Originally Posted by
tunes
-no, that's just silly.
-how to contact the committee since this change has gone out probably 5 times since the phones were turned off a few months ago.
- there are people available to answer real time FAR issues 24/7. Every other issue is not time critical. To have 24/7 every scheduling question support would probably be 10 more full time FPL people at a minimum--completely unnecessary. Just because you want an answer to something immediately, doesn't make it truly time critical. The way to contact the committee was changed to get answers to pilots faster--and that's exactly what it has done. We would have pilots email in, then call 45 min later because they didnt get a response to their email they just sent. We work on a first in first out basis.
- sounds like you want to volunteer to join the committee?
So when you call a 1-800 number and they let you know your wait time or place in que, that's silly? No, actually it's pretty smart and people appreciate the honestly. If we are going full internet on scheduling help, it's really the least they could do. Not because anyone is entitled, but because it's reasonable and smart to maintain confidence and transparency in the system.
I personally believe that we provide ALPA with an adequate budget to be assisting pilots by phone (as an option) with scheduling questions. If a pilot wants an answer right away, that is their right. They provide adequate resources to ALPA so that no persons' questions should be divided into time critical or not buckets. Now, if Scheduling Help is an entirely unpaid, volunteer department, then I entirely rescind my suggestion and we should be thankful for what we get. I've personally volunteered a minimum of 1,000 hours of unpaid volunteer union work and never received a dime of compensation. If you volunteer your own time, then you owe me nothing, I owe you. But as far as I know, we have paid volunteers and staff doing that work. If in your opinion, you would rather keep your ALPA Monthly magazine and Family Affairs Committee social budget over an additional full time scheduler answering calls, then that's your right. I personally believe that the budget should begin with building out the most utilized ALPA resource (Scheduling Help), and then go from there. I have suggested to my reps that we poll the pilots on this issue, and put forth a resolution reallocating a higher percentage of the budget to a robust Scheduling Help department.