Here was the final outcome: Scheduling recognized the rest required and tried the SC assignment/rest combination CNO to me at a time I was non-contactable due to CQ. I didn't reply in any fashion. At midnight when I became contactable I received the live phone call beginning a 30 hr rest and canceling the previous short call assignment, as is required by the FAR.

This question still exists: Had I not received correct notification, how would I have theoretically been aware of an impending 117 violation to a SC that I wasn't legal for? I suppose there's multiple ways to skin the cat. My risk tolerance would be to let it ride until a few minutes prior to the SC start time, and then call scheduling to refuse the assignment for FARs and also prevent any entaglement defending myself to the FAA. A little brinksmanship to test the system. In the end, it worked out, and reinforces the need for us to keep a crosscheck and not do scheduling's work for them. On the live phone call, the scheduler sounded apologetic that they hadn't recognized the problem earlier and it was gratifying to have come to logical conclusion.

 

What about 117.25(b)?

 

Not to nitpick, but lining up a defense against a hypothetical and thus far unprecedented FAA investigation over a 30-hour rest is not what comes to mind when trying to determine if Scheduling dropped the ball.

 

I have had this exact scenario play out. If they end up calling you with a SC rotation assignment then at that point they will realize their error and simply remove the entire SC period. If they never end up needing you then you end up with the SC credit even though you never actually “sat” SC. I guess technically you’d have to call them and remove it after the fact but I highly doubt anyone is doing that.

 

I'm no lawyer and that's the point. If you become aware of something not legal, then you refuse. The quote I sited was in respose to you reference. It is the pertinent clause that deals with converting to SC. Either way if you are assigned something not legal, then you are obligated to refuse if and when that assignment comes. You can't control nor are you responsible for the company's ineptitude.

 

I had CS tell me today that they are only required to observe short call preferences when they are scheduling manually. I was told that since they are mostly using the automation to assign the next day short call assignments that pilots preferences are not considered. For the past few months my preferences seem to have been observed but not today and that is what I was told. I checked the PWA 23 S.1.f and SRH pg 85. It seems to say they can ignore the preferences when assigning short call non- manually (whatever that would mean, PCS?).
Could someone help me understand this? Thanks

 

FFS, inventing new interpretations never ceases. They simply must have someone intentionally scanning the PWA for any language that’s not ironclad.

Please send a Dart to ALPA. They need to know about this.

 

Will do. I'll send it in. Yeah I was reading through the material and that's what I gathered. It wasn't spelled out verbatim how they needed to do it so they're doing it however they feel like it.

 

Bloody heck I bet this happened to me too. Got a 4 am SC last week while other people junior to me got better slots. Called scheduling and after 16 minutes of them checking it out, they said the other pilots were all coming off x days so couldn’t get the 4 am slot. I realized after I hung up that many of them had 8 or 9 am slots which wouldn’t have been legal anyway coming off x days unless they yellow slipped but was too lazy to call again as I figured I wouldn’t get used (and didn’t since the whole dang base is on SC).

Absolute BS if that’s their current take.

 

I had this exact situation last week. I sent an STS inquiry about it. ALPA said I was due money and to fill out an STS report about it. I would suggest doing the same. If it costs them money they will quit doing it.

There is a SC log on Icrew you can look at to see if others yellow slipped them. I didn’t know about that log so I think others might not as well.