Deadhead
 

Looking for advice on how to manage a long day trip that includes a planned deadhead. I'm a short call reserve captain. Got a quick call to do a Cabo turn out of CLT. We would fly the leg to Cabo and then deadhead back. Two pilots deadheaded down with us to fly back. 10 am departure time. Leg down took 5+59, leg back was 4+28. Landed in CLT at 2130.

My questions are this: How many crew meals should have been boarded for us and the deadhead pilots out of CLT? We would be flying over two meal periods, lunch and dinner How do you know if crew meals would be provided from Cabo if you've never flown this trip before? (none were). What does our contract say about required seating for deadheads? When should we get our boarding passes for the deadhead back? In CLT before departure? (That's what we did. Took awhile And it required a call to systems to get us out of center seats.) Bonus question: Our PHX based flight attendants said they were illegal contractually to fly back to CLT because the planned block time for the day was going to exceed ten hours. We delayed about 30 minutes before they were able to contact their schedulers for clarification who told them they were legally scheduled for less than ten hours originally. Was that correct for them?

Thanks for any suggestions.

If you view the A320 CLT Pairings for January on Wings: >Flight Operations >Pilot Lines (East) >Pilot Lines (East) then you find your pairing number 93011. The chevrons around the airport code for a city (ex. <CLT>) indicate that a crew meal is scheduled there. As you can see from the pairing, you were not scheduled for a crew meal on the return DH flight back to CLT.

The crew meal information for the pilots that DH down to SJD, and then operated the return flight to CLT would be shown on their pairing number 93010. If you don't know the pairing numbers, you can alternatively look up all crew meal information also on Wings: >Flight Operations >Crew Meals >Domestic Pilot Crew Meals January 2016 (in either .pdf or .xls format)

FA's are scheduled only for flight time, says so in the header above the duty time limits in their contract. I don't think they have any actual duty limits as far as timing out goes. Huge misconception among their group.

If you don't have a scheduled paring you have to go through that crew meal flow chart. Yes, it's as complicated as LAA can make it.

Good info but difficult to remember in the heat of the battle and five other things going on at the gate. Much easier to do and remember if you are a blockholder and know your schedule in advance and can look at everything that relates to your trip a day ahead of time. It's difficult for short call reserves flying unusual trips even when we do our best to take it slow.

Got some answers to my own questions from Contract Compliance and scheduling supervisors:

There is no contract language specifying which seats we get for non-oceanic or domestic deadheads. When the schedule is uploaded about 6 weeks out they attempt to book aisle or window seats if available, but it is not required. The record locator should be available prior to departure to get your boarding pass early and you can attempt to get the agent to swap seats for you if you a center.

Our flight to Cabo was catered correctly with one meal for each pilot working even though we worked over two meal periods. The deadhead crew working the flight back was supposed to get their meals catered in Cabo. Don't know if they got them. I will do a better job in the future of checking on the required meals beyond asking the FA's if we were catered any.

On Jetnet, if I have a scheduled DH, I make it a point to check in for it 24 hours in advance. I know this wouldn't have helped you at all with a short call, but perhaps it will someday. You can check in 24 hours in advance for your positive space DHs and it will issue you the 'best available' seat and allow you to put yourself on the list for the upgrade. I know this doesn't address your crew meal issue, but it helps avoid those dreaded middle seats.

You can download the pairings to your iPad at the beginning of every month. That way you can look it up whenever you need to. I save it to Adobe.

I realize the possibility that the pairings only show meals for one direction per crew, but I don't think that actually meets the contractual requirements. If SJD is a catering station (and I don't know or certain whether it is, but it is shown as a "Crew Meal Boarding Catering Station" on Wings), then both flights meet the criteria for a meal in and of themselves, based on the very first step of the flow chart...

"Do*the*adjusted*block*times*start*before*and*end* after*the*meal*period?"

The first leg had adjusted block times of 0900-1540, which starts before and ends after lunch. Lunch should be provided if it departs from a catering station.

The second leg had adjusted block times of 1545-2047, which starts before and ends after dinner. Dinner should be provided if it departs from a catering station.

Even if the legs did not individually qualify for meals, there is also a requirement for a minimum of 2 meals (or sufficient ground time, which wasn't scheduled in this pairing, taking into account the adjusted block times) for duty periods scheduled over 10:30. This pairing was scheduled for 11:47 duty, this requiring a minimum of 2 meals.

I know it's been a few days, but if you have any receipts for food in SJD, in flight BOB, or from after you arrived in CLT, I'd submit an expense report, along with a copy of the flow chart with the minimum meal requirement circled to indicate why you should have gotten a second meal.

Thanks to the two previous posters. Excellent info and techniques. It's nice when a forum actually proves useful.