Originally Posted by
acl65pilot
No the "reality" is that if DAL went with a SMS technology which is existing and really cheap, many pilots and fa's would claim they did not get the text. This would in effect nullify any benefit for the company and for the pilots. It would a "nice to know" kind of item, but with no real operational impact. That is the "issue" with SMS.
Moving to a message read notification like RIM software et al, requires money and outfitting the pilot and FA communities with a device that could knowingly support the software. Well 20K FA's and 12K pilots is a ton of a expenditure for this option. AKA, the ROI is very low. Add to the fact that some may opt not to read it, not know how to read it, or lose the device, sink it in a toilet, etc. See the issues with the true cure all? Now multiply the issues you have had with your phone by 30K+ and it is a department unto itself.
That is why DAL is taking the time to do this correctly, and for the most bang for their buck. It is not that they do not care, it is that they are actually trying to find a solution that will not cost close to 10 million bucks.
That's exactly what I'm talking about - from what I got from the road show was - it's a nice idea to have immediate notification to the crews about changes to their schedule, but what we have now works. The ROI just isn't there when it comes to a way of confirmed notification of a trip or reroute (aka blackberry). The company already has systems in place (call you on your phone, or ACARS message) that are either inexpensive (phone call) or piggybacked onto other systems (ACARS).
I'm not against a simple solution - I just think that we're not going to see anything that costs money - which leads to a simple solution. But - as we've seen here, what we think is simple (online jumpseat booking) took a while to get implemented, and required a cost savings (eliminating the XCM desk).
In the end, I think we'll see an option in iCrew saying "If you want notification of a change to your schedule, enter you email address here. Delta is not responsible for the cost of receiving any notifications." They won't have a place to get a TXT message on your phone, because that probably costs Delta some money to send. Most cellphone providers have a way of receiving a txt message from an email. (ie,
[email protected] or whatever).