Scheduling Alert: Minimum Connection Times
 

"Your MEC Scheduling Committee recently concluded discussions with the Company to establish minimum connection times that will be used between flights on a pilot’s rotation."

"A pilot may be rerouted into a connection time that is shorter than is shown in the table above in order to avoid unnecessary delays for passengers on the affected flights. However, a pilot’s indicated duty period and/or FDP length on their then current rotation will always be based upon a connection time of at least the connection times shown in the table above."

Can anyone explain to me what we gained from this? At first glance it sounds like Tracking can do whatever they want with no financial recourse for the pilot.

Yes, we did lost some money for pilots when a min turn time was violated. The problem was those times were somehow secret and you only knew if you were dealing with a violation via an ACE report. The key thing to me is that your FDP must be calculated based on the agreed upon times. You cannot be rerouted into a schedule that requires an FDP extension, and this agreement makes it clearer to determine your legalities. So if you're legal for a RR with a 12 minute turn, but a 30 minute turn puts you into extension territory, they cannot schedule that since it's illegal.

That was already the case and spelled out in the PWA and SRH. 23L11c of the PWA and not less than 30 minutes according to the SRH. No clue what page because they took the page numbers out. Go figure.

This policy does make it more transparent, but it was already the policy of having to use reasonable turn times, defined as not less than 30 minutes. Though they didn't always follow that requirement, just like a lot of the other contractual requirements.

Exactly. So it seems like we simply lost out in the ability to grieve these occurrences. I'm not too bright and just figured that I was missing something obvious. Maybe I'm not too bright but not missing anything at all?

The way I read the memo, is that the minimum turn times for construction and rerouting are set at the table limits, except there are certain airports where the limit is more. It appears they finally published that table under Scheduling MISC. like the ALPA memo says. It wasn't there last week. ATL is 55 minutes DOM-DOM. So if the company built a trip with less than 55 minutes in Atlanta on a DOM turn, they are supposed to call scheduling and have them no-op it. If they reroute a pilot with less than 55 minutes, they are supposed to add that time on to the duty day, which is still required to be legal by the PWA and by the FARs. But maybe that's only if it is actually below the 30 minutes the chart requires and not the 55 time in the table of airports with different MCTs? I'm not sure. The memo could have used another example or two.

I think this just set the policy in stone and thankfully they have published their secret list of airport turn times. Can come in to play with various other sections like 8d3 as well.


Also, how we would lose out on grieving something? I wouldn't be shocked for the company to say just that if you call them on a trip built wrong.

My rep told me the pay treatment for 23.L.11.c is unchanged.

MIN turn violation just got me paaaaaiiiiid. I called about it after and they added a boatload of time to my timecard. Seems like a win so far.

If you're OK sharing details...?

Go a reroute. The change (24 hours away) was a 17 min turn to a DH. FO was actually scheduled for DH two hours later. We had same schedule except for this DH.

I got in for a 10 hour layover late the day they put the reroute on us and didn’t have time to call to fix the short reroute turn. Showed to the jet the next day and still not fixed. Didn’t have time to call (or didn’t feel like dealing with it, thought the system would catch up especially since FO was on a reasonable DH). Nope, landed and still there so I hustled to make it. I didn’t. They never noticed I was missing until I called hours later asking what they wanted me to do. Mind you, there were still 3 DHs I could make to be legal that day. Instead they laid me over and sent me on a DH the next morning with a 35 min turn. That flight was late too.

So I called, and the supervisor put 4F1R and 16 hours on my timecard. I assume it was because it was illegal after that point.

So when they give you this 16 hour payout, is there a way for you to know and calculate that 16 is what you were owed from the beginning or is it as arbitrary as Dumbledore awarding points at Hogwarts?
Did they basically go "Ok, whoops. Here's 16 hours for your troubles and I pulled that number out of my a$$"