Sarka
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2003
- Posts
- 155
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.
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.
