Holy Increasing Utilization Batman!
 

posted this on that other site as well, but just thought I'd share here too . . .

So I wouldn't be surprised if I'm missing something here because honestly I just looked up the numbers now and haven't evaluated any other criteria, but here's the quick info I was just looking at . . . for most folks this probably doesn't come as a surprise. It's just that I knew something was changing, but the actual numbers seem more than I expected.

Anyways -

March 2018 System Schedule Report 11,172 Domicile Pilots and 609,934 Scheduled Pilot Hours = 54.6 hr/p
March 2017 System Schedule Report 11,133 Domicile Pilots and 581,433 Scheduled Pilot Hours = 52.2 hr/p

I know . . . nothing shocking but still interesting.

The increase in block hours is probably attributed to Easter falling in April 1 this year. Last year it was in mid-April. Nothing to get too excited over.

We grew by 39 pilots!

Bingo.

Filler

If my math is correct, that's a 4.5% increase in work performed per pilot. Equal to hiring 500. Obviously significant.

I wasn't looking at it as positive growth I was looking at it as a bad increase in pilot utilization that has led to a serious decline in hiring and movement. For the record the February numbers are similar. Also someone on the other forum says the increase in utilization was equal to a loss of 513 pilot positions.

2018 619,633/11109
2017 592,273/11079

Is the magical impossible quick turn also part of this utilization increase? For example...

Brought an airplane into B (EWR). Was notified that it was a quick turn to bogota. Checked the bogota flight and found that it was scheduled to leave in :40 from C137. ...& We were :14 early. All this on a good weather Sunday. That was not the only scheduled negative turn on my 27 hour 4 day.

Its been a while since Ive seen negative turns. They really sucked. I thought were trying to get away from crap like that.


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Negative turns are due to a routing issue somewhere. Broken plane, flow delay etc. The airplane flying schedule isn’t built with negative turns. If your Bogota example was a 756 then I would bet a box of sanicoms it was due to an airplane out of service for maintenance. Negative turns are indicative of higher utilization and no room in the schedule for irrops and unplanned maintenance. This may be a long summer.

I think it’s funny to see more hours per pilot as an automatically bad thing. At some point, our main purpose is flying planes, even though we all prefer to maximize the pay/hour equation. Honest question, what was happening last March? Was that part of the glut of 747 training? We’re down a fleet so that puts a few more bodies on the line.

It also seems to me (just anecdotally) that reserves are flying quite a bit on the narrowbody side, and I recall a lot of quiet time on reserve a few years ago.

Just suggesting that, to a point, this isn’t all bad for the pilot group - though obviously not ideal for the pilot waiting for a start date.

Ok. Got it now. Perhaps we are nearing the tipping point of increasing staffing.