Originally Posted by RedeyeAV8r
When you deviate on the front end (beginning) of a trip................
Your "Arse" is on the line if you don't make it.
Let's say the scheduled trip begins with a Commercial Deahead from MEM to OAK and the ticket value is say $300 on American Airlines.
Let's say you live in Detroit (poor you). You can request to deviate and make you own reservation from DTW to OAK. If that ticket is cost $350, you will owe the company $50 at the end of the month.
If you can get a ticket for $200 you have a positive balance of $100 to use fo Cabs, limos or another airline ticket later in the month for another trip.
If you live in MEM or choose not to Deviate (take scheduled Deadhead) and it canels for Mainteneace or weather and you don't make it to OAK..................no big deal, you just call Crew skeds and say "What do i do now?
If you deviate and you don't make it to OAK for whatever reason..........your ARSE will be speaking to someone you would prefer not to!
In most cases it is not a problem, but when the Blizzards hit or those Nasty Katrina things happen.........peoples Arses have been handed to them for missing trips.
Take the same example of a front-end deadhead to OAK on American Airlines. It's 2 legs, with a stop in DFW. Let's say you live in Dallas, and deviate. Rather than fly both legs, you plan to fly only the second leg. That should save the Company some money, right?
Your buddy on the same trip takes the scheduled deadhead from MEM, and you're both sitting in the terminal at the gate in DFW when American announces that the flight to OAK has been cancelled due to a mechanical issue. Your non-deviating buddy relaxes and calls control center scheduling and lays the problem in their lap. YOU, on the other hand, commence to panic to find another way to OAK because it is YOUR responsibility to get to OAK on time. Never mind that the both of you are stranded in DFW for the very same reason, because YOU have deviated from the scheduled pairing, YOU get no relief. Your buddy might wind up with a revised pairing that involves travel on the following day, or a live leg that begins in DFW or AFW, or even a deadhead back to MEM - - who knows. You, on the other hand, wind up missing your deviation check-in, missing the report time for your live leg out of OAK, you'll probably lose the pay for the trip, and you'll get to speak to your assistant chief pilot.
Perhaps you both get on a flight that gets to OAK just in time to get minimum rest for the scheduled live leg. You're still not off the hook because you missed the deviation check-in within 100 miles of the airport. You still get to talk to the ACP.
Deviating on front-end deadheads can certainly make commuting easier, but it's not without drawbacks and its own brand of stress.
One of these days, we should all try to take the scheduled deadheads out of Memphis, and see just how many of us actually can get seats.
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