PSA QOL

[Dog Wonder]

Are you Larry, Curly, or Moe?

 

[Dorf]

Someone should try and convince upper PSA managememt that that those person/persons should spend a few days flying the line in the jumpseat and another day or two in the crew room and if they have any kind of sole maybe, just maybe some changes "might" occurr.

Respectfully

LGA777

K.H., the Pres. of PSA, has no soul....in fact he worships the ground Jerry Glass walks on and wants be be just like him. This is a man who said "unions exist because management fails" yet fails at every turn to do right by the employees. He also has had many goups "unionize" under his Cough, Cough leadership.

 

[gabby]

.

4. Sick calls-Yes, the vast majority of sick calls are legitimate. But we ALL also know that many sick calls are NOT legitimate--that's evidenced when junior assiging is needed on Christmas Day. First, Christmas Day is a lighter than normal flight schedule, AND the sick calls are typically much higher on that day.

I can tell you why people call in sick on Christmas. Family is most important to 99.9% of the people that work at PSA. We spend very little time at home. So first reason why people call in sick is because they are sick of not spending time with their family.

Second reason is that most if not all places are closed on Christmas. I worked last year and spent Christmas....Hungry! So we work hard all year and go hungry on Christmas day. Thanks for the Turkey sandwich that never made it to our crew.

Third reason is that we don't get paid more for working that day. I understand we have a contract and that the company needs to follow it. But the contract is the minimum we can expect to get in return for our efforts at work. It won't hurt morale if the company gives a $50 bonus for working on Christmas day. Nothing in our contract stops managment from going a step further.

Forth reason why people call in sick is because our schedules suck. How would you like to work 1.8hrs and get stuck in XNA for 18hrs? hmmm work christmas for $35.00 hmmm tough one there!

Remember we have an agreement between two parties, Management and the Pilots. I work for you and you give me $$$ in return. Fair wage for fair work. So i show up for work each and every day i am scheduled sometimes 15hrs ahead of time because the commute dictates. I give my 110% each and every flight. I work at high altitudes with 10,000lbs of fuel under me. It is not a safe job. Constant worries of terrorism or system failures or whatever. Coupled with poor hotels, long duty days, bad expensive airport food and you have a receipe for disaster. ie Comair.

Yes people call in sick on Christmas, Can you blame them? I can't.

 

[rjh]

Yes people call in sick on Christmas, Can you blame them? I can't.

All calling in sick on Christmas does is make someone else work, and extremely high sicks calls (meaning more than average) causes someone to get junior assigned--or force the airline to cancel flights, and not allow paying passengers to get home to see their families. If someone doesn't want to work holidays or weekends, they should work in an office.

I've worked pretty every Thanksgiving and Christmas since I started with the airline. I also worked in retail for 15 years, and had to work crappy hours that didn't allow me much time with my family. But I understood I could change that situation if needed.

And again ..yes getting junior assigned sucks, especially on holiday. But DONT blame the crew schedulers for that.

 

[gabby]

Well i work Christmas because i don't have kids and i would rather suffer then my co-workers children. I understand why people would call because management doesn't make this job worth giving up so much of our lives. When management decides to go to the terminal and help out the gate agents or load airplanes i will stop complaining.

How about when scheduling asks for a favor. They want to extend me past 4 hrs. Ok i say even though the contract says 4 hrs max. I am doing them a favor.

Then i call back a couple of days later and ask for my reserve time. 5 am. I ask if they have a trip scheduled and they tell me no. So i leave the night before, spend $40 for a hotel room and they don't call till 10am. I have a 11:30 SHOW. Come to find out from the captain that he knew i was on the trip yesterday. So why is it scheduling couldn't do ME a favor and tell me i have a 11:30 show? Save this poor underpaid F/O $40. And give me one more night in my own bed. I average 8 per month.

Thanks for the return of the favor.

And don't give me the "I choose" to commute. If someone offered you a job where there is no job security, no guarentee of advancement and low pay what would you do? Sell you house, move to a strange city, only to find out that 6 months later you get a base change.

 

[flyin2low]

You are preaching to the choir Gabby. You are obviously new to all this airline stuff. Now you know of the dark secrets at the regionals. You can go elsewhere, but it's the SOS .

 

[gabby]

You are preaching to the choir Gabby. You are obviously new to all this airline stuff. Now you know of the dark secrets at the regionals. You can go elsewhere, but it's the SOS .

Ya, i have been flying since '89 but only with the airlines for 4 years. Just at my pain threshold right now. I would love it if the SSO hotel lady spent a month on the road with us. Just love it!

 

[rjh]

Then i call back a couple of days later and ask for my reserve time. 5 am. I ask if they have a trip scheduled and they tell me no. So i leave the night before, spend $40 for a hotel room and they don't call till 10am. I have a 11:30 SHOW. Come to find out from the captain that he knew i was on the trip yesterday. So why is it scheduling couldn't do ME a favor and tell me i have a 11:30 show? Save this poor underpaid F/O $40. And give me one more night in my own bed. I average 8 per month.

Thanks for the return of the favor.

When did you first call? When was the trip actually assigned?

 

[USstew23]

When did you first call? When was the trip actually assigned?

Not to be rude but are you 1) A crew scheduler 2) A pilot 3) A flight Attendant 4) An employee of the former USAir ie. mainline, midatlantic (which was mainline) PSA, or Piedmont? If not then maybe you should go back to checking people in on your Shares computer because you have no clue whatsoever what you are talking about. Sorry but we do not tell you how to check in or board our passengers according to your union contract. The only crew schedulers that I know of that have any kind of soul are the "original" US Airways schedulers, they are a real class act and every airline out there should start taking notes (that means the former Mc Donald's working crew schedulers at AWA).

 

[rjh]

Not to be rude but are you 1) A crew scheduler 2) A pilot 3) A flight Attendant 4) An employee of the former USAir ie. mainline, midatlantic (which was mainline) PSA, or Piedmont? If not then maybe you should go back to checking people in on your Shares computer because you have no clue whatsoever what you are talking about. Sorry but we do not tell you how to check in or board our passengers according to your union contract. The only crew schedulers that I know of that have any kind of soul are the "original" US Airways schedulers, they are a real class act and every airline out there should start taking notes (that means the former Mc Donald's working crew schedulers at AWA).

I have plenty of crew scheduling experience, so yes I know what I'm talking about. How would you handle situations such as these:

1. It's Christmas Day, and there are 15 open trips, but only 5 people left on reserve. There's also nobody on the volunteer fly list. How would you cover those trips, or would you just let them get cancelled?

2. There's a no-show crewmember for a flight that leaves in an hour. Due to contract rules, the next reserve can't get there for 2 hours, but you have a lineholder coming in soon, who will be legal to take that flight with minimal delay--and the lineholder's next leg can be covered with a reserve, also with minimal delay. Would you do the swap, or make the passengers wait for 2+ hours, with many of them missing connections?

3. A crew scheduled to go to JFK is about to time out due to maintenance delay. They are still more than legal to go to LAX, and the crew scheduled for LAX is legal to go to JFK. Would you swap the crew, or make the passengers wait another 2+ hours for a reserve crew, just because a crewmember had dinner plans in LAX?

4. A crewmember is sick for an early morning flight out of ORD. It would take 2 hours to call out a reserve, and another 3 hours for the flight, meaning a 5+ hour delay. Or, we can have a crew member scheduled to take a later flight work the earlier flight--all with FAR & contract legal rest. Would you delay the flight 5 hours or more?

Everyone's jobs would be much easier if there were more than enough reserves available for every day of the week. Guess what . .this is the real world, that doesn't happen.

Schedulers don't tell you how to evacuate the aircraft in an emergency--don't tell them how to fill open trips and keep flights running on time.

 

[malikie]

you have no clue whatsoever what you are talking about. (that means the former Mc Donald's working crew schedulers at AWA).

USstew32 maybe you you should take your own advice because you obviously do not know what you are talking about when it comes to the crew scheduling dept here on the west side of the company.

The crew schedulers are a hard working group and to say a comment like you said was very childish.

And don't give me the "I choose" to commute. If someone offered you a job where there is no job security, no guarentee of advancement and low pay what would you do? Sell you house, move to a strange city, only to find out that 6 months later you get a base change.

Honestly I woud not take the job. Why be in a job with no future?

 

[ItsJustAJob]

Hey Newman,

Since when did a faulty PA require a flight to be cancelled? If I have a faulty PA, I don't even need a mechanic. I can write it up, defer it, and be on my way in less than 10 minutes. I've been flying the -700 since we got them and can only remember one flight with an inop PA..and that was only the forward handset, so it still worked by using the reat handset.

Also, your assertion that PSA is the least reliable of the Express carriers is not supported by the on time/completion factor statistics.

 

[Crzipilot]

Have to 2nd ITsAJOb, by the numbers PSA has been #1 in completion and on time performance of all the regional carriers for US, except for 2 months somewhere. 1month they were 2nd in ontime and one month 2nd in completions. Doesn't seem to unreliable...

 

[USstew23]

USstew32 maybe you you should take your own advice because you obviously do not know what you are talking about when it comes to the crew scheduling dept here on the west side of the company.

The crew schedulers are a hard working group and to say a comment like you said was very childish.

Then answer why the turnover is extremely high on the West with the reserves? Scheduling out West leaves alot to be desired. And yes for the record I do have experience in crew scheduling and know that it is a tireless job, that's exactly why I gave a huge to the schedulers in PIT. I know the contracts between East and West are different but it doesn't matter in how you treat people.

 

[rjh]

Then answer why the turnover is extremely high on the West with the reserves? Scheduling out West leaves alot to be desired. And yes for the record I do have experience in crew scheduling and know that it is a tireless job, that's exactly why I gave a huge to the schedulers in PIT. I know the contracts between East and West are different but it doesn't matter in how you treat people.

Yes, high turnover can be atrributed to crappy schedules and work rules. But that's not the fault of the schedulers--they are simply filling open trips based on what's allowed by the contract and FAR's. Maybe the east has more latitude to do "favors" outside the contract than the west.

I have also read in several previous postings that the reserves on the east rarely work more than their minimum guarantee, many of them work less than that. That would seem to indicate an abundance of reserves, which would mean things like tagging and 12 hour duty days for reserves is uncommon.

The problem isn't scheduling; it's staffing.