DeadHead

Good news is that during the winter months the carrier pigeons don't always make it to the colder bases up north.

That usually gets some reserve guys of the hook.

Bigflya

Folks,

Alot of questions and answers on this thread about what their new seniority may hold when we join together. DAL was out of whack with a more traditional pilot list due to our BK but with the latest displacement bid, things are becoming a little more in line. New hires came off ER's from both ATL and NYC. Domestic 76 from LAX and ATL. Some went to 73s but most to Mad Dogs. A few relative NH still in NYCER. They have probably been with DAL for a year. About every category got more senior with the cascading effect. Hopefully, we will not have to do that again.

NuGuy

Great Googly Moogly,

The NWA system has been in place for at least 5 years. If you get a schedule change, depending on when in the trip hour, you will :

Get a call/message from "the machine"
Get an ACARS message
Get a crew notifcation attached to the paperwork

AND aways

a text/email message if you have it set up.

How about a voice response system? The NWA scheduling VRS is surprisingly versitile, and you can do everything from hear the summary/specifics of your current pattern and schedule to listen/bid on open time and even bid vacations.

ATLAS, our version of eCrew/iCrew is Mac friendly, although we access the mainframes directly with 70s style terminal menus (via emulators) versus a windows/Java interface. Most everything else is web driven, including company mail, bid packets, and what not. Bidding is done by ATLASbid, which is essentially the same as CLASSBid.

It's gone through a couple iterations. When I got hired, we still had "green screen" terminals for mainframe access at work. You could access them at home, but you had to go through Compuserve dialup. The CLASSBid client also dialed up through Compuserve if you were doing it at home.

The first version of ATLAS used the web, but you had to go through a VPN that had a "nuclear code key". No kidding, they sent you this gadget that changed codes every 10 seconds, and you had to enter it to get access. That ruled out unattended access, like for booking jumpseats, but you could still use CS for that stuff.

Some of what NWA does is kinda backwards. Our schedule adjustments are all done manually by the 3rd shift crew schedulers. Our "PCS" is nothing but a screen that sends a pre-formatted messaged to scheduling. At 12:01am, they print them all out and work them by hand. But, if you get a change, you'll get a call by the machine the next morning.

Even more quirky was the "5 minute window" schedule bidding. Before we went to PBS in 97-98, the system in place had everyone getting assigned a "5 minute window" to place a bid for what lines they wanted. These would be published on what was called a "bid deadline", which was basically a bid list with your time to call and the phone number.

When you called, you talked to a live person, and they could tell you what lines were left OR you could build a line out of open flying. You kind of had to have all your sh!t in one sack, though, because you only had 5 minutes.

Alternatively, if you were in MSP during your bid window, you could go bid in person. The room was sort of like an old-school trader's room, as there were boards with grids, and telephones ringing and whatnot, and it was always pretty busy. You could walk in, check out what lines were left on the dry erase boards or scrounge over the trips in open flying. When your time came, you'd work something out with the analyst, who was always pretty good about giving you the ins and outs (no newbie ever forgot "Al, Al, the new hires' pal"), and I think you could even make swaps with open time right then and there with your line.

There was also a "buddy phone" which guys would call (and if you were standing there, decorum pretty much insisted that you pick up the phone), and you could give them the gouge on what was left, so they'd be all set when their window poped up.

If you didn't feel like doing any of the above, you could just put a list of lines in the computer (like every other airline in the world), which the analyst would look at and give you your choice. But that was boring.

But hey, that's all in the past. Fun to think about how we used to do it...

Nu