I heart crew scheduling!

Screaming_Emu

Joe Conventional
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So they call me early this afternoon to give me a four day trip. They gave me plenty of notice so I get my bags packed, take care of some errands and then head up to the airport.

As I get to the airport my phone beeps telling me I have a new voicemail, but it never rang. So I check to see what it says and I hear "hi this is crew scheduling, please call us for a change in your schedule"

I call them back and get the "your call will be answered in the order it was received" for a good 15 mins...while I'm on hold I get a call waiting..

"Hi, this is crew scheduling...a lineholder picked up your trip so we don't need you anymore"
"Umm...well ok, I'm kinda at the airport already"
"Oh....sorry."
"Any chance I can get released since I drove all the way out here for nothing?"
"nope...you're back on reserve until midnight"
"That's fantastic"

Well at least gas is cheap....:sarcasm:
 
Oh man, that sucks! But at least you're at the airport, pimping the epaulets and the chicks dig it!
 
CS' fault?

It sounds like the contract does not have a tight enough restriction on when a lineholder can no longer take a trip from a reserve.

Where I work it is 9 hours if the reserve pilot is on short call. Is there any restriction at all or can a lineholder just take anything away from a reserve pilot right up until report time?
 
Re: CS' fault?

I wonder what the rationale is behind that ability. Kind of weird.
 
Oh man, that sucks! But at least you're at the airport, pimping the epaulets and the chicks dig it!

No...I have 3 stripes instead of two, so the women scorn me.

Actually while I was AT the airport I didn't make it past the employee lot.

I'm looking through the contract right now trying to figure out if there's anything that protects against what they did. Contracts are boring.

Ok, basically the way I read it as far as how assigning open time goes it should go to a reserve pilot, extending an already working pilot, supervisory pilot, and then any pilot that volunteers for open time. Unfortunately all the way up to the volunteer it says "company can opt to skip such pilot".
 
I call them back and get the "your call will be answered in the order it was received" for a good 15 mins...while I'm on hold I get a call waiting..

Think it's about time you got a hold of one of the direct lines to scheduling. They hate it, but they aren't gonna just hang up on ya.

Unless you like the soothing sounds of nora jones and coldplay everytime you call. :)
 
Re: CS' fault?

Where I work it is 9 hours if the reserve pilot is on short call. Is there any restriction at all or can a lineholder just take anything away from a reserve pilot right up until report time?

I just looked but couldn't find anything. Maybe when surreal reads this he'll have an idea. I bet he has this thing memorized ;-)
 
The part I'm really surprised about was that my phone didn't start ringing as soon as I got home with another so called trip.
 
I think our CS works the opposite. I tried picking up trips as a line holders, and I always go "no longer in open time" b/c they had assigned it to a reserve already. I actually got some $$$ out of it a couple of times b/c it was still within the window that line holders got first dibs. If it's outside of that window, it's going to a reserve guy since they probably won't break guarantee anyway. Line holder getting means more $$$ the company has to pay out.
 
Call your union rep. I find it hard to believe that you don't have any protections at all when this happens.

I might just do that tomorrow...cause this is the 2nd time that has happened. Only last time I had just gotten down the road from my house.
 
Call PD now. . .not tomorrow. Anything like this - he needs to be in the loop from the start, otherwise we can't put an end to this sillyness.

You do know who PD is right? :)
 
Throw dispatch into that mix - operated one of several flights Sunday night that got to the destination and were told there that we were cancelled. 'Um, why are you guys here? This flight was cancelled!'

:banghead:
 
Do you have any early report pay/language in your contract? I believe if we are on reserve and we show at the airport and the flight has been canceled or given to someone else then we are guaranteed a few hours pay.
 
Not to one up your story... I work for the same airline, but on the ATR side... I have been called in multiple times and actually checked in on the computer only to be told to go home. This has happened 4 times in the past 3 months. On two other occasions I was on the crew bus about to hit my stop on D concourse when I received the call... I checked into it, and being on reserve they basically have you by the balls. It sucks. I could go on and on about my many problems with CS.
 
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