American Airlines scheduling problems

I can't believe they let this get to the press. What were they thinking? Just quietly fix it..
 
The bean counters are at it again. It’s easy to blame the pilots,who sets the schedules?
 
Last December their bidding system gave junior pilots Christmas off while it made senior pilot work.
 
I'd do it for 150%. I spent most of my youth working weekends and holidays. Seems normal to me.
 
Rushie said:
I'd do it for 150%. I spent most of my youth working weekends and holidays. Seems normal to me.
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Same for me. I was single through my 20s, 30s, and 40s. Worked on holidays and weekends for the extra pay.... I mean so the married guys could be home with their family. First time I got a holiday off felt strange for me.
 
Rushie said:
I'd do it for 150%. I spent most of my youth working weekends and holidays. Seems normal to me.
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What if your contract of employment had no provision for such an error by your employer? Would you settle for an ad hoc offer of 150%, if similar situations resulted in, say, 300%? Lots of nits to pick, gonna be interesting.
 
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Zeldman said:
Same for me. I was single through my 20s, 30s, and 40s. Worked on holidays and weekends for the extra pay.... I mean so the married guys could be home with their family. First time I got a holiday off felt strange for me.
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The weird part of the airline seniority system means that folks in their 50's and 60's are in effect 'new guys' and, having worked holidays and weekends previously at a younger age, now might be in the window to do it again, albeit for more money, but still . . . given the chance not to work . . .
 
catmandu said:
The weird part of the airline seniority system means that folks in their 50's and 60's are in effect 'new guys' and, having worked holidays and weekends previously at a younger age, now might be in the window to do it again, albeit for more money, but still . . . given the chance not to work . . .
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But, they are aware of and know that when they take the job. If they don't know, then they haven't research the job or queried their airline buds.
 
catmandu said:
What if your contract of employment had no provision for such an error by your employer? Would you settle for an ad hoc offer of 150%, if similar situations resulted in, say, 300%? Lots of nits to pick, gonna be interesting.
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Well 300>150
 
Their union can negotiate a side letter to allow additional compensation, and the company can agree, not agree, or counter. Done all the time.
 
Sorry about the double post
https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/american-airlines-glitch.107330/
I'm convinced this was a hack.
If I remember correctly (and I may not, it was a long, long time ago) the original airline scheduling system had a diagnostic routine that let us create flights, but didn't include a pilot. We did it that way so it would be obvious, even to management, that is was a dummy test entry.
Sounds like the routine got carried into the later releases.
 
TRocket said:
Agreed. But I would venture to guess they did not intend for it to get out.
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yeah- I think it got out via the union, when AA asked the union to assist. Instead of quietly assisting, I'm betting they sent out a mass notice and somebody (upset) leaked.

Only speculative though.
 
Shepherd said:
Sorry about the double post
https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/american-airlines-glitch.107330/
I'm convinced this was a hack.
If I remember correctly (and I may not, it was a long, long time ago) the original airline scheduling system had a diagnostic routine that let us create flights, but didn't include a pilot. We did it that way so it would be obvious, even to management, that is was a dummy test entry.
Sounds like the routine got carried into the later releases.
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Interesting, but not what happened. The trips were all assigned to pilots already. A scheduling enhancement tool (controlled by the company) was turned on for the pilots as it does every month. Usually the company tightens manning tolerances (for lack of a better description) to about 99%, requiring pilots to trade one trip for another if they needed to get a particular day off after their initial schedule has been assigned, with 'undesirable' trips (like those over holidays) usually not tradable at all. This particular month, the tolerances were set at 0% for an as yet to be determined reason, which allowed pilots to outright drop any trip they had been assigned, without pay (unless they used a vacation day in the drop process). Thus, all the holiday trips got dropped. Some pilots even decided to take the whole month off.
 
catmandu said:
Interesting, but not what happened. The trips were all assigned to pilots already. A scheduling enhancement tool (controlled by the company) was turned on for the pilots as it does every month. Usually the company tightens manning tolerances (for lack of a better description) to about 99%, requiring pilots to trade one trip for another if they needed to get a particular day off after their initial schedule has been assigned, with 'undesirable' trips (like those over holidays) usually not tradable at all. This particular month, the tolerances were set at 0% for an as yet to be determined reason, which allowed pilots to outright drop any trip they had been assigned, without pay (unless they used a vacation day in the drop process). Thus, all the holiday trips got dropped. Some pilots even decided to take the whole month off.
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Like I said above, not a computer glitch but a human factors one.

Tim
 
Ben said:
I can't believe they let this get to the press. What were they thinking? Just quietly fix it..
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Pilot APA Union did the press release. They're saying that the 150% pay is illegal according to the contract as it can't be enforced if pay issues arise. They want a face to face agreement with a approved side letter or they'll tell the pilots to not pick up any flying.

We got 200% at my place as a "please please don't drop Christmas" gesture. Our group has the ability to change our entire schedule without any restrictions. So typically everyone drops the holidays during the trip trade period.
 
Fearless Tower said:
True....and looks like American just posted the Crew Scheduling job on their website....
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did they really??
ARFlyer said:
Pilot APA Union did the press release. They're saying that the 150% pay is illegal according to the contract as it can't be enforced if pay issues arise. They want a face to face agreement with a approved side letter or they'll tell the pilots to not pick up any flying.

We got 200% at my place as a "please please don't drop Christmas" gesture. Our group has the ability to change our entire schedule without any restrictions. So typically everyone drops the holidays during the trip trade period.
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Wow- good for the union actually. They are right about that- too easy for the company to not honor that arrangement.
 
Looks like the APA and the company came to some kind of agreement. Don’t have any details yet, but the union says it expects all flights to be staffed, so I’m guessing the company did a little better than 150%. We’ll see what happens.
 
kayoh190 said:
Looks like the APA and the company came to some kind of agreement. Don’t have any details yet, but the union says it expects all flights to be staffed, so I’m guessing the company did a little better than 150%. We’ll see what happens.
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My guess is they paid off the union, and the pilots will see very little of it.
 
kayoh190 said:
Looks like the APA and the company came to some kind of agreement. Don’t have any details yet, but the union says it expects all flights to be staffed, so I’m guessing the company did a little better than 150%. We’ll see what happens.
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I've read that they agreed on 200%. So let's say you pick up an average 20 hour 4 day. Your a 5 year A320 Captain at $250/hr.

You'd make $10,000 for the one 4 day trip. As a maxed out 777 Captain you'd rake in right under $13,000.

That's just for a low averaged trip of 20 hours!!
 
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