question for the houston based guys
 

so ike is on its way and the houston area airports are closing at 3pm today. what do you do as pilots? do they have you fly all the planes out of houston before it shuts down? does the company give you time to get all your stuff together and evacuate? if all your trips are turns from houston do you just go to another base, or do you plan on having the next week off? just curious how things go down when a major airport like that is closed.

Great question - I am also very interested in how airlines manage major disasters and in the past have had questions about contigency plans, etc. Also, do airlines involve a pilots union in their contingencies, or is it the Chief Pilots only that are involved in the planning?

I have a buddy just landing in RSW, He called me company said they have a 40hr + layover now. Do they give u time to prepare?, Heck no, you are on your own....

all you need in that situation is a change of clothes, a credit card, and a bar within a mile of the hotel.

dwn3grn - were you in the wild weasel squadron?

No credit cards...always cash. LOL

I'm not working but have been trying to keep an ear to the ground about how the company is handling things. Apparently operations (dispatch, scheduling, etc) have been moved to a backup facility and aircraft that were operating in the IAH system were just turned to their overnights this morning/early afternoon where they will stay until Sunday. There were also some ferry flights to Amarillo and Shreveport with employees and their families. CAL did a similar thing with their flights and sent 1 or 2 767s to El Paso for employees and families who wanted to get out of Houston. That's about all I've been able to learn so far. It'll be interesting to see how they recover the operation. What's also interesting to think about is that even though Houston is out of commission until Sunday at the earliest there are still 2 other hubs that will be operating a more or less full schedule and a large portion of the airline will need to continue to operate.

With 40 hours, even that should not be an issue :rolleyes:

VERY true. Ron Mexico learned the hard way. ALWAYS CASH!!!!!!!!!!!!I'm sprung now.

Basically all of the flights that were supposed to return to the hub tonight and tomorrow are staying at the outstation until sunday, along with their crews. Those aircraft that were going to be left in Houston were evacuated last night and earlier today to various outstations.

As far as the company giving us time to prepare, well, it's an airline. They're looking after their own flight operations first. Most of us were able to evacuate with an airplane (I was out last night), but there are plenty of people who were expected to remain on reserve during all of this. Those people (rightly) got the hell out on their own accord without any word from the company. The IAH chief pilots were great about getting people released from duty, but "officially" the company "couldn't guarantee" that everyone could be released.

Good for your cheif pilots! that is realy BULL S#!T that the company wouldnt officially cancle every single duty responsibility down there tonight and tomarrow. Hope everyone stays safe down there

I started a four day yesterday -- today I am on revision P of my schedule -- last night we flew until midnight, they put us on reduced rest and we operated the last revenue flight this morning, and now we are in ABI where we waited for a hotel room for three hours. The company did a great job of acheiving the objective -- it just takes a while sometimes.

You know whats funny, that sounds exactly like the trip I'm on right now. Except we aren't anywhere near a hurricane, just another normal trip at 9E.

This is the 2nd hurricane I've been through with XJT that directly hit IAH (even though I live in Dallas) and I don't know if the company could be more accomodating. If you're in a mandatory evacuation ZIP, you'll get the time off no questions asked. They want to get the last remaining flights out but they won't sacrifice employee safety for it. A recent message asked for CA's to fly to AMA, "families and pets welcome."

At RAH I just called them yesterday and said I wasn't going to make it in. All they said was "ok we'll fix your schedule" and that was it. Been having a blast ever since. Block party everyday till it's time to get back to work around here.