They must have direction at what point to stop on the ladder to cover a flight and send it back up the chain unfilled.

 

They are simply told cover the flight or the flight is canceled. They are not set up to do anything else. Hundreds of trips that will never fly have been whiteslipped in the windows as a example. To even think a crew scheduler is deciding which flights to operate is laughable.

 

Which is absolutely allowed. Back in the summer of 99, we had an "illegal" GSWC only program. I'll leave it at that, as it was 21 years ago! Part of that was because the categories were so understaffed and the company wasn't really doing enough to fix that issue. Anyway, for awhile the company was assigning lots of GSWC, since that was the only thing pilots were submitting. But eventually they started canceling flights, rather than pass out GSWC.

From a scheduling perspective, a GSWC only solves today's problem, and creates another tomorrow. The company absolutely has the right to internally say "no GSWC will be passed out." Then that decision is sent away from scheduling as to what to do with the flight.

What the company cannot do is bypass that step of trip coverage in the event that they figure out there is a better way further down the trip coverage ladder.

The company has the right to cancel flights, if they wish, even if the motivation is to avoid passing out GSWC. But of coures there is a big cost and operational fallout from that as well.

 

He’s not saying the schedulers decide anything. He’s saying they are told to stop the coverage sequence at a certain step. I believe this is what is happening based on dozens of trips disappearing from open time in the last week with no attempt to cover with a GS. And Flight Ops communications the other day that they were processing 700+ cancelations only for uncovered trips.

 

My bad sloppy semantics, when I said "They" I was referring to Delta Airlines not crew scheduling . Looking back at what I wrote I can see how you took it that way. I never meant to imply that schedulers can cancel a flight. My point was that Delta can cancel whatever flights they want and that is exactly what they are doing. I stand by the comment that for the most part GSWC are not really needed for the time being. Maybe a one off flight here and there but mostly not needed.

Scoop

 

I agree with everything you say. I can assure the other posters that CS is not told to stop at a specific step in the coverage ladder. Way to many variables. Would if the flight they stop coverage for is 80% full and carrying 20 DH crew members needed for other flights?
The other point is that depending on the pilot the cost in each coverage step can very wildly. A GSWC where a pilot drops a 1 day trip to fly a 5 day is far cheaper than a straight GS and might cost exactly the same as a WS if there is a reserve available to cover the 1 day.

 

My god man, you must be a treat to be around. Do you work in scheduling? Are you a scheduler?

I can assure you they are looking at each flight individually and deciding whether to offer a GS or not. I can assure you they are stopping at certain coverage points for specific flights.

Its ok to admit you don’t have all the info all the time and you may be wrong.

 

I now see why so many people get frustrated by you. You never give up, I’ll give you that.

So in your opinion why so many uncovered trips with no attempt past white slip and reserves. And why is the airline cancelling only uncovered trips when they never finished the coverage sequence. Logic tells me the schedulers have been told to stop at some point in the sequence. Obviously there are exceptions because some green slips are going out but those appear to be one offs (parking jets, maybe a flight with high loads, etc)

Also, posters on this thread have mentioned that schedulers specifically told them that they were told not to go to green slip.

Im not arguing the merits of it either way but it is happening.

 

Its quite simple. Everything is very fluid. Trips are being built and canceled left and right. Scheduling has a list of canceled flights. They don’t have the manpower to translate that instantly into new rotations. They check before they cover something and see if it’s operating. If it is they cover it. If it’s not they don’t. Decisions on which flights are canceled or operated our made at a much higher level. I am stunned you guys think minimum pay crew schedulers hired off the street are running the airline.
They cover trips. They may get guidance on what the priorities are but that guidance comes from above.

 

Well, after handing out 4-5 GS's/day for the last week in the NYC 73NA category, we have zero today and about a dozen trips in open time tomorrow alone. Someone made a decision somewhere.