IA Calls
05-24-2023 | 01:29 PM
#231
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 5,585
Likes: 328
And when we say “the problem” we mean the company’s failure to staff categories with adequate reserves, right? If you imagine every category properly staffed with enough pilots to maintain adequate reserves for the flying we’re actually doing, there would have been hundreds more WBA and WBB positions on the last two AEs and a quarter of our airline would be sitting in more lucrative positions or at more lucrative and/or qol-enhancing seniority levels. We’d also have the ability to drop and swap on the 20th for the following month instead of hoping and praying negative reserve coverage math facilitates a swap 2 days prior to a rotation. Many more of our reserve pilots would have an extra X day. Fewer pilots would get unstacked. Fewer pilots would have to move X days. Fewer pilots would have to resort to suck leave use for schedule management.
The company is also exacerbating their own blanket GS problem with the world’s worst slip input interface. I’m not wasting an hour every month to enter precise slips because the company can’t figure out a way to make them cross bid months. And I’m not going to turn them off and on every time I have a cocktail because the company hasn’t put any effort into making that a more simple affair. I’m also not going to decline every offer I am not interested in because ARCOS won’t stay logged in, or because it often hangs up on login. And there’s no way I call scheduling unless absolutely necessary because the wait times are insane and unpredictable.
See the trend here? These are company problems, and I’m done trying to solve them.
The company is also exacerbating their own blanket GS problem with the world’s worst slip input interface. I’m not wasting an hour every month to enter precise slips because the company can’t figure out a way to make them cross bid months. And I’m not going to turn them off and on every time I have a cocktail because the company hasn’t put any effort into making that a more simple affair. I’m also not going to decline every offer I am not interested in because ARCOS won’t stay logged in, or because it often hangs up on login. And there’s no way I call scheduling unless absolutely necessary because the wait times are insane and unpredictable.
See the trend here? These are company problems, and I’m done trying to solve them.
05-24-2023 | 01:32 PM
#232
FlySmarterNotHarder
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 596
Likes: 1
From: fifi flyer
“…..The company is also exacerbating their own blanket GS problem with the world’s worst slip input interface.”
The PCS slip template has not changed in well over 30 years. It was made when we were running DOS on the DBMS interface that we still use underneath it all. It was and still is totally inadequate to express your preferences to pick up a trip. It is so outdated it really is laughable. Except nobody’s laughing.
The PCS slip template has not changed in well over 30 years. It was made when we were running DOS on the DBMS interface that we still use underneath it all. It was and still is totally inadequate to express your preferences to pick up a trip. It is so outdated it really is laughable. Except nobody’s laughing.
05-24-2023 | 01:35 PM
#233
Leaves Biscoff crumbs
Joined: Jan 2020
Posts: 3,265
Likes: 941
From: Blue Juice Taste Tester
“…..The company is also exacerbating their own blanket GS problem with the world’s worst slip input interface.”
The PCS slip template has not changed in well over 30 years. It was made when we were running DOS on the DBMS interface that we still use underneath it all. It was and still is totally inadequate to express your preferences to pick up a trip. It is so outdated it really is laughable. Except nobody’s laughing.
The PCS slip template has not changed in well over 30 years. It was made when we were running DOS on the DBMS interface that we still use underneath it all. It was and still is totally inadequate to express your preferences to pick up a trip. It is so outdated it really is laughable. Except nobody’s laughing.
05-24-2023 | 01:40 PM
#234
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Sep 2014
Posts: 5,149
Likes: 113
The company pulled back from their initial summer flying plan. Had we tried to fix their problems a few months ago, I imagine that pull-back may not have happened. I don’t believe we can save them from themselves. They’re either going to remember they care about NPS and brand loyalty or they aren’t. They’re either going to keep paying triple for premium flying or they aren’t. They’re either going to recognize pilots don’t default to extending anymore or they aren’t. They’re either going to stop creating fatiguing rotations or they’re not. They’re either going to accept that Ops can’t meet Network’s demands or they aren’t.
Bigger batch sizes are lipstick on this pig. Thank goodness my family isn’t counting on flying anywhere they absolutely have to be this summer. Sadly I’m having to tell friends and neighbors to buffer their travels for the foreseeable future.
Bigger batch sizes are lipstick on this pig. Thank goodness my family isn’t counting on flying anywhere they absolutely have to be this summer. Sadly I’m having to tell friends and neighbors to buffer their travels for the foreseeable future.
05-24-2023 | 01:44 PM
#235
Line Holder
Joined: Mar 2019
Posts: 1,427
Likes: 169
You’d think so, although we had crews ripping paper from a dot matrix printer and taking it into their DC-9 until what like 2014? This place is literally a time capsule sometimes.
05-24-2023 | 01:45 PM
#236
Moderator
Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 7,489
Likes: 480
Why help when they chronically understaff (or over extend) the categories and build crap/fatiguing rotations? If they're going to continuously and flippantly utilize a portion of the contract clearly meant to be the exception, not the rule, why would guys not do the same in kind?
05-24-2023 | 03:16 PM
#237
Line Holder
Joined: May 2012
Posts: 1,308
Likes: 51
Why help when they chronically understaff (or over extend) the categories and build crap/fatiguing rotations? If they're going to continuously and flippantly utilize a portion of the contract clearly meant to be the exception, not the rule, why would guys not do the same in kind?
05-24-2023 | 03:26 PM
#238
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Jul 2022
Posts: 2,293
Likes: 1,200
Why help when they chronically understaff (or over extend) the categories and build crap/fatiguing rotations? If they're going to continuously and flippantly utilize a portion of the contract clearly meant to be the exception, not the rule, why would guys not do the same in kind?
I keep a blanket slip in because it’s contractual, and because it’s most convenient for me. The company may not like that, but I don’t particularly care. Just as they don’t care when they push our contract to the limits in situations that benefit them.
05-24-2023 | 06:45 PM
#240
Line Holder
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 922
Likes: 80
From: B737 FO
Just to play devil’s advocate for a second…With greatly expanded batch sizes, trips would get covered much faster, less 23M7, so less guys with blanket GS in trying to get paid for violations with no chance of actually flying a GS. Also, with larger batch sizes, less chance to no chance of batch size violations, so less people putting in blanket GS just trying to get paid for those violations. And, if there was NO batch size, there would almost never be a 3AM call since trips would be covered in 30 minutes or less vs the HOURS it takes now.
I’m not advocating for no batch size limit, but increasing it has definite upsides. For those that keep claiming “we shouldn’t fix the company’s problems”, let’s be honest and admit that we (through everyone putting in a blanket GS just to try to get paid for violations) is making the problem much worse that it should be.
I’m not advocating for no batch size limit, but increasing it has definite upsides. For those that keep claiming “we shouldn’t fix the company’s problems”, let’s be honest and admit that we (through everyone putting in a blanket GS just to try to get paid for violations) is making the problem much worse that it should be.
I agree that batch sizes need to be tweaked and maybe we need dynamic limits based on how soon the trip starts. But don't think for a second that they will magically cover trips more logically without batch limits.
As to the harvesting of violations with blanket GSs, maybe if they didn't violate the batch sizes so much pilots wouldn't all have GSs in to catch those? I mean, this is a multi-billion dollar corporation right? They should be able to handle programming ARCOS to correctly follow the PWA?
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