More Crew Cancellations This Weekend

[luvthe9]

Don't crews have to bid their vacation time months in advance? Shouldn't whomever is in charge of crew scheduling know this, and take these known absences into account?

More like a year in advance, gee you have a great idea. Tempe management you should hire this person!!!!!

 

[flygirl74]

If I'm not mistaken, don't most other employee groups, other than flight attendants and pilots, receive additional pay as an incentive to work on certain holidays? This positive approach seems to work pretty well; I haven't read any posts about serious shortages of ground personnel. The company, however, believes its flight personnel don't need or deserve any holiday pay. They are expected to dutifully and happily be completely away from their families for up to four days, over Christmas and New Years. Depending on one's seniority (or lack thereof) some crew members are assigned trips like this, year after year. The bottom line is, these cancellations cost the company a lot of money, and employee morale suffers among all affected employee groups. The easy solution, offer holiday pay (time and a half or double time) to flight crews. There are those who would jump at the chance to earn a few extra bucks, and the airline would run much more smoothly and efficiently, resulting in happier employees and customers.

Depending on one's years of service and pay scale, and going by the example used in our contract, holiday pay basically come to 127.50 before taxes. Don't forget to take into account that reserves are mostly working the holdiay after sitting around all month waiting for the phone to ring. Reserves get a monthly stipend whether they work or not, but every day they come to work it is for "free". Sure, one gets per diem, but the Least Time Order system is designed so that NO ONE ever times out. I worked nine days this month and only have 38 hours. As for f/a's, only 70 called out for Xmas in PHL which didn't matter because there was plenty of other reserves.
As for bidding vacation - we bid in August and the results are out in October for the following year. That leaves a couple of months for planning.
Touching on pilot shortages - there is a yearly cap on hours a pilot can fly. 1000 hours?? Maybe a pilot can go into this fruther since I don't understand the specifics. But basically, if there are less pilots to begin with, then the remainder have to pick up the slack. Eventually, they reach their cap and are done for the year. Maybe BoeingBoy or busdriver will be on later and expand on this.

 

[DuffMan]

The main reason we are short on crews - specifically, Airbus crews is because when the company sold the 190's they used the busses to absorb the vast majority of flying being vacated by the EMB's. This extra flying over-extended the crews, resulting in the shortage we are now experiencing.

 

[SOA2]

Years ago I had a flight home from CDG on the last day of a month canceled because there wasn't a crew for the flight that was supposed to bring the aircraft to CDG. So, those folks traveling to CDG on the 29th had to be "re-accommodated" and were those of us departing CDG on the 30th. (This process actually was handled quite well.) Subsequently, I learned from USAirways employees that I should never plan to fly on US at the end of the month because this was not an uncommon occurrence.

 

[SparrowHawk]

More like a year in advance, gee you have a great idea. Tempe management you should hire this person!!!!!

I happen to know "this person" and she is a VP level position in her company.

Truth is that if he/she was employed by US she would be branded as a "Troublemaker" for actually thinking through a problem to a logical solution.

Second point is US Airways couldn't afford her salary.

One does get what one pays for

 

[expressedndepressed]

So in a nutshell, US is selling a service, that they knowingly cannot provide.........

 

[ItsJustAJob]

So in a nutshell, US is selling a service, that they knowingly cannot provide.........

BINGO....they've been doing it for years. Apparently the revenue losses and passenger inconveniences are in the "acceptable loss" category.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Touching on pilot shortages - there is a yearly cap on hours a pilot can fly. 1000 hours??

That's right so I'll add just one clarification for those not familiar with the world of flight/duty time limits. The 1000 hours is flight time only - not pay time. Pay for vacation, training, sick, deadhead, duty rigs (of which there is little overall), etc do not count toward the 1000 hour yearly limit. Just ballpark, but a pilot would have to average close to 91 flight hours/month after taking out 3 weeks of vacation, 4 days of training, and 2-3 days of sick.

Jim

 

[SS255]

So in a nutshell, US is selling a service, that they knowingly cannot provide.........

If they didn't know it at the time they sold the service, do they get a get-out-of-jail-free card?

Failing to plan is planning to fail.

 

[SparrowHawk]

If they didn't know it at the time they sold the service, do they get a get-out-of-jail-free card?

Failing to plan is planning to fail.

Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

 

[Harry Callahan]

This stuff is now biting them in the rear end.

 

[skyflyr69]

Can someone explain this? Is this because available crews have timed out or is there something else going on here? I seem to recall this happens almost every year at US, but I haven't seen it as bad at other carriers...

Quite sad actually....

TIC TOC,, wait till tomorrow. Today is pay freeze termination date. C or C. Cheers for Cash 😉)

 

[tadjr]

Just got a phone call that they've now canx 2 of our 3 main PHL afternoon International flight conx for tomorrow. Told we dont have but one or two seats to PHL showing until Monday. Happy New Year! And everyone in Tempe is enjoying their holiday weekend! :down: :down:

Quit selling seats NOW if you dont have the crew for next week to fly these planes!!!!! :angry: :angry: :angry:

You do realize you're killing those of us working the front lines with this dont you? Or maybe the goal is to have some senior agents drop dead from the stress? 🙄 😛h34r:

 

[SparrowHawk]

Tadjr,

Once you get past the fact they don't give a fat rats arse about the customer or you for that matter I'd think life would mellow out for you. it did for me

 

[tadjr]

I've come to that realization a long time ago. Doesnt mean that venting every now and then doesnt help. Plus, I feel bad for the customers that have to endure it and my fellow agents and for some twisted reason after 25 years I still care about my job and doing it well (even with the * equipment and system we have to work with). How many days of people yelling at you can you take without something happening? Many agents have just turned off the switch, hence the "they didnt care" attitude seen in many complaint letters. Its a self defense mechanism that unfortunately many agents have resorted to to get thru the day (after day of the same stuff). All of this thrown in with the constant management intimidation and threats from other job issues and you have one big happy workplace!
Unfortunately those in charge of this (management or not) dont seem to learn from past mistakes and the only people that seem to be held accountable are those on the front line. How about some reverse accountability every now and then? Will this even make the ABOUTUS paper or will they pretend that it didnt even happen? Not that their excuses will do anything to make this weekend and last weekend any more bearable, but for someone to at least man up and say we screwed up AGAIN!!!!! would be a start.