Originally Posted by Meworry?
Yes. The Crewmember Manpower Planning Team includes Chief Pilots, Crew Services, Finance (Darien), and the Scheduling Committee. Might be a few other cats and dogs. John Couluris, soon to be head of Crew Services and a JFK based FO, has developed some of his own manpower planning tools to feed into the CMPT. They meet monthly. Sounds like another tough summer, with things beginning to improve in September (yep, that sounds familiar, but I'm optimistic. I think John will work out well).
I've got my fingers crossed on this one. But so far this year the manning has not be good. Too many CAPT reserves, not enough FO reserves, now there are not enought reserves for both seats! Just check out the reservse available during the weekends and it is even worse. Not to menion anyone who is sick and IROPs. I know the three Ds said that last summers lack of reserves would never happen again, but with what has happend so far (MAR,APR,MAY) I have no security that it will work this summer.
I can only see a few ways to fix this problems.
1. Increase the hours per pilot to 90+ hours. (85min, 90tgt, 95max) Easy to do, they just need to set the parameters in Classbid and it is done.
2. Increase the productivity of the lines so guys still keep quality. The scheduling committee needs to take out some of the imputs/locks/limits in the optimizer that limit the productivity and get the most productive pairings they can, even if it cost the company some $$$ in hotel bills, deadheads, etc. If not, the number of sick pilots will increase as the PTO goes down like it has every summer so far.(maybe not right, but a fact of life so far at JB)
3. Increase the total number of reserves. Not easy to do, and it should have been done 6 months ago. Since the manning plan has been so messed up so far this year and the number of reserves often below the minimum, especially on the weekends and holidays. I have no confidence it will be fixed this summer.
I am also concerned when I see the Darien (finance) guys involved in operational decisions. I know saving money is the way we operate, but being frugal sometimes takes down the wrong path or a path that doesn't fix the problem or makes worse in an effort to save money.
Maybe with John Couluris running the show (does this mean he is replacing Rich Galloway?) and the pilots point of view, things will be different. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
Good luck to all of us...
Just my opinion
FNG