If you’re asking me to extend it’s already a long day. Those 3 minutes can be longer if there are delays, etc etc.

 

Hurricane bearing down on your house? Don’t forget to “plan your commute accordingly”.

 

Those rascally pilots refusing to extend their already crazy long day! Who do they think they are? Gotta complete the mission. Tactical use of caffeine FTW.

 

Because we are human beings, and sometimes there are shades of gray...regardless of what the company is or isn't doing. The decision to possibly extend (or not) is 100% the individual pilot's call. However, there are rare times when common sense and humanity are allowed. My decision to even consider extending at all boils down to "did the company's decision making, whether in trip construction, or operationally during the trip, have anything to do with my needing to even think about extending?" If the answer is "yes" then I don't extend. If the answer is "no, this one truly isn't the company's fault" then I might consider extending, depending upon the circumstance. The following two stories were from a few years ago when I was flying as 320A out of ATL, but I think they are good stories to tell.

1. NOT extending story. We had a long duty day, that was poorly planned to begin with. We had a CUN turn (I think), followed by a two hour sit, followed by a 2+ hour flight ATL-BOS. The duty day was scheduled within 30 minutes or so of the max duty day to begin with, even if everything went perfectly. All the company had to do was make leg three something shorter than ATL-BOS, or the initial CUN turn something shorter. There are literally dozens of cities that the 320 flies to that would have worked better. ATL-BOS wasn't one of them. We ended up having a rolling maintenance delay, and both of us pilots agreed that we weren't going to extend based on maintenance "assurances" that things would be fixed. Day two (of a two day) was just one and done BOS-ATL, so after we refused to extend, we got to go home. Once I got home I checked the flight status of the ATL-BOS flight. Guess what? The maintenance delay was still ongoing, and had we agreed to the extension, we would eventually have timed out anyway. Then the company would have scrambled for two new pilots, but hours later in the process. In a way we did the company a favor by not extending.

2. Example of a time where I did extend--and would again. I was flying a routine 3-day trip, but with three separate FOs. Day one of the trip I remember clearly (the day I elected to extend). I started with an ATL-CUN-ATL turn, then was scheduled to fly ATL-DFW to layover. My first FO just flew to CUN and back, the second one flew ATL-DFW, then DFW-ATL the next day. I then picked up a third FO for the rest of the trip. after returning from DFW.

After a routine flight ATL-CUN, on taxi out from CUN we had a medical emergency. We ended up taxiing to a remote ramp spot, the airport sent and ambulance, medics came aboard etc. We ended up taking about a 90 minute delay. We finally got to ATL and said goodbye to the first FO. My FO on the ATL-DFW leg was on a sweet two day GS. The flight was also a 100% full A321 and we had two cockpit jumpseaters commuting home. But...there had been some very bad weather sweeping through the south and Arkansas. Even though much of that weather had passed through the system, ATC still had some required routes. So instead of being filed on the usual WNW routing ATL-DFW, dispatch was forced to file us down to MSY, IAH and then almost due north up to DFW. That added about 30 minutes to the usual flight time.

Even after all that, I figured that I would be about three minutes into the extension. I felt great, and most importantly. it wasn't Delta's fault. Not their fault that a pax had a medical emergency on taxi out. Not their fault about the weather and that ATC was insisting on routings that were no longer necessary. So I took the extension. Guess what? Once airborne we asked for and received a far more direct routing, and we landed in DFW 30 minutes early well inside any extension window.

I WOULD extend again in that scenario. Rare of course, but food for thought.

 

If the union kicks a pilot out of the union he pays nothing. If a pilot ops out of the union he is required to pay an agency fee. Google agency fee. Here is the contract section on removal.

“The provisions of this section will not apply to any pilot covered by the PWA to whom membership in the Association is not available upon the same terms and conditions as are generally applicable to any other pilot, or to any pilot to whom membership in the Association was denied or terminated for any reason other than the failure of the pilot to pay an initiation (or reinstatement) fee, dues and assessments uniformly required.”

 

Im not talking about a fatigue call. That can happen even before starting the day, like calling fatigue for a redeye cause you couldn’t sleep because of disrupting hotel guest.

My point is, if the day is already long and they are asking for an extension is because day has been hectic already…

 

Fatigue can happen anytime, even after you have agreed to an extension. You are not locked into 2 hours.

 

Cool. You extend. I'm going to the hotel. I'll collect my RR pay as well. See ya!

 

Yup, 2 or 3 or 4 individual decisions need to made. The chips fall where they fall.

 

In the new CA class CS said pre Covid, extensions were accepted 90% of the time. Now they are seeing closer to 50/50. They are even considering changing their planning software. All their software takes into account extensions.