Originally Posted by
ftrpilot
Its not exactly a voluntary thing. You could have plans with your kids for you three soft days an have to send you out to work....
Fortunatly it doesent happen to often at comair. We seem to have several pilots call us daily wanting to pick up extra-fly.
Alot of pilots see us as evil people, well its are job to get flights covered any way possibe within the compounds of the contract. I take no pleasure sending a guy back out when he has been flying already for 4 days. Alot of people seem to think that i do. It sucks when your on reserve, im sure im going to hate every min of it. Always remember keep up on your contract and watch your own flying times. Alot of people seem to forget its a shared responsibility. Im human and im an inperfect being, we make mistakes. Im subject to the FAA fines too.
I agree. Most schedulers I know are good people. The problem at ASA is that it is NOT an open system as it is at COMAIR. Because of this it is open to abuses- I have known pilots to use bribes to get what they want. Go up to crew scheduling during holidays and there is stuff all over that FAs and pilots give them in an attempt to get what they want. While on reserve pilots junior to me either got to fly or got time off when I wanted one or the other. Nothing we can do under the current contract. I was once given a relief line with 0 hours sitting reserve over holidays, while some one junior got a line with 85 hours and off on the holidays. Nothing I could do (although I think this has been changed). Then, even though I had a relief line that had me sit reserve all month, junior pilots (who knew someone in crew scheduling), who were actually on reserve got to fly more than I did. I always got called in for the 20 minute flight to Columbus, overnight, then fly back. Gee, thanks.
In addition, I have had scheduling not release me from flights that I could not legally do until I timed out; I have had them make me sit around until I timed out at a maintenance base for a test flight on a plane that maintenance said would not be ready for several days. I have had them JM me, make me DH to an outstation on an ATR to pick up a flight. The crew on the ATR that flew me up got out of the cockpit and sat in the back- they were called in off reserve to fly the airplane up. They could have flown it back, but my crew was JM'd to do it. Then I'm told at the outstation that I have to wait for an inbound crew. A EMB-120 comes in, and off gets another DH crew. The reserve crew that flew the ATR up is confused as this is the crew that flew the same ATR into ATL. The crew that came in on the ATR is confused because the ATR that I am preparing to fly back is the one from their trip, and THEY are supposed to fly it back. So we had three crews used for one flight. Wasted company money, and I did not make it home for dinner that night.
Another problem with JMing at ASA. It is supposed to be based on seniority, but ALPA has not had access to crew scheduling for years, so we have to take the company at their word.