2nd What Google's said!

For those Noobs reading along, what Sailing is spewing is his personal techcedure. There is zero PWA reference to this mythical extra hour for NYC.

PWA says "promptly available" and is intentionally not defined with a set time limit.

 

“I’ll be there as quickly and safely as I can.” Those are the only words I speak when called on short call in NYC. Sometimes that’s 40 min, sometimes 2-3 hours. Just depends. And that’s coming from within the city.

 

Are you imbibing tonight? (Full disclosure: I am).

Reread the posts. You implied that scheduling assumes you are at home when they call at 6am for a short call assignment and that the company assumes you’ll always be in the same spot (home) when on short call…and that if we aren’t in the same spot for multiple reserve call outs in a co-terminal base we shall bring the wrath of an omnipotent gracious employer - who will tighten the screws on we ungrateful peasants.

I don’t even know where to begin on correcting so many false statements and actually won’t. Please just stop sharing bad data for anyone trying to understand actual contractual obligations. Quote the PWA or LOAs or grievance language wherever you like, but your personal paranoias about how reserve works are likely to mislead the inexperienced and new hire readers following this thread. If they are sitting short call, they need to be promptly available to one of the co terminal airports. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

I am not implying anything. There are accepted limits to promptly available. Past practice has defined that over time via discussions with the union and system boards. Individual pilots don’t get to decide how long they have to report. Everyone understands including the CP’s that things happen and delays reporting occur for a myriad of reasons. If you take 4 hours because of a major accident closing a road no one is going to face anything beyond a short explanation. The same if you are in a accident or your engine blows up. I even knew a pilot who was detained as a potential bank robbery suspect making him late. If however you take 4 hours because you live 4 hours away there may be a different outcome if on shortcall. I can tell you that I personally know a pilot who was terminated for sitting short call in San Diego for LAX. That trip is drivable in 2 hours with zero traffic. That’s never the norm however. There were issues with this case and he rightfully got his job back. The union agreed however that short call in SD was not promptly available as well as sitting shortcall in LSV where it was agreed promptly available was by surface transportation. The reason we don’t put 2 hours in the contract is to protect pilots who show in 2 hours and 1 minute. Currently and for many years prior the company has been extremely lenient on almost all aspects of reserve and regular trip reporting. I like it that way. If we get to many pilots playing sea lawyer we will lose that relationship. The pilots will also lose at the system board.

 

This sort of thing frustrates me. There is nothing wrong with giving an estimate. If the estimate changes you can call them and amend it. This gives the dispatcher, gate agent, and hundreds of pax an idea of what is going on, let alone YOUR FELLOW COWORKER PILOT. If it the very least, you feel the need to play this "I wont tell you how long" game with crew scheds, at least have the decency to shoot a text to the other pilot so you don't waste their time as well. Courtesy. No one is getting fired over an estimate gone wrong.

 

Soon to be noob here…
Where I’ll be sitting Short Call from is quite consistently less than 2hrs from EWR. However, JFK is <2hrs 75% of the time depending on the Belt, and I don’t have experience with getting to LGA.

Do you declare somewhere which airport is the closest for you while on reserve, or that part of the PWA only comes into play if you’re really late and have to explain?

 

Welcome to Delta!

There is no requirement tell tell Scheds which of the 3 NYC airports you are declaring to be within 2 hrs from during your Reserve duty.

If the CPO called you about it, highly recommend you contact your LEC Rep first and bring them along before talking to the Chief about it, but as long as you were within they < 2hr drive from EWR as you say (I assume that’s your house, but could be a Starbucks…or a golf course….or a library) then nothing to worry about.

 

You will meet all the requirements to legally sit reserve in NYC short or long call. In NYC we also have a rule in place giving you extra time to the two further airports. We have a document called the Scheduling Reference Handbook. It’s a attempt at a plain language explanation of the scheduling rules. Here is the part with the information you need. The company as I posted is very understanding about the issues reporting for trips. If you can honestly drive to one of the 3 NYC airports in 2 hours normal conditions you are golden. You will also find you can make a lot of money flying overtime if you so choose.

From the Scheduling reference handbook:
Occasionally SC assignments may report very shortly after the SC begins. As long as the report is at or after SC start it is a legal assignment. A SC pilot must be promptly available which is an undefined term. If Crew Scheduling places a rotation on your schedule with limited time to report/pushback you should provide your best guess as to your arrival time under normal driving conditions. With extremely short report/push back situations, the Company has made a business decision and understands you may not be able to report by the Company's posted time. You are not expected to drive excessively fast, for example, simply to make the Com-pany's posted departure. Communication with Crew Scheduling is critical in situations such as these. Once you are in the cockpit, slow down and take your time.
Note: For NYC-based pilots, short-call availability may be measured from the pilot's closest co-terminal (EWR, LGA, JFK), without regard to the actual co-terminal to which he may be required to report. An NYC reserve pilot on short call who is assigned a rotation reporting in EWR will be reimbursed for up to $100 of actual transportation expenses to EWR. For LAX-based pilots, short-call availability is measured from LAX.
If a pilot anticipates an unusual response time, he should inform Crew Scheduling for their planning purpos-es. Any discussion of “reasonable” should occur only between the pilot, the chief pilot, and possibly an ALPA representative.
A pilot who is converted to short-call will not be required to be available for contact during the first two hours of his short call period provided he informs Crew Scheduling at the time of notification from Schedul-ing. The pilot If he does so, he must be able to report for a rotation no later than two hours after the start of his short-call period. During his period of unavailability, the pilot assumes responsibility for acknowledging any rotation placed on his line.

PM me and I will send a copy of the entire scheduling reference guide.

 

Thanks for the welcome DWC.

Commuting in from out of town but have relatives in NJ. Plan to sit reserve from there.

In your experience does a Short Call call out for a flight that’s loaded up and waiting for you to “promptly” show up is more of an exception to the rule than a common occurrence?

What would be the average notice before a SC duty?

 

I'm a NYC commuter as well.

While the "OMG, the FO just fell down the jetway and broke his leg.....call the short call pilot ASAP" does happen, its rare. More realistic is someone bags in sick < 12 Hours out so Scheds isn't able to utilize a long call pilot (our PWA says LC pilots have to used prior to SC pilots in the coverage sequence). Or the incoming transcon flight is delayed, so they have 5'ish hours notice to bring in a short call pilot to fly the outgoing flight to keep the operation moving.

All Reserve at Delta start as Long Call, which is 12 hour notice minimum, so you will always get at least 12 hours notice that scheds is converting you from LC to SC. On your first day of Reserves you can't start prior to 1000 unless you ask for it via Yellow Slip. But in order for scheds to give you anything between 1000-1200 (on your first day only), they have to place it on your schedule NLT 1500 the day prior (your last non-fly day prior to starting Reserve), so in that case you would have at least 19 hours notice. If not on your schedule by 1500 the day prior, then the earliest they can have you start (again, we are talking first day only) would be noon, so they could call you at midnight 01 to inform you that you are starting a SC or reporting for a rotation at noon-01.

In ref to Sched Ref Handbook (SRH) that Sailing is talking about, while it is a great product and it attempts to explain the PWA in plane English, it is just that...a handbook...it holds no contractual or legal weight.

The PWA says SC pilots "must be able to promptly report for an awarded/assigned rotation" and then later states:

"In pilot bases with co-terminal airports, a short call pilot’s availability will be determined as follows:LAX, ONT, SNA, BUR, LGB: Airport Reserve Availability Determined From LAX

JFK, LGA, EWR: Airport Reserve Availability Determined From JFK, LGA or EWR."

So its implied that if you are "promptly available" from one, you could be not "promptly available" from the other two, but the golden extra hour that Sailing alludes to is in no way shape or form mentioned anywhere in the PWA or the FOM.


UTHOR NOTE: for those that are still reading, yes I know the actual rule is 9 hour prior to the end of the non fly day to report as early as 10 hours later....just trying to keep the discussion simple by using local times without bringing up exceptions for PR/PB days.