True, however you need to be properly "notified" of the changes, and are under no obligation to pick up your phone or self notify after check in. Normally they're trying to add a turn to a MDG day of a multi day trip, where you would literally gain nothing for doing the flying.

Any time you are speaking with CS (reserve day, on a trip, in the middle of the night on a 15 day vacation stretch, calling them about a missing golden day, whatever....) you can be notified. The only time you're forced to notify is during an RAP or RR period....not during a trip.

Do not speak with CS outside of these two periods, for any reason, unless you can/want to fly.

Calling and asking for flying out of a different domicile on an off day before a reserve stretch is asking to be notified outside of an RAP for a trip you otherwise wouldn't be legal for (i.e. 6AM show on Day 1 for a PM reserve) and could result in a SAD for a commuter.

 

Provided they can notify you.

A reserve pilot DOES NOT have to answer their phone or self-notify during a trip. Pretend like you threw it away after check in. Don't check the Sked+, go back to the stone age for those 4 days.

 

Release into rest is where they call you during a RAP and "put you into rest" (10 hours) in order to make you legal to accept a trip you normally would be illegal to take.

Example-

4AM-4PM reserve gets a call at 8AM that he's now on rest with a show time of 6PM and fly until 1AM.

OR

9AM-9PM Reserve gets called at 8PM, released into rest for a 6AM show time the following day.

If CS says, "We're releasing you into rest" you don't have to do it, and shouldn't because if some accident or violation occurred you'd have a hell of a time explaining how you were properly rested.

I would not call CS on a day off for ANY reason. Say you're a PM RSV (9A-9P), it's the day before your string of 4 days. You are planning on commuting from SFO-MSP or wherever on the early flight and landing in domicile at 9AM, for PM reserves the earliest you can show is 11AM (2 hour call out). If you talk to CS on that day off they could force an early show time on you, requiring you to fly in on a day off or miss it entirely because there's no flights that work and you'd be stuck with the ding on your attendance.

 

Ah. Thank you. That clarifies a lot.

A few more noob questions:

1) What is 'self-notification'?

2) Let's say you're on reserve and they call you to fly a 4-day. On Day 2, it turns out that the original lineholder, who called in sick on Day 1 (thereby putting you on that trip) is now feeling well and wants to pick up the rest of the trip. Can CS remove you from the trip? If so, how would they notify you if you don't answer the phone?

3.) In your example above, you were scheduled for a 9a-9p reserve. But, CS switched your report time to 6 am. They're allowed to do that, just because you talked to them?

4) if they send a message via ACARS, now what? Do you just ignore it?

5) once you've bid for your reserve line for the month, can they change your days off? Or are those hard days off?

6) Does bidding/ seniority determine who gets LCR and who gets SCR? If you're stuck on SCR, is there any way to change to LCR?

 

When as assignment is added to your schedule, a prompt page will appear before you can see your sked+ calendar (there are ways around this...see the SAPA website) with a button to acknowledge the changes, this is the same as being notified over the phone. Most reserves just use the phone call as an alert, check sked+ to make sure it's legit, then click the button online. As long as you do it within 10 mins, all is good.
You will be able to see the pending change on sked+, and your name will not be on the release or initialization page of ACARS. This is one scenario where you will have to call/acknowledge online after check in, but only once unless they put RR on your schedule. They can't pull you off a trip and keep calling you assigning more flying (unless you are on RR).
They cannot release you from your current RAP into rest to cover flying later on.

There's a MOU between SAPA and CS. They like to pretend it doesn't exist, call in fatigue if needed. Everyone I've encountered who CS forced it on their schedule was pay protected via the fatigue report.
Yes.

As I understand it the 'grey area' is WHO can actually make contact with you face to face and inform you to call CS. I hear many people say SkyWest employees only, I would only do it if some management person were standing at the door. The United OPS guy on the in-range call? No way. The Delta gate agent, keep walking. Your asst chief or admin person? I'd do it.
Hard, that's my argument why bidding specific days off in PBS is a bad idea. The company will just monkey with everyones schedules after the lineholders bid is ran. As it stands now they're fixed schedules that are released on the 10th. One of the tools we have is *attempting* to swap days in order to get a needed day off. Giving the company the ability to swap days would not be a good thing.
Yes.

LCR's can ask to be converted so SCR for either a workday block or entire month. No way to change from SCR to LCR. LCR is not as awesome as it sounds for commuters.

Good luck broseph!

 

You're required to accept a trip that doesn't violate our policy manual. Our policy manual is more strict than FAR 117. For instance FAR 117 would allow you to be released into rest at 4am to report for a 2pm show time for a 14 hour duty day that flies until 2am. Our policy manual allows you to refuse that assignment.

If CS gets you to agree to a trip they can waive the policy manual as long as the trip is legal per FARs. They cannot just assign it to you though. They have to ask you before they do something like that. If you pick up the phone they'll trick you into accepting by saying something like "we have a trip for you today with a 2pm show time. See you then!" They conveniently fail to mention you're being released into rest, and that you'll be flying all night.

As soon as you say "OK" without knowing the details you've now agreed to it and it is now legal. That's why you should never pick up your phone and let them talk. Look on sked+ at what they're trying to do to you so you have the upper hand when you call them to argue about it.

If they're trying to reflow you and it's legal you're probably screwed. If they're trying to reflow you and it's legal per 117 but not legal per our policy manual than what I said above applies. They'll try to get you to agree to it without giving you all the facts. Make sure you have all of the facts before you talk to them. Don't pick up your phone.

I recently was with a captain who got an illegal reflow that would have put him over the max FDP for the week. The response from CS was "just fly it now and we'll fix it later." Nope the reg is worded that you can't be scheduled over the max FDP. They can't fix it later. They love to interpret 117 in their own ways which is why you should look at what they're doing before you talk to them.

You can refuse it if it violates the policy manual. They will never admit that it violates the policy manual if you pick up your phone though. All they want is for you to say "OK" and agree to their violation.

If you pick up your phone they have the advantage because they have all the facts and can present those facts in ways that will confuse or trick you into agreeing. If you don't pick up your phone you can look at your schedule, get all of the facts and decide for yourself if it's a trip you have to accept or not. Those two sentences are the TL;DR of this entire post.

 

In fairness to CS, they are usually pretty busy. The "just fly it now and we'll fix it later" is probably not them trying to be cold hearted cruel monsters. Rather, they are likely stressed and unsure about what to do about the situation and hoping you will just ignorantly do it.

Any word on what to read specifically in the pilot policy manual to make sure I am on top of this ****?

 

I get pretty busy as well, yet somehow manage to not crash airplanes. If we sucked at our jobs as much as they do we'd all be dead.

 

In this scenerio, where you are released from a 4 day trip that was put on your schedule, you are pay protected right?

In other words, you get the original trip credit to add towards guarentee, or if you have broken guarentee you get paid for each hour that was put on your schedule and subsequently taken off, correct?

 

Trying to understand this one...

?? help?