Re-route
 

I'm on reserve and today the company decided to re-route me into my day off. Their only punishment for screwing me and my day off, straight pay.

It seems to me that involuntarily re-routing pilots into their day off should have stronger ramifications than straight pay. Currently we have an incentive program for the company to screw pilots into a re-route scenario rather than cover the trip via GS.

Just how I see it...

Was it straight pay added to the reserve guarantee? Also did you get a PB day? Just curious cause I almost had this happen

The straight pay is above guarantee but it's not a normal payback day like a GS. A GS payback day is block in time plus 9.5 hours. So basically you get a day off back. A re-route payback day is just block in time. Half a day off back.

The way I see it, if the company is going to violate your days off, they should have to pay triple for it. There should be consequences that prohibit them from doing it and reward the pilots who gets screwed by it.

Our current system rewards crew Scheds for re-route into days off.

My 2 cents.

Prepare for this to become more and more common as the shortage crunch continues.

Yep. I've been saying that for a while and few seem to listen. I tend to view days off as mine, call me crazy. I hear a lot of guys really excited about the potential GS's given the staffing situation. Careful what you wish for.

They are creatively rerouting line holders as well as reservists with no regard for the contract. I've had 3 in the last month and they tried to not pay me for all 3. The 1st they were legal to not pay extra, the 2nd one I challenged earned me and the captain 2 hours of straight pay, and the 3rd I challenged earned me over 8 hours of reroute pay. Be a squeaky wheel and don't accept when they violate the contract. The more they violate the contract and get away with it, the more they will violate the contract.

edit: btw, just to clarify all 3 of my reroutes were legal. They just tried to screw me out of pay while doing it. I've never been in your position cap'n but it sounds fishy. I'd definitely follow-up if I were you. My gut says you should at least get the same kind of PB you'd get if you were GSing on an XX day.

Been watching green slips go out like crazy in DTW 320 b the last month. They gave out 9 two days ago. Got 3 automated calls from scheduling in the last day about inverse assignments. ( 10pm,2am,and 550 am. ) NYC320b only has 1 reserve the entire month!! Looks like the staffing concessions we didn't give them in na15 are catching up to them😳

I'm going to check it when I block in and see what they try to do. Hopefully you are right and the payback is block in + 9.5.

they're just hoping that not everyone knows their contract. They've been busted pulling this bs for years. They dont care because if 1 out of 4 guys actually calls them on it than they're still 75% ahead on the payouts...

Know your contract and call them out everytime! this crap is going to only get worse...

I had five reroutes on my last trip. It was a 4 day and after the first out and back, not one leg or layover was as originally scheduled. I got back on the original time and with the original captain. It is my understanding that that is legal and not eligible for reroute pay since I was not extended. My trip pay did go up for the added time blocked. Is that all they are responsible for?

No. If they reroute you into a segment that has been in open time more than 14 hours (?), they owe you reroute pay for that/those segments. You need to call ALPA skeds and have them investigate for you.

If I've misstated something, someone will correct me shortly, but that's the gist of what Mike is talking about. I'm just back from a trip and I have 3 trip's worth of reroutes to call them about, including a reroute while I was on a GS. It could get interesting.

Will do, thanks. I'll advise.

Depends. As a line holder I was on a 4 day where day 2 was supposed to be 4 legs to a 17 hour layover and day 3 was supposed to be 2 legs to a 11 hour layover. On day 2 en route to ATL on leg 3 they rerouted us to a new layover of only 10 hours. Then instead of getting us back to ATL and on our original rotation, they threw in a 4 hour sit and a bonus BHM turn, then back to our original rotation. We were on a block rotation and they paid us the extra block time as part of our normal pay. We were not extended a single minute on day 4. What I complained about was the extra BHM turn that was assigned to us approximately 18 hours before the turn began. That should've been put into open time and run through the gauntlet of options before just assigning it to us as a reroute. For that they gave us pay that was identified as "4F1R" as the rotation number and they gave us 2:03 which was the exact block time of our BHM turn. No reroute pay or assignment pay, just a weird line on the monthly time data. Still not sure if we were paid properly but I think I've gotten as far as my grumbling will get me.

I looked it up in the contract and it's covered in section 23.S.11.

11. A reserve pilot who flies on an X-day due to an IA, GS, or reroute will be given nine hours free of duty upon his release at the completion of his rotation.
a. b.
His X-day(s) will begin immediately following such nine-hour period and will continue until he has received a period of 24 hours free of duty for each interrupted and remaining X-day in his scheduled X-day block.
If the remaining days in the bid period are insufficient to contain the X-day(s), the pilot will be granted an additional day(s) off under Section 23 S. 16.

In summary: A reserve pilot that is flown into X days gets his payback day as block in +9.5 hours.

So scheduling can take a whole day and all we get is 9.5hrs. Ridiculous.

Block in plus 9.5.

For instance, I got in today at 11am. My reserve payback day will be 8pm start. Meaning the earlies they can assign anything is 10 hours after that. Basically 8p on the payback day is my new midnight.

They went crazy this weekend on ATL320B, constant IA calls. I noticed the trip remarks on most of them said last minute marketing change.

Call ALPA anytime you are rerouted. The reroute grievances have paid out well.

I know I should know this but what's their number?

Maybe that was marketing picking up some RJ flying? Whatever it was, it cost the company dearly.

Now that is funny!:D

I've gotten 2 IA calls this evening for ATL320B... and I'm in the top third!

1-800-usa-alpa
1-800-872-2572

if so, it's a good thing. the pilot shortage is here and we don't have an MEC that would figure out how to solve that issue.

It may be naive but so far the company has treated me well. Never needed the number....

Anyone know how a reroute while on an inverse assignment pays? My understanding is that you just continue to get double pay.

Co-wrecked!

What happens when you get re-routed from a green slip into another green slip with conflict on February 29th and then that green slip gets bought for a LCA drop and then you put in for a green slip on top of that, which you get, but then cancels? Do you get suit-up pay?:)

Nope.

You get 23K recovery that starts no earlier than the time of your original report and ends no later than the footprint of the LCA drop trip. They also cannot give you a trip that has more block time than the square root of the block time of the trip that was cancelled.

You should however get paid some re-route pay. If you multiply the credit time of the trip on the 29th by 4 and subtract the block time of day 1 of the first re-routed trip you should get half that amount of re-route pay. However, that is only if the trip that cancelled was not cancelled for weather, maintenance, staffing, or ATC issues.

It's really straight forward around here if you know the contract.

Not just ATL and the 320. Multiple bases with 717, M88 and 320 all had massive open time and IA calls this last weekend. It was like Oprah handing out greenies. "You get a greenslip! and you get one! and you get one!

They had major weather issues in LGA and JFK on Friday also. On top of that JFK for reasons unknown was trying to operate with 2 runways. There were a large number of 3 hour rule gate returns and crews trapped in base Friday night.

Was having a hotel van discussion last night with a very experienced pilot who had been rerouted and refused to sign an extension. He relayed how he and his captain were forced to repeatedly explain their reasoning to higher and higher levels of authority before they were finally released to go to the hotel. He also mentioned how using the word "fatigue" would put you into an older pre-117 section of the contract where you would not necessarily be pay protected vs. "unfit to fly" which for lack of a better term, is the politically correct way to say the exact same thing but still be pay protected. I searched the contract for verification but could not find anything definitive and was hoping I could get some inputs here.

1. It sounds like pilots who don't sign an extension end up getting pressure from all directions and inferred threats of disciplinary action if they don't sign (the van story is only the most recent of several similar situations I've heard). Is there anything behind these veiled threats or are they bluffing and hoping you'll cave? Obviously you shouldn't sign a release if you don't feel you can safely fly regardless of administrative follow-up issues, but if pilot-pushing is common then it illustrates an underlying safety issue that needs to be stamped out.

2. Is there some specific contractual definition of the word "fatigue" which should make pilots use other verbiage when explaining why they're not signing an extension?

This is total BS that the extension has become assumed and we have to argue why we can't, under pressure no less.
Had one in LHR last week. Sent the dispatcher an ACARS message after we went over the flight plan LATT (no ext) that we would not extend. He came up with a LATT that was somewhere between our 2 LATTs and while we were trying to sort that out, ACS took the pax off the aircraft, so it became moot.

I was on my way to Lowes yesterday when my wife called and said I needed to turn around and get coffee for her. Am I entitled to re-route compensation?

If I didn't know better I would think I was reading this in the "regional" forum. This stuff is an everyday occurrence at our level, for about 1/4 the pay. Not a criticism, just an observation.

Delta is not following 117 regs correctly. It should be a pilot can extend 2 hours, not that he has too/or is expected to extend 2 hours. I have heard from good sources this has been discussed with the FAA, and I predict a correction will be added to the FOM in a few months.

I agree with you. They expect us to be able to fly to FAA max everytime we show up for work. As far as they are concerned, not extending is the same thing as a fatigue call. If you refuse to extend, you have to call crew tracking who will transfer to a duty pilot if you hold your ground. Duty pilot will then question you and make you feel bad. If you still refuse extension, he will then put you on 10 hours rest and turn you back over to crew tracking. A real chied pilot will then follow up a few days later and make you explain yourself again. He will tell you that you probably won't get paid. That way you think about it before doing it again next time the situation comes up. You may or may not get paid. It's not an easy process and if you do it, they make you feel like you are going against the norm.

On a three day now. 5 reroutes so far. Non a single leg on the original rotation. 1st leg cnx due to EWR fire. After that its been a constant cluster. We are imploding....

ATL717B

"4F1" is the contractual section that the company applied to your rotation to determine your pay (4= the Min Pay and Credit Guarantee section, F = Rotation Guarantee. You were actually under 4.F.1.b.2), with the "R" being a code for the reroute.

I agree. But I don't think a single pilot has not been paid for refusing an extension. All intimidation.