Honestly not sure. I never check. But I assume with the current environment.

The few times I’ve looked I’ve gotten an error message.

Bots? Maybe. But you don't need a "bot" to be able to grab open time. Yes it's hard to grab anything now because so many people are gunning for what few trips drop in. And ya, if you wait for an alert from FLICA, the trip is gonna be gone because there's a 5 min delay from the time it drops into the pot and FLICA sends you a text.

It's all timing. Opentime updates from the FLICA server every 12-13 mins. Nothing drops on the page until the refresh. Once it's getting close to the 12-13 minute mark from the last page update, fire up the auto-refresh extension (set to refresh the page every 3-5 seconds) you downloaded to your web browser and wait to see if anything drops in. Once the page refreshes you might be quick enough to grab the pairing that drops in (assuming something does) if you can click faster than the other guy(s) who are doing the same thing as you. If nothing drops in, then there's no reason to sit by the computer for the next 10-11 minutes until you get close to the next refresh cycle in 12-13 mins. Rinse and repeat.

Maybe this is common knowledge and everyone is already aware of this. But it seems like I hear a lot of guys b!tch!ing that the pairing is gone by the time they get an alert from FLICA and log on to pick it up as if it's unfair they didn't get a chance to pick it up simply because they got an automated alert. And no surprise that's the case in this environment when nearly everyone's entire month has been cancelled and they are trying to grab as much extra flying as they can.

There are ways to force flica to update on your own terms too. Creating a transaction that will get denied or something like that, I can’t remember the specifics but that’s how guys used to do it when they would see a trip show in Crewtrac OT but not updated in Flica yet

I'm sure there are ways to game the system thru the website for those fluent in HTML or whatever flica is based on, but that's beyond my ability.

Can we still see open time thru Crewtrac? I didn't think we could do that anymore.

No, we aren’t supposed to be able to see OT in Crewtrac any longer but I’ve heard 2nd hand of guys who can still do it. It is a matter of having the right permissions in Crewtrac. Obviously someone like a CP or probably a CKA can see it. If someone had a close connection with Crew Services then I’m sure they could turn it on for you...

I may have an answer.

Unrelated industry, but I wrote a web script one time that literally checked for assignments and auto accepted them (non airline). Everyone asked how we were able to accept those job assignments so quickly. They were online jobs, took about 30 minutes to do and paid $50 a job. I had 4 employees working full time at $15 an hour and never ran out of work for them to do. Was a great side business for about 4 years, until others figured out what we were doing.

This was 10+ years ago, so back then people weren’t as savvy.

Maybe someone has built something similar? I know a couple guys at United have done this for trip pickups outside our system because notifications have a lag time and they found a way around it.

I guarantee this is exactly what is happening, but the use of these types of scripts/bots is prohibited. Which is why guys get bent out of shape about it.

I believe you’re absolutely correct. Someone with basic coding knowledge could probably write something using Javascript or HTML. Apparently this crap has been going on for a long time here. I even heard a story where they straight up caught a guy. Had him in the CP’s office and dropped something in his open time-which was promptly picked up. He got suspended from Flica for 6 months or something weak. Slap on the wrist basically. I consider this stealing from your brothers and sisters (pilot group), and I would fire someone first time. No questions asked. If you’re caught, you’re gone. No union protection. In lieu of that, we just need to change our open time system to something much more fair to everyone.

yep. To all above.