Trip quality? Ouch
 

Just looking at the A320 bid pack for Sept., 63% of all trips are either 4 or 5 day trips! Ouch. The breakdown:
1D = 2% of trips
2D = 15%
3D = 20%
4D = 49%!!! What, why?
5D = 14%

I know this has been discussed many times over the years. The company likes to build 4-5 day trips because, they say, it's cheaper than breaking the trips up. Sure it's cheaper looking forward, when building the trips in a vacuum. However, I'll bet if the company did a "look-back" audit of how many of those trips actually had to be broken up to be covered it would turn out to be more expensive to cover the longer trips. We lose a LOT of schedule flexibility when we have a 4 or 5 day trip on our line. It's tough to drop, swap or move them around or worse actually fly them. Yuck.

Living in base is a choice. Those trips are commuters’ specials.

Well put sir, I see what you did there. It's uncanny though, say in NYC, they have a large percentage of 1 and 2 day trips (always have) and that is a "commuter base". Spreading the misery around the system I guess.

Yeah, it’s seems NYC guys are always getting hosed. I just saw there commutable trips dropped from 4% to 1%. I guess crew resources is aiming for the ultimate goal of 0% commutable trips.

I haven't seen a good quality trip since 2017/early 18. The high majority of domestic trips are trash these days. We gotta bump up those fatigue call numbers a bit more to push back on the operation for them to even think of changing how they do business.

6am reports and 9pm releases. Um, no.

Pre-optimizer, NYC had the highest layover costs in the system IIRC. Post-optimizer, the NYC commutable trips turned into early sign-ins with late sign-outs resulting in the current dystopian sh!tshow seen in NYC NB bid packs. The easiest way to minimize layover costs was to shunt the morning go and last flights in onto in-base lines. The company layover costs were greatly reduced by making the commuter foot the bill of those "optimizations."

Odd that they don't seem to mind to pay me for those OOBGSWC. Most of which are from ATL. I am NYC based.

It is true that NYC based pilots absorb the majority, if not all, of the o'darkthirty reports. It is true they DH crews in from ATL to cover some of the mid day reports as well since we are always chronically under staffed in NYC. Most of us wouldn't mind if we saw a bit more of a balance between the DH crews covering our mid day starts and maybe them covering some of those o'darkthirty reports. Pipe dream of course.

When the 88's went to the can factory, we knew that flying was going to be spread around somewhere.

We'll continue to get optimized and ground into grist. I just don't see that changing anytime soon. After all, somebody needs to pay for managements one time salary adjustments.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

This. I will make the same bet. Chasing credit works with adequate staffing levels, but anyone can see that the schedule is held together with duct tape and baling wire while we are short staffed.

I'm all for longer trips for the commuters, but there should be some type of consistent trip mix. I know there isn't a contractual requirement, which is a huge foul on our part, but it's needs addressed. This month we have Zero 1-days, three 2-days and 55% 4-day trips. Great for commuters, but terrible those of us who prefer 1/2/3 day trips.

The company actually does do a look back in every category. The information has been published in some crew resources updates. They look at bid package credit verses actual post month credit. The later is the number they consider most important.

Considering all these efficiencies (early reports, late duty off, regional airline multiple legs, middle rotation red eyes) Never extend FDP. NEVER.

Extend, something happens, it all falls on you.

I have never seen "look-back" data posted anywhere. That would be some interesting data to have a look at. I have a hard time believing 4 & 5 day trips are cheaper looking back/ "actual post month credit", since they end up breaking up many 4&5 day trips so they can get them covered. But I've never taken a deep dive on the topic.

Just flew a trip that had been covered 5 times. FIVE. It was built by someone with zero understanding of the destination city and it's ability to do crew and airplane swaps. I called the duty pilot & crew tracking ahead of time to point out the obvious and it was a worthless effort since they had neither the power or inclination.

End result, two reroutes, an airplane swap, three plus hours delay, around 100 people put in hotels to try again the next day, rampers (at this station they do not like to clean airplanes) bullying inflight, FCRs filed and surely management interventions to follow.

Alternatively, I could have sicked out, reset my 30 hours and enjoyed a nice 4 leg three day that went out junior to me ... instead it is midnight and writing FCRs. With the incentives such as they are, what I did (my job) was really stupid. What is soul crushing is what we did to our customers. After a while you get tired of apologizing for something you saw coming, did your best to fix proactively and best to mitigate reactively.

This. Also, apparently there has never been a review of whether marketing's schedules make sense. A number of out-stations with limited staffing have everything going for them until marketing gets a hold of the schedules. Typically, the ONLY traffic around the airport is Delta arrivals and departures to and from the big hubs, all scheduled to arrive and depart at the same time. As a result, Delta is getting in it's OWN WAY. We receive delay vectors to sequence Delta flights arrivals/departures. We wait for parking or pushback because, while we have the gates, we don't have the support staffing to work more than one or two flights at a time. Please don't tell me this is a summer thing either, it happens year round.

Also, we could devote an entire thread on the ridiculous turn times marketing has decided are "doable". Three and four leg days, every leg delayed because it's impossible to go from one end of a large hub to the other end, go through customs, then KCM to get to the next gate, take care of your physiological needs, and get your flight out on-time. Every time I bring this up with someone in management (over the last two decades) they say it's a marketing decision. What are we marketing "being late"? I just scratch my head when I read in newsletters about the importance of customer service and the role pilot interactions plays with the customers. We do our best but it takes 20 minutes to offload an airliner, if you're pushing in less than an hour for your next flight that is on the other side of a large hub no flight crew is going to stand there and say goodbye to our customers sorry.

Sorry but it cracks me up when pilots call trying to explain things to hopefully make a positive change. Stop trying to fix managements screw up. They know whats going on and guess what… THEY DONT CARE. As long as Delta is one point higher then United or American, delta management happy. They hope it all works out, and if it doesnt then oh well.

True, but, the irony is Delta hires people who are screened to be the folks who make it work.

Yes, easier, maybe better, to shut the cockpit door while repeating "not my job" but that does not describe most Delta employees. American is full of them. That's the difference.

Guess my point is also, we are NOT defenseless. Rotations fatiguing? We got that covered. Most pilots had found ways out of that rotation and me (hard working and stupid) was in the 20%.

Do you have access to SkyHub? Because coincidently there is a similar discussion there I just stumbled onto. I probably can't/shouldn't post names but the head crew resources guy (good guy btw) has said in a post that shorter trips are less costly than longer trips according to their analysis.

COVID Tetris !

https://static2.srcdn.com/wordpress/...&h=370&dpr=1.5

He keeps saying stuff like that, and that More/smaller AE’s are better too. I agree with your assessment he’s a good guy, so that leaves one possibility: his bosses don’t care and/or aren’t willing to push back on network or marketing making our lives miserable for an extra penny or two. THAT is what I find so difficult to swallow, and goes against every fiber of my training and experience prior to coming here. Zero analysis for how much pain that very slight “efficiency” costs the rest of us.

This type of mentality is what will cost them in the long run. A happy work group will bend over backwards to help the operation. An unhappy group will do their jobs. The bean counters can't put a price tag on it, so I guess it's not a problem for them.

Previous advice I've taken to heart. Do your job to the best of your ability, not everyone else's.

Wow, someone has a high opinion of themselves and doesn’t mind bad mouthing their fellow pilots.

Are we reading the same post? Seems like the only one he’s bad mouthing is himself.

“most pilots have found a way out of that rotation”. Subtle jab, calling them out….that’s his reputation though. Good luck 44

Ok, I took that as a compliment. Maybe not intended that way. Good on them for finding a way out. That’s what I would do. No way I’d do a few of these trips I’ve seen lately.


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I'm with rooster on this. Definitely self deprecating humor aimed at himself (he's the only one stupid enough to get stuck flying the trip). Seems like you're quite the sensitive one!

or maybe you don’t know what I know. Next.

So what are some techniques for getting out of a rotation? I see even somewhat junior pilots in my category that drop all of their trips and just pick up broken trips all month long. How do they do it? How do you manage to get rid of a four day trip over a weekend? Im not talking about bidding Mon-Fri trips and then PD them. They don't APD, PD, IVD, or sickout yet somehow every month they do it. Is there a swap with the pot trick?

I’ve had very good success using swap with the pot. Unless it’s a holiday, the reserve formula deals with the sum of the negative numbers so there are lots of options if you can find a worse day that you are not working.

As you get close in and the trips start to break up, the reserve staffing can really go negative. That’s when you swap with your trips later in the month.

Don't discount IVDs. IVDs are very valuable as well, you get 2 plus an extra one for each extra vacation day awarded from the sick leave incentive. Lot of categories get 4 IVDs this year. You have to have vacation left in the year to use them though.

Pickup a trip late in the current month that conflicts with a trip early in the next month. Drops the trip in the following month regardless of reserve coverage.

Helps tremendously to live in base and you have to constantly hawk Icrew.

I’m sub 80% in category and have only had to do a 4-day trip 3 times since March.

One of the many reasons I miss iCrewMax! So much better of a display than what we have now.

I'm gonna miss EZ Swap and Widget Works, the companions to EZ Bid. Are there any other options for trip sorting and mass uploads of blind swaps? EZ Swap was good for at least one schedule improvement every month for the last decade plus.

100% agree on this. Widget Works paid for an entire careers worth of payments for it the first month I had it. Couldn't believe more pilots didn't use this stuff. Will be interesting to see what happens once ARCOS handles the white slip stuff down the road.

How do you define a commutable trip? Start after when, end before when? It seems it would be subjective depending on the pilot.

I always wondered what crew resources and ALPA use for that definition as well in the crew resources news letters.

What does this mean?

How do you use swaps to get an unwanted trip off your schedule? Not talking about swap board. Obviously you can drop a trip with that, but nowadays nobody wants to pick up much there.

As an example, You swap a 2-day trip that has days with a higher cumulative negative reserves available than a 4 day trip.

2- day trip
Day 1 15 required 4 available
day 2 10 required 4 available

4-day trip
Day 1 15 required 12 available
Day 2 14 required 10 available
Day 3 10 required 6 available
Day 4 12 required 8 available

The 2-day is a cumulative -17
The 4-day is a cumulative -15

The swap would go thru.

Or for a real world example. There is a 2-day in NYC ERB right now, starts on the 18th, commutable on both ends, 1 leg to SJU, 1 leg back. Cumulative -35 on reserves. You could swap a 3 or 4 day from many dates the rest of the month and it would go thru.

Thanks for the example!

So the effect of the swap is ... you fly the two day trip you just "swapped into" and your four day trip later in the month drops off your line and into open time?