Waste Management & EJA

[Sarka]

Can the system be improved? Sure. Do scheduler's make mistakes? Sure. I know I have. Do we purposely try to be inefficient? Absolutely not!

Trust me. Nobody WANTS to ferry an a/c 5.2 hrs for .5 of revenue. But, depending on the circumstances, sometimes that is the only option we have. And usually that is still more economical for us than selling the trip to a vendor.

Most schedulers want to find the solution that makes the most economical and efficient use of our assets (crews, a/c, etc.). We definately will hear about every other possible solution that the monday-morning QB's can find.

I once had to ferry our largest a/c from east coast to west coast (by direction of management) to be a BACK-UP a/c for one of our "special" owners because the owner trip that was originally moving the a/c west canx'd after the crew showed. I searched the entire fleet for an owner trip that would at least justify some of the cost, but there were none that would work within the crew duty limits. Even suggested that we use a couple of smaller a/c that were already out west instead. Long story short, I ran the situation up the chain and was told from higher powers to send it anyway. So I did what I was told to do. Probably cost more than my annual salary and I knew it was not a sound decision.

I got called from home (on my day off) the next day to do the carpet dance and explain why "I" ferried a large, empty a/c across country. Thank god I learned long ago to document eveyrthing or I probably wouldn't be here right now because the individual that made "the call" tried to lay the blame off on me. Thankfully, that individual is no longer with the company.

I understand the perception of (and sometimes actual) waste that you see. But, keep in mind that, as I stated earlier, our job is to cover the owner trips. In the end, that is why we are all here and what pays our wages (meager as they may or may not be).

Please do not mis-interpret what else I am about to say here. This is not intended as a flame or accusation of the majority of our pilots. This is about a small percentage of our pilots, though.

Many times the reason you receive the notorious 3:00 AM wake-up call to ASAP out, or are told to ferry 5.2 for that .5 revenue trip, or get that last trip that takes you right up to your 14 hours after busting your hump on every day of your tour, or don't get that a/l home until 23:59 on your last day is because one of your brother's that was originally scheduled:

A) called in DNIF an hour before he was due to show on a brief that he was given and accepted 12-14 hours earlier

B) was too tired to fly that 1.2 hr trip after having 21 hours rest on his second day on the road after amassing a total of 1.5 hrs flight time and about 5 hrs of duty so far on his tour (happened yesterday). And, only telling us after he has ferried the a/c 1.0 hr into position.

C) wrote-up that obscure widget or light bulb or problem that mysteriously cannot be reproduced

D) Etc., etc.

Before you flame me, I know that crews legitimately get sick, crews legitimately get tired and airplanes legitimately break. I also flew long enough to know that you can down any a/c at any time if you really want to and I know some people will find a way to not fly if they don't want to. There are always that 10% of people (scheduler's included) that do things (or NOT do things) that cause the other 90% to carry their load. You probably know who they are better than I do. The trips will get covered by someone else.

I appreciate what you guys do and appreciate your comments. We have our 10% also.

 

[rajflyboy]

Sarka Your awful Brave!!!

I know your job is tuff. No doubt.

We need to figure out how to become more efficient somehow and we need to do it as a team. Calling individuals in for a carpet dance is not going to solve the problems.

Management/schedulers all need to work together to come up with better solutions.

 

[1900cpt]

"C) wrote-up that obscure widget or light bulb or problem that mysteriously cannot be reproduced"

So are we NOT supposed to write up these things? Is it our fault if it cannot be reproduced? im not saying that some people might do that on purpose. But i would say more often than not, it is legitimate.

It is our responsibility to write these things up. As the cpt and per the company procedures/mel

 

[rajflyboy]

Sarka


Netjets does not have maintenance personel looking at the aircraft each day like the airlines do and like most 135 companies do.

Its the nature of our business. The pilots have to do thorough pre flights and write the aircraft up when they find things wrong. Thats the only way the aircraft can be maintained.

 

[LR45JI]

A) called in DNIF an hour before he was due to show on a brief that he was given and accepted 12-14 hours earlier

B) was too tired to fly that 1.2 hr trip after having 21 hours rest on his second day on the road after amassing a total of 1.5 hrs flight time and about 5 hrs of duty so far on his tour (happened yesterday). And, only telling us after he has ferried the a/c 1.0 hr into position.

C) wrote-up that obscure widget or light bulb or problem that mysteriously cannot be reproduced
QUOTE]



It's not Flame - It's Reality

A.) People get sick overnight for a multitude of reasons. Maybe he woke up and didn't feel he had the mental capacity to fly that day: Doesn't matter.



B.) Don't give me this 21 HOURS OF REST BS. Let’s just say the crew was done at 9PM. 21 Hours later is 6PM. Just because IJII says "21 HOURS" of rest means nothing. So, the crew got in at 9PM, went to bed at 11PM, woke at 7AM. At 6PM the internal clock is ticking down fast. There isn't even a hint of consideration for sleep patterns at this company! Consistent flip-flops of the clock - the company is playing with a time-bomb and when it goes off, it isn’t going to be pretty.



The FAA won’t let us fly after drinking, yet some want us to fly tired when research shows we have better motor skills after a few drinks when compared to being fatigued.



C.) Sounds like an acquisition of making-up write ups?



Again, perception is the key.

 

[Sarka]

Let me clarify...

I knew I was going to have to break out the fire extiguisher after my last post , but I am really just trying to give you guys an idea of why you see some of the crazy stuff you do. Hopefully, we can have some productive discussions about these issues and actually accomplish something that can help us all out. You have your perceptions of schedulers and we have our perceptions of pilots. Like I said, hopefully we can correct some of the "mis-perceptions" we both have.

First, let me reiterate that what I am saying applies only to a very small percentage of the pilots we have. Also, I would not and am not saying that I or any of you should ever advocate ANY unsafe practices. Be it in regards to maintenance, crew rest or whatever. I am one of the few schedulers here that has some actual flight experience (14 years) and I understand "life on the road", fatigue, the body-clock, and all that.

My main point was that, just as there are 1000 variables that affect each flight you fly, there are 1000 variables that can affect the flight schedule and each of those varibles multiply the chance that your schedule will be affected because of a problem caused by someone else or something else that you or I have little or no control over.

Yes, I understand that people get sick or, as LR45JI stated, don't have the mental capacity to fly on any given day. I do not disagree that most times a person DNIF's for entirely legitmate reasons. But, there have been several occassions that certain pilots will DNIF on a fairly regular basis or we have seen certain pilots that seem to have set patterns.

For example, Capt. ABC will call in DNIF on the first day of every tour if his day starts before 1000L. When one guy DNIF's (legitimate or not), it causes us (schedulers) to change someone elses brief in order to cover the trip(s) that they were assigned. I get the blame when you get the 3 AM wakeup call.

When I pilot says they are fatigued, we know that that is an unarguable safety of flight issue and there is nothing we can do about that. That is a no-brainer, set in stone as it should be. In the example I gave of the guy being fatigued, I left out the fact that the guy did it 3 days in a row. All relatively short days (less than 8 hours) during normal hours (9AM-5PM) and with little or no actual flying involved. I'm just saying that there are times that things appear suspicious. I hope I am wrong.

As far as write-up's go, I was not saying that you should not write-up maintenance issues. That is ridiculous. But, when you see one guy write-up 3 or 4 different aircraft in one day for nearly or exactly the same thing when 3 or 4 other crews flew those same aircraft on several legs without incident. You have to wonder. Once again, that is the perception. I also know that you can walk out to almost any aircraft right now and find a "downing" discrepency. I also know that this is just a fact of aviation.

I guess my main point was that while schedulers usually deserve much of your wrath, there are some occassions that some of your own deserve that wrath also. And there are other times, that neither the schedulers nor pilots are to blame.

Lastly, I was simply giving you some abbreviated examples of what I have seen which may or may not be the actual facts. Just as some of you have stories or instances that lead you to believe that "Schedulers are not held accountable", "Schedulers waste millions of dollars of cash on a daily basis", "Netjets give them whatever they want", "Schedulers are inept and incompetant", or my favorite "Schedulers are corrupt". All of which have been posted on this board. Hopefully, with some dialog, we can fix some of this kind of crap and actually work out some solutions to these issues.

 

[Majik]

Hey Sarka,

How does Scheduling determine whether or not to accept a pilot's offer to come out 3 days early in the VII fleet when there are no requests for volunteers in that fleet.

I don't ever offer to extend but I've flown with senior pilots that are able to extend at will when others couldn't buy an extended day. It still goes on, even though Boisture says it doesn't. Do you guys have to justify extended days or are you able to write blank checks with no questions asked?

 

[Sarka]

Majik -

Scheduling doesn't decide this anymore. We used to be able to extend guys or bring them on early, but we had to justify that it was an operational need (i.e. nobody else in the bullpen, no other way to cover trips without sell-off, etc.), but that has been pretty much taken out of our hands completely now. Crew Planning (CP) has to approve pretty much every extention now as far as I know.

You should contact CP directly if you want to come out early or extend. They will send us a list of guys that have been approved. I don't know how they decide who can and who can't.

I still get calls from guys wanting to come out early or extend and usually direct them to CP. I can send an email to CP and let them know when/if we could really use you. Don't know if this has any affect on what they (CP) decide, but figure it can't hurt.

We can still extend 17-day schedule pilots (involuntarily or preferably voluntarily) if you are on a tour of less than 5 days and have not been extended previously in the month. This also may affect days off between tours and compensation days may be required, so it is really discouraged. There are no blank checks though and everything has to be justified.

 

[Grim Reaper]

Sarka

Sounds like you work for Flight Options. I hear the same stuff everyday on row.

Red watch boxes.

 

[FLYLOW22]

B) was too tired to fly that 1.2 hr trip after having 21 hours rest on his second day on the road after amassing a total of 1.5 hrs flight time and about 5 hrs of duty so far on his tour (happened yesterday). And, only telling us after he has ferried the a/c 1.0 hr into position.

21 hours of rest?!?!?!? Maybe on a strech of days off!! As soon as this company realizes that there is a different between SLEEP and REST we will all be aot happier. "Green" and legally rested in the computer is NOT necessarily the case biologically.

I've gotten that call at 2am when I fell asleep at 11pm with a brief for a show at 12 pm the next afternoon. With 3 hours of SLEEP but legal REST you want me to be with it enough to perform 100%?? Nope. Tired. It's just one of the weaknesses of being human.