machz990

Recently the deviation procedure in VIPS changed without notice. On an international flight with a front end D/H and multiple legs (example MEM-DTW-CDG) you used to be able to deviate on the short leg and retain the long ocean crossing leg to arrive in position at the scheduled time. This preserved the ground transportation when you arrived. Now when you go into VIPS the box to check for deviating is still right there in front of the short domestic leg but missing in front of the international leg. However when you check the box for the short domestic leg it deviates you on the entire deadhead. Have any of you been affected by this and what is your opinion? Have you contacted anyone about it and been provided a reasonable explanation?

I can understand having a policy where if you deviate and then arrive at the layover destination at a different time from scheduled you should be on your own. But I don't agree with flying on the scheduled D/H leg into your layover city and having no GT. We've had GT for the last several years by retaining the final international leg but now it's been removed. You could be sitting next to a non-deviating crewmember on the same flight for the past 9 hours and he will have GT and you won't. And funding for GT is totally separate from airline ticketing so I'm not quite understanding the rationale behind this recent change.

TonyC

I haven't seen what you're talking about, but it sounds like it's now been changed to reflect the policy in place with the first contract. Once you deviate, you're a deviant, err, I mean, uh... deviator. If the insult to injury you described in your "sitting next to a non-deviating crewmember" scenario isn't bad enough, consider the outcome of that last leg being cancelled entirely. Say you live in Detroit, so you deviate, skip the first leg, and join the rest of your crew for the DTW-CDG leg. You take off, take a nap, and the next thing you know you're diverting into Gander for some reason. Your non-deviating crewmember has nothing to worry about other than where to find a phone to call Control Center Scheduling. You, on the other hand, since you're deviating, will miss your second deviation check-in, you'll be removed from the trip without pay, and you'll get a nice little letter in your personnel file.


It doesn't make sense to me that they do it -- but they can. Write it down, and let's remember to ask to get it fixed in the next contract.





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fdxflyer

thought jl put out an email a couple years ago saying you are covered in that situation tony.

R1200RT

If you deviate on any part of the scheduled deadhead you are on your own and always have been. Trust me I learned the hard way two years ago.

Like usual Tony is correct.

Magenta Line

On international DH's I will often jump to MEM and catch the scheduled DH from MEM just to avoid the above. I too have noticed the boxes disappearing when you only select the first leg.

CaptainMark

how sweet...get a room!



i guess u will be gone 4 a few weeks...enjoy subic on xmas and kix on new years...if u need us lowly bus pilots..we will be home for the holidays...hehe

have a good one bud..later

dckozak

Are all Airbus pilots dickheads or is it just the captains?
Maybe the question should be, "do you become a dickhe@d when you bid Airbus or do only dickheads bid the airbus"??
If you bid Airbus and it turns out your not a dickhe@d, can you stay on the aircraft??

To the administrator, Why is dickheads OK but the plural of it not??

Albief15

I appreciated Jack's email on deviations...

You also deviate if you ADD a leg--not just subtract one. For instance, I sometimes deviate on a NWA flight out of MEM, but only by ADDING a leg from PFN to catch that particular connection--usually doesn't add $40 to the total cost and somtimes even makes the total fare less. However, it is still technically a "deviation".

I have always thought that if something went "oopsie" on that trip that with Jack's email the "reasonable man" would say "no harm, no foul". Fortunately, I've never had to test that theory. It would be NICE to have that in writing in our next contract or in some kind of devation/DH LOA.

In defense of flight management, however, the guys who constantly "press to test" the 8 or 12 hour limits don't give us much ammunition or sympathy on devations. I have known a few guys who thrive on showing up with less than the required amount--sometimes waaaay less. Without sounding like mom, I try to tell them A) you can get WAAAY screwed for this and B) service failures are a BIG deal and C) you might make it harder on the rest of us. I don't know if I have had any influence or if I'm now just "not told" when these things happen. One of the major reasons I enjoy working at FedEx so much is the commuter friendly policies...and I don't want to see them eroded.

Carlos Abundis

This is something that should be addressed in contractual language.

For instance, I think it would be reasonable to define "deviation" as changing your itinerary so as to arrive at the city of first departure on a flight different from scheduled.

I've had multiple-day/multiple-leg deadheads where I booked a different flight the first day but caught up with my scheduled deadhead on the second day. On one occasion, my scheduled deadhead on the second day cancelled. Even though I technically deviated, skeds took care of me as if I had not deviated. It was the reasonable-man theory in action, though I was very uncomfortable being so exposed. Ever since, I've been very reluctant to deviate on the front end of a trip.

As I said, I think the best answer is to put some reasonable language in the next contract.

Pilot7576

Guys..

Ups had this in the old contract...if you started out a deviator, you were considered deviating even if you joined your scheduled commercial sequence. Under the new contract, if you join the scheduled travel sequence at some point and continue with it, you are considered to be traveling "as scheduled."

Pilot7576