Just currious because I know I didn't want to stick areound some nasty crew room listening to somebody ramble on about what happened two legs ago.

 

[treetopflyer]

debriefs at my airline go like this:

CA: hey happy hour is over in 2 hours at the WEREHOUSE, and they have the best f-in wings in the country.

FO: well then hurry the F-up and we can make it, ill do the walk around and help with the seatbelts so the FA can get out quick too.

FA: Hey, were are we going tonight?? I hope someplace with beer.

 

[wxman13]

RJones-you read my mind. MDW started sounding more appealing pretty quickly, regardless of airline, when I thought about how much less congested it usually is (I think).

Thanks for the clarification on the 2/4/whatever-hour rule on reserve callups. From the pax standpoint, it would help people A LOT if someone (could be CA, gate agent, anyone with badges) would tell them the basics like that instead of nothing or just spooning us BS. I knew about the 16 hour duty days, and myself and one other guy were trying to explain it to pax around us--the gate agents never said anything, and the CA only said their day had expired. No one mentioned anything about reserve times (and if it's four hours, that makes sense--we would have been leaving ORD at 3 am at the earliest, with a reserve crew that was probably about to go to bed...). Just little pieces of information can help diffuse tensions a lot. Once people realize there is a logical explanation for what is happening around them, a lot of them will calm down. Leave them with nothing and they will b!tch and whine and worse.

Peter