hockeypilot44

The first 4 legs of my trip have OE on them for someone else. I'm flying with a line check airman. The guy getting OE is from another base and already checked in for the trip. I never received a release call so I called them. I was told I'll be released at the gate because it's IROPS. First of all, why is it IROPs? Because it's raining in May? Second, where is this in the contract? I'm obviously a commuter and don't want to commute up, commute back, then commute back up following day. Will they get me a hotel since they are forcing me to commute up and then making me pick trip back up next day or am I out of luck? This has to be one of the dumbest things I've seen in a while. Making me take airplane rides for no reason. I get that I'm getting paid, but I hate wasting time.

TegridyFarms

It’s stupid. This is their new game and has been standard practice for about a year. I know, dumb dumb dumb. Go. Sign in. Call the LCA. Tell him you’re at the airport. He will tell you to go home.

If you have some big kahunas on you, stay home and call the check airman. Tell him you’re gonna be 15 min late, ask if he wants you to come to the plane. He will tell you you’re released.

A friend of mine might have done that. I don’t know though. Or maybe someone else did it. I can’t remember.

Aviator147

I literally was on my commute to NYC to get "released" when I checked my schedule and the student FO was all of a sudden gone off the trip and I ended up flying it. Definitely HUGE Kahunas to not show up if they aren't releasing the night before.

WhiskeyDog

I had a trip today, and was told the exact same thing by scheduling yesterday. The LCA, by his own goodwill, talked to pilot assist telling them that he thought I should be released. I woke up this morning and my schedule showed "removed for OE".
Had the LCA not confirmed the trainee was already in position, and intervened, I would have had to commute in. That's kind of a lot to ask of those guys, if scheduling is going to play this game everytime?

sailingfun

This is another case where the actions of a few impact the entire pilot group.

HTBH

I’m trying to understand your point on this remark. Are you referring to pilots not showing up and because of that we all required to commute in for LCA trips now?

I’m of the opinion you show up to fly if they don’t release you the night before. It sucks but you commute in and get released. Definitely a change in the status quo from what it used to be.
But I’d be shocked to hear if we’ve had even a single issue with this not happening by the pilots not showing up.

The bigger issues to me are: why are we having to do this? I’m betting it’s more of a pilot harassment or crew scheduling incompetence/lack of understanding thing. And if the answer is IROPs, then I have to ask why are we basically in a nearly constant state of IROPs now regardless of the weather or IT issues or anything? It’s to the point where basically anytime they’re giving out a green slip they put is in a IROP.

CBreezy

​​​​​​There WAS a line of TS parked over and north of ATL for much of yesterday that resulted in hours long ground stops. So, that was a major factor.

​​​​​​As far as release, I don't defend them not releasing pilots when they are able. I think I heard that they got a little trigger happy a few times after the turnover that caused them to burn a SC or cancel a flight when a pilot was unable to commute in or whose DH cancelled or when I pilot called in last minute Covid positive (happened to a few friends when the training center was getting bad). They released them like they always do but the institutional knowledge on OE release was gone. So, the resorted to the most archaic interpretation of the language to CYA. It sucks and it needs to stop.

​​​​

sailingfun

The biggest issue has been last minute no shows by IOE students. The days when pilots came in the day prior for IOE’s to prepare and not worry about the commute are long gone. When bad weather threatens commute issues increase.
These kind of changes don’t just pop up out of a vacuum. There is almost always a cause and effect.

TED74

We generally call it OE. And other causes include the consistent disregard for students’ OE scheduling requests, like folks who have been in training for a month (for which their requests were denied or ignored), who are then given a single day to get home, get some laundry done and then cross the country to position for 5-7 more straight days of training on days they once again couldn’t bid for.

The long-gone says you seem to long for have very little to do with some sort of pilot decision to show early, and more to do with physically not being able to just show a day early to “prep”. I agree there is a cause and effect, and like so many of our other issues, the company's consistent choice to run things so hot and undermanned continually bite them in the arse.

Schwanker

Being released for OE is a great benny in our contract. Management wanted to get rid of it and have those released available for recovery flying. ALPA caved on this and other big items (profit sharing) in TA 1 that got voted down.

Could it be management wants to water this benny down to frustrate us in an effort to get rid of it this time around?