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Ar Pilot 05-21-2023 06:56 AM


Originally Posted by ancman (Post 3639574)
We all appreciate the work that you do. I’m all for doing as much as possible on our end to lessen your burden before filing an ACE.

However, aside from taking the company’s answer at face value, how are we supposed to verify that the proper pilots were paid in a 23M7, reroute, or batch violation scenario? Without having the same read-only access to DBMS that ALPA has, we have no way to verify proper payment of everyone involved in those cases.

I have notified CS of those issues occurring, but I also follow up with an ACE every time. I don’t trust that the company is competent or honest enough to pay the affected pilot(s) properly simply because I brought it to their attention.

What you’re doing is perfectly fine and appreciated. There are obviously a lot of things that aren’t transparent to line pilots. A record of contact is very helpful given our response timeline and backlog. We understand pilots do not trust the company and we are the backstop for compliance.

BlueSkies 05-21-2023 07:06 AM


Originally Posted by MrBojangles (Post 3639540)
what if I told you that these premium trips can actually make you work a lot less? But yes I agree all that other stuff you said is great but you’ll never find an excess of reserves lying around like we had in covid. It doesn’t make financial sense to the company

It's not about what we had during Covid, it's about what he had pre-optimizer. Magically we still made truck-loads of money even with significantly higher staffing levels. Yes there was still a lot of premium flying but nothing like the last few years. That would do more than all the other ideas to fix the trouble with covering trips.

dragon 05-21-2023 07:08 AM


Originally Posted by Ar Pilot (Post 3639563)
As a scheduling committee member, we really prefer the pilot do as much as they can to advocate on their own behalf if they believe they have experienced a contractual violation before submitting an ACE Report.

Wait for your rotation to show closed on your time card. Contact crew scheduling and bring up how you were harmed and ask for a remedy. If unhappy with the answer, either politely end the call or escalate to a supervisor. If CS is unhelpful, your CPO if a great resource that has contacts they can reach out to at the company. PWA 18.B can be referenced with your CPO to start the formal grievance process yourself.

If all of that is unsuccessful, then submit an ACE report. Ideally, attaching any timeline information about your contact with the company.

ACE Report is the easy button, but ideally a pilot will take some initiative on their end.

In the 4000+ reports in the queue, there are countless simple issues a pilot could have fixed with a call to CS. (Rotation guarantee adjustment, PB day calculations, etc.)

Additionally, if CS and CPO received dozens or hundreds of calls every day about contractual violations, issues might get escalated and fixed quicker.

OK, remind me who we all pay? ALPA

I know that SC work is not easy but in the recent past we were able to call and speak to a person in the bull pen who used to be a scheduling supervisor. They were a wealth of information and I learned so much from them, now we have no direct link to the people we pay except thru an APP.

They're a bunch of items in play here but have you tried to call CS recently? Just to call in sick or well (would be a nice place for an APP) can result in long waits on hold. Additionally, we are in a perpetual self-inflicted IROP which exasperates the wait times.

I agree we should all help ourselves, but how many times have you been blatantly lied to by CS either because of lousy training on the PWA or because they came from the regionals and are used to brow beating the pilots.

I end with ALPA takes our money so we should expect a bit more than what we are currently getting.

Ar Pilot 05-21-2023 07:27 AM


Originally Posted by dragon (Post 3639590)
OK, remind me who we all pay? ALPA

I know that SC work is not easy but in the recent past we were able to call and speak to a person in the bull pen who used to be a scheduling supervisor. They were a wealth of information and I learned so much from them, now we have no direct link to the people we pay except thru an APP.

They're a bunch of items in play here but have you tried to call CS recently? Just to call in sick or well (would be a nice place for an APP) can result in long waits on hold. Additionally, we are in a perpetual self-inflicted IROP which exasperates the wait times.

I agree we should all help ourselves, but how many times have you been blatantly lied to by CS either because of lousy training on the PWA or because they came from the regionals and are used to brow beating the pilots.

I end with ALPA takes our money so we should expect a bit more than what we are currently getting.


Like I said, ACE Report is the easy button and no one is stopping you from doing that.

Also, the phone lines are still open and you can call to speak with a scheduling committee member during normal business hours.

ancman 05-21-2023 07:32 AM


Originally Posted by dragon (Post 3639590)
OK, remind me who we all pay? ALPA

I know that SC work is not easy but in the recent past we were able to call and speak to a person in the bull pen who used to be a scheduling supervisor. They were a wealth of information and I learned so much from them, now we have no direct link to the people we pay except thru an APP.

They're a bunch of items in play here but have you tried to call CS recently? Just to call in sick or well (would be a nice place for an APP) can result in long waits on hold. Additionally, we are in a perpetual self-inflicted IROP which exasperates the wait times.

I agree we should all help ourselves, but how many times have you been blatantly lied to by CS either because of lousy training on the PWA or because they came from the regionals and are used to brow beating the pilots.

I end with ALPA takes our money so we should expect a bit more than what we are currently getting.

This too. At the end of the day, ALPA is a business with paid employees. We pay plenty for ALPA’s services.

If the line to get into your restaurant consistently runs out the door and wraps around the block, you don’t tell your customers to try eating somewhere else first and come back only if you’re still hungry (especially when they’ve already paid). You expand and hire more staff as necessary.

gloopy 05-21-2023 07:37 AM


Originally Posted by ancman (Post 3639605)
This too. At the end of the day, ALPA is a business with paid employees. We pay plenty for ALPA’s services.

If the line to get into your restaurant consistently runs out the door and wraps around the block, you don’t tell your customers to try eating somewhere else first and come back only if you’re still hungry (especially when they’ve already paid). You expand and hire more staff as necessary.

I agree, and IMO until and unless we have a robust system that quickly catches all the deny-deny-deny "errors" and pays them swiftly, we need to stop playing footsie with dues refunds and invest in the infratructure needed to handle the actual needs we have,

Getting a couple hundred dollar check is cool. Having incorrect assignments fixed/paid quickly is WAY cooler.

dragon 05-21-2023 07:37 AM


Originally Posted by Ar Pilot (Post 3639599)
Like I said, ACE Report is the easy button and no one is stopping you from doing that.

Also, the phone lines are still open and you can call to speak with a scheduling committee member during normal business hours.

Not being stopped but with the backlog, it just isn't working like it should. So, if we have a question 9-5 Eastern Time M-F there is someone there? Are they former CS supervisors or just a SC member, because that was the reason for the SMEs (CS supe), it freed up the "volunteers" to work the more contentious issues.

I like the restaurant analogy. We need more full time employees who aren't on FPL.

dragon 05-21-2023 07:42 AM


Originally Posted by gloopy (Post 3639613)
I agree, and IMO until and unless we have a robust system that quickly catches all the deny-deny-deny "errors" and pays them swiftly, we need to stop playing footsie with dues refunds and invest in the infratructure needed to handle the actual needs we have,

Getting a couple hundred dollar check is cool. Having incorrect assignments fixed/paid quickly is WAY cooler.

Absolutely! Unfortunately, what I fear is we solve the company's problems with no gain for the pilots.

The company decided to let all of the experienced schedulers leave during 2020 and then hire back entry level employees who didn't get trained properly, or if they did, were quickly recognized by another department/division and scooped up resulting in the replacement's replacement not being given nearly as thorough training as the predecessor.

The company is blaming us, I know because I flew with someone who spoke to Tim H-R at a PUB event who said they were just responding to our group having a blanket GS in all of the time without accepting responsibility for our woefully lacking IT or their decision to let everyone who know what they were doing to leave in 2020.

Ar Pilot 05-21-2023 07:47 AM


Originally Posted by ancman (Post 3639605)
This too. At the end of the day, ALPA is a business with paid employees. We pay plenty for ALPA’s services.

If the line to get into your restaurant consistently runs out the door and wraps around the block, you don’t tell your customers to try eating somewhere else first and come back only if you’re still hungry (especially when they’ve already paid). You expand and hire more staff as necessary.

Don’t disagree! We have the second largest budget behind the safety committee. Would need to greatly increase the budget and allow for 12-18 month lag time for new member training in order to knock down the queue and wait times.

API access should help greatly with ACE auditing.

ancman 05-21-2023 07:51 AM


Originally Posted by Ar Pilot (Post 3639582)
What you’re doing is perfectly fine and appreciated. There are obviously a lot of things that aren’t transparent to line pilots. A record of contact is very helpful given our response timeline and backlog. We understand pilots do not trust the company and we are the backstop for compliance.

That’s the way I handle it personally. But I have to wonder how many pilots stop short of ACEing every probable violation, thereby letting more violations slip through the cracks, simply because of ALPA’s oft-repeated message of using ACE as a last resort.

That messaging has been inconsistent as well. I’ve heard scheduling committee members recommend filing an ACE report for every reroute, and others suggest that it should only be used as a last resort. Every reroute is prone to multiple different types of violations and pay issues, and unfortunately those issues have only become more prevalent over time. Ideally ALPA will commit enough resources to verifying every single reroute.

I do know that everyone on the scheduling committee is working extremely hard every day. I appreciate and respect that. I’m simply suggesting that it’s time to devote more funding and resources toward expanding that team, at least until we can get more enforcement automation in place.


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