Originally Posted by
TED74
... Just like the old days when we functioned just fine with phone calls, when the company reaches out to me I want to know there’s a good chance I can have the offered work.
Originally Posted by
TED74
... If the company put a few hours of effort into modernizing the green slip and white slip entry process they could eliminate a ton of drag for the system. Seeing as how they already underpay schedulers and understaff all departments for IROPs, though, they’ve shown they have no wisdom about where to invest for actual savings and efficiency and seem not to care that we regularly implode in flight ops.
Originally Posted by
BlueSkies
I certainly think there must be batch size limits. Before we had batch sizes I was getting calls at 2 or 3am for a rotations that sometimes reported in more than 12 hours where I was the 15th or 20th pilot in line. So now I'm awake and I check ARCOS and #2 and #5 pilots have already said they want it. And that was a GS with parameters I would fly, not a fishing expedition.
That kind of incompetence and total disregard for crew members is why we need batch sizes. I agree we might need to go to percentage based or more dynamic sizes based on time to report.
I shouldn't have to turn my phone off when I'm ready and willing to fly because they are incapable of not nuisance calling 50 pilots. We did not make this staffing 'situation', let's not talk concessions to fix their self-induced crunch.
+1 to all the above.
"Measure with a micrometer, cut with an axe" is not always a good axiom. We need to take smaller bites at the problem, vice making huge/wild changes (back to what we had before the batch size LOA - and many will recall
that LOA was WIDELY demanded by the pilot group.)
If I were King, I would put more transparency into the system on all levels. Once the ARCOS Batch has started to run, the App can be made to 'unhide' the callouts above you, but the phone call only comes when/if it gets down to
you. IOW, everybody can "see" the callout at the same time. That way you can follow the slips as they trickle down, particularly when there is a huge avalanche coming, well before it gets to you. Order them accordingly, and wait for your 'batch' to come - or not. People aren't interrupted/called too early, but you have a lot more time to respond. If you miss all that, the call comes and it's just like it is today.
A tweak to Batch sized is warranted. But my biggest beef with opening the aperture on batch sizes, especially to eliminating batches altogether, is getting woken up in the middle of the night for a trip I have
no chance at getting. I don't mind the 0100 phone call if I have a strong chance at it, but otherwise, I shouldn't have to put my phone on silent so I can sleep only to miss a call I would have taken. But frankly, I don't want the 6-9 AROCS calls per day that I sometimes get becoming the norm, which would happen with eliminating of batch sizes.
Additionally, I would require
every single use of 23.M.7 would require TWO inputs on the daily trip coverage. The first is the IA, the second is the 'senior pilot' getting paid. FULL TRANSPARENCY.
NO EXCEPTIONS.