There may be a cost advantage to flying Pilots and Flight Attendants seperately, but operationally, it creates a tremendous challenge. Imagine what it will be like in PHL on an ATC day with delays in excess of 4 hours. Imagine, when we are in full deice mode in PHL, LGA, BOS. 1 delayed flight has the potential to delay 2 additional flights, if the crews change airplanes. Now multiply this by the 100's of flights in PHL in the afternoon. Now compound the problem when crew scheduling has to contact the Pilots for one thing, the F/A's for another. Trip repair would be a nightmare.....and we have seen that in cases like Hurricane Hugo or the blizzards in the North East. As it is now, we are able to recover the airline from a bad operation fairly quickly. Previously, when crews were not traveling together, it took much longer to recover. I can't tell you how many flights I worked where you have Pilots and no F/A's, or F/A's and no pilots. 1-2 diversions and you can screw up a bank of flights.
While having crews work seperately may work for HP and the environment they operate in, having crews work seperately at US and the envirnoment we work in would compound the nightmare. Any cost savings you would see from working F/A's seperately would be flushed down the toilet on a thunderstorm night in PHL. Ask yourself, how many truly good operating days do we have in PHL, LGA, BOS versus the bad days? PHL especially. When a ship in the river can cause a ground delay program and diversions you know you are in trouble.
Hey, that is just my opinion. I have seen PI/US operate with crews together and seperate and I can tell you, from an operational stand point, we operate and recover much faster having crews stay together.
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