Schedule Synergies

[rjh]

Why do people make labor the enemy when all they are doing is abiding by the Contract that the Union and Company agreed too?

It has to go both ways. There are countless times when crews get upset at scheduling for not doing them a favor with something outside the scope of the contract.

There has to be common sense on BOTH sides.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Am I missing something?

Not singling you out, ilg30/7 - you just asked the right question.....

What lot's of folks seem to be missing was mentioned already - HP does not fly into CLT. Seems like such a minor point, doesn't it? So let's look a little deeper...

Quoting the appropriate portions of the West MEC hotline message on this issue:

"When the crew realized the only plates they had for CLT were in the alternate nav books they looked a little deeper and realized that CLT was listed in the FOM as an alternate airport only. When the Captain brought this to SOC’s attention, they informed him that their manager had conferred with the FAA and it was legal as a regular flight. Not long after, SOC determined that the Captain’s concerns were justified and it was not legal but could be operated as a charter. The Captain then asked to get a charter coordinator and a charter package. The response was that it was not “reallyâ€￾ a charter so these FOM-required items were not “reallyâ€￾ required. Then, they attempted to dispatch it as a supplemental flight with no real FOM guidance."

For those who aren't pilots, what all this means is this. The crew didn't have the full complement of arrival, departure, and approach plates since CLT is only an alternate for West. That makes it illegal to operate as a regular flight. So SOC tried to make it a charter, but without the charter package containing the appropriate arrival, departure, and approach plates, it was still illegal to operate the flight. The final attempt was to dispatch the flight outside the rules of the FOM - again illegal since the FAA requires us to operate per the FOM.

Now for the broader question of who's entitled to fly what under the transition agreement, here's what the East MEC has to say:

"However, here is an example of some things we have seen that are not acceptable under the agreement: An America West airplane in LAX went out of service for mechanical repair. Our crew that was to fly to PHL was taken off their route and pairing and flew the America West route LAX-PHX in replace of the mechanical America West plane. This is not acceptable under the Transition Agreement. If assigned this type of flying, you need to let the scheduler know this is not acceptable under the Transition Agreement, and you then need to call your ALPA representative. Under the principle of "fly now, grieve later," do not refuse the flight if your Chief Pilot or his designee orders you to fly."

So this will ultimately be settled under the dispute resolution mechanism in the transition agreement. If that was the only issue - what's allowed under the agreement - the crew would have "flown then and grieved later".

The issue was legality, and as much as most of us dislike inconveniencing passengers, the potential of forfeiting one's career by knowingly violating the FAR's just isn't worth it. Since the FAA supposedly knew about this flight, all they had to do was have someone waiting to meet the flight in CLT and ask to see the appropriate plates. No plates - bye bye license....

Jim

 

[supercruiser]

Another quote from the transition agreement that was inadvertantly omitted with the first one:

"The aircraft (including orders and options to purchase or lease aircraft)and the OPERATIONS of each of America West and US Airways will remain separated."

 

[ClueByFour]

These extra sections are NOT a contractual issue, since they are West airplanes, with West Crews or East airplanes with East Crews. Every time one of these extra sections ahve been set up, the East usually operates flawlessly, but the West crews are always balking at the "extra" flying. This recent PHX-CLT-PHX extra section ended up canceling, after inconveniencing 160 customer for 8 hours, all because some Pilot(s) were unable to comprehend what is allowable and what is a contract violation.

It sounds to me like it might have been a legality thing under the FAR/FOMs. That said, even if it had been legal (from the ALT standpoint, having the right plates, etc) why not simply have the PHX (presumably) chief pilot order the crew to fly the flight?

If the PHX SOC tried to sneak a "not quite charter" in and make the crew potentially eat the FAA on the other end, it's tough to blame the captains who refused to fly it.

 

[ilg30/7]

Jim,

Thanks for the clarification. Agree that the flight should have operated as a charter.

Another quote from the transition agreement that was inadvertantly omitted with the first one:

"The aircraft (including orders and options to purchase or lease aircraft)and the OPERATIONS of each of America West and US Airways will remain separated."

Super,

I have not read the entire transition agreement, but the quotes from it that you have supplied simply do not add up to a restriction on extra section flying to cover cancellations, provided all other lagalities are adhered to. JMHO.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Agree that the flight should have operated as a charter.

That's the amazing thing to me - all that had to be done was get a charter kit to the gate and all this would have been avoided. Failure to do that one simple thing, and we have a page or two of "those @%$#& pilots" when all the pilot's in question wanted to do was operate legally.

Jim

 

[rjh]

"However, here is an example of some things we have seen that are not acceptable under the agreement: An America West airplane in LAX went out of service for mechanical repair. Our crew that was to fly to PHL was taken off their route and pairing and flew the America West route LAX-PHX in replace of the mechanical America West plane. This is not acceptable under the Transition Agreement. If assigned this type of flying, you need to let the scheduler know this is not acceptable under the Transition Agreement, and you then need to call your ALPA representative. Under the principle of "fly now, grieve later," do not refuse the flight if your Chief Pilot or his designee orders you to fly."


Jim

Jim, I definitely agree that the whole CLT mess was completely illegal under FOM. But, how is this LAX example not acceptable under the contracts?

The TA only mentions flying to HI, Europe and Caribbean. To me, this LAX example would simply be an extra section. Of course I'm not familiar with East contracts . but under the West contract, the pilots could have been re-rerouted to fly such a pairing--as long as they were released within 4 hours of their originally scheduled release.

Does the TA SPECIFIALLY say that crews can't operate extra sections due to a canellation from the "other side"?

 

[Walmartgreeter]

Gosh, I have not used these words in a couple of years, since the management under that liar Dave.....but do the pilots of U still work for liars and thieves? Seems like they do. Best. Greeter.

 

[tadjr]

Since both sides will eventually have to have the charts for all the cities the combined carrier flies to, why not just get them issued sooner rather than later? Also whatever paperwork has to be done to get CLT as a "regular" city instead of a charter city should be done asap (and any other combined city that could see a flight from the other side).

 

[rjh]

Gosh, I have not used these words in a couple of years, since the management under that liar Dave.....but do the pilots of U still work for liars and thieves? Seems like they do. Best. Greeter.

Hmm . .
1. Flight gets cancelled for legitimate reasons
2. Crew members originally scheduled to fly get pay protected
3. Passengers taken care of by scheduling an extra section on available equipment.

How does that make management liars and thieves???????

 

[john john]

The company could resolve this issue anytime they want by having Jerry Glass discuss this with the joint negotiating committee. But no they stonewall and do it anyway and force the unions to file grievances, which take forever until enough time passes to make the point moot.

The bottom line is you should be mad at US Airways management for not resolving this with ALPA the first time it happened. They COULD but they DON'T WANT TO. Get it? They'd rather play this game with the unions with you customers caught in the middle.

Classic J.G. this is what is going on at all levels of the unions on the property. Expect more if J.G. and gang are still at the table. And all customer service agents the stakes just got higher at the pilots negotiating table something CWA members should take note of.

 

[Walmartgreeter]

How does that make management liars and thieves???????



They are not following the contract....and they continue to get away with it. A line has to be drawn. Pay protection sounds ok on paper...but it does not help the lowly reserve pilot or guy on the street who is not used because management can just "do what they please," the contract be damned. Greeter.

 

[Elevation]

That's the amazing thing to me - all that had to be done was get a charter kit to the gate and all this would have been avoided. Failure to do that one simple thing, and we have a page or two of "those @%$#& pilots" when all the pilot's in question wanted to do was operate legally.

Jim

A little more than a charter kit I believe. Charter Kit, charter coordinator and tech which I hinted
at in my previous post. I will have to look it up to be sure though.

Elevation

 

[BoeingBoy]

Jim, I definitely agree that the whole CLT mess was completely illegal under FOM. But, how is this LAX example not acceptable under the contracts?

Just my assumption, since the message from the union (part of which you referenced) didn't go into detail....

Presumably, it falls under the "not covered" theory - the company can swap scheduled flying around (like East starting to fly former West routes and vice versa), but nothing is specified in the TA about unscheduled flying. So the company apparently takes the stance that since it's not specifically forbidden it's ok while the union says that since it's not specifically allowed it's a violation of the agreement.

There potentially are also pay issues, though I'm not that familiar with the West contract. On the East side, pay protection for a cancellation only applies to the last trip of the month. Any other trip and there's no pay protection.

There's also pay protection if the trip is operated by another plane/crew, but does that apply if the different plane/crew is from the other "side" of the airline?

Last, there's the issue of the block hours "belonging" to the other side - while the company can publish schedules with either side flying any routes (other than HI/Europe/Caribbean as specified in the TA), the block time as scheduled "belongs" to whichever side is scheduled to fly it. The purpose of the TA language covering shifting airplanes from one side to the other is to prevent the shifting of time from one side to the other. Something like the LAX mechanical being covered by a plane/crew from the other side shifts that time to the other side.

A little more than a charter kit I believe. Charter Kit, charter coordinator and tech which I hinted at in my previous post. I will have to look it up to be sure though.

Elevation

You're correct - it would be more than just supplying the charter kit. I assume, but certainly don't know, that the "charter coordinator" involves nothing more than specifying someone in SOC or some such. Don't know about the "tech", but do wonder if anyone in CLT is qualified to do W&B, etc on the West flights, or approved to work on the plane if maintenance happened to be needed.

Jim

 

[rjh]

How does that make management liars and thieves???????



They are not following the contract....and they continue to get away with it. A line has to be drawn. Pay protection sounds ok on paper...but it does not help the lowly reserve pilot or guy on the street who is not used because management can just "do what they please," the contract be damned. Greeter.

Well, if the flight were simply cancelled and no extra section were run--how would THAT help the reserve guy????? Extra sections aren't done "just because"--they are done because of a shortage of equipment from the other airline. Believe me, the employees in SOC/OCC have better things to do than dream up extra sections just to piss off the crewmembers.

Where in the contract or TA does it SPECIFICALLY state that one airline can't run an extra section when demand dictates (NOT counting trips to HI, Europe, and the Caribbean)? That's all that's going on. One airline has to cancel flights becuase of MX issues. The passengers are taken care of by flying them on another airline. That airline then decides to run an extra section because they have enough passengers to fill the plane, and the availble equipment and crews to run the extra section.

And again, there are many crewmembers that think they can ignore the contract whenever. The west has several commuters between PHX & LAS. When they decide not to take the deadhead flight from their domicile and meet the crews, theya re supposed to notify scheduling. They get pissy when they don't do this and are called by scheduling to find out where they are. Crew members also "expect" schedulers to "help them out" and circumvent hte contract. Except in those cases--they are NOT helping the passegners whatsoever. In the first example, they could be huting the passenger by a seat not being available when it could be.