Unless they sent 5 of you to TRC with only 3 rooms available in the ENTIRE CITY. Gotta love “sleeping” on the lobby couch...when they send an ACARS message telling you to call CS on landing, send one back demanding to know why. I would’ve diverted to LRD rather than continuing into that dumpster fire situation.

 

Crew care the crap out of that.

 

But were a diverse airline.

 

Doesn’t sound like an a legal rest facility to me! I’m fatigued just thinking about it!

 

You are over thinking this way too much and this is NOT some sort of negotiation tactic. If I am waiting 4 hours or someone even mentions sleeping on a hotel couch, I am calling in fatigued. It is not our problem nor our job to secure proper hotel arrangements.

I understand that when the weather turns there will be some delays, but those delays need to be reasonable. CS needs to make sure it is expedited so that we can get to sleep and no crew should ever accept a time that isnt going to provide them adequate rest.

Just because we legally can fly with 8 hours behind the door doesn't mean you are physically ready to fly in all circumstances. If you have been stressing over a room for 2.5 hours, dealing with crew members that are ****ed, you are likely not going to hit the pillow and pass right out for eight hours.

In addition, you need adequate time to shower and take care of personal hygiene/biological needs. I believe 30 min is the number they shoot for with this.

Lastly, just remember, the passengers safety depends on you being alert and mentally ready to handle any situation that comes your way. If you are tired and didn't get the rest YOUR body needs, call fatigued. Please dont abuse the system, but use it when it needs to be used.

Sorry for the long post, but there are too many pilots shouldering the responsibility of getting a room and subsequently flying fatigued. Your future and the safety of our passengers is worth more than that.

 

Yea no. Room availability is not a problem for you to solve. If that's me, I'm sitting on that couch until CS, API or the actual hotel has a guest accomodation for me. If you fall asleep while sitting there it's one thing but don't be sleeping on lobby couches for anything but your buddy's bachelor party.

 

There were reportedly 8+ other crews that were stranded like me. CS told me they had been calling API for hours just to be put on hold for 30 minutes. I did call CS when I got to the room, they just gave me a new deadhead with 11 hours total rest back to base. They need to go back to in house hotel schedulers rather then API.

 

Correct. The DH CA and I stayed on duty the whole night because we hadn’t received proper rest facilities. We deadheaded back to DFW the following afternoon and were immediately released from duty upon our return. The union sent an email to the pilot group shortly after the incident with details. 175 crews beware when you are ordered to operate a flight that was upgauged from a 145. Check your ops specs to ensure it’s a legal destination and make sure they have accommodations for your entire crew. SOC will definitely take a “ready, fire, aim” attitude when it comes to patching together the flight schedule when using standbys.

Still haven’t heard a single syllable of apology from the company for that debacle, but I did have 3 voicemails from the CPO inquiring about the 3 minute delay we took leaving DFW that night. Just to make it CRYSTAL clear where their priorities really lie.

 

Lmao. No surprise there

 

I hope you didn’t return any of their calls.