Earlier this week I had the opportunity to talk with the person in charge of improving flight crew trip pairings by optimizing productivity to reduce unit costs. The current project is the Shuttle where ALPA and the Company are trying to reduce sit around time, lower unit expense, and improve performance.
In the past the Trump Shuttle used to keep the same aircraft and crew matched throughout the day, each crew would fly four flights per day, and there were no RON’s. This system provided great operational performance and eliminated hotel/per diem expense, but had unproductive claim time for flight crew pay.
The paring construction team is close to completing a scheduling plan that will not only provide improved operational performance, match crews and airplanes together more than today, but it will eliminate RON’s without crews obtaining claim time by only flying four flights per day.
Apparently the trip sheet will have some pairings with 6 legs and 7 hours of block time and some pairings with four flights that could include 2 BOS-DCA or DCA-BOS legs to increase block time over 5 hours per day. To accomplish this there must be one segment flown by a mainline pairing.
They believe this change will reduce the company’s Shuttle expense by over $2 million per year with no hotel per diem expense and eliminate unproductive claim time with virtually all trips paid "hard time". He is in the final stages of the project and he hopes to have this change in place for the November schedule, but it may not occur until December.
In my opinion, LGA flight crews will see many of their multiple day trips become 1-day trips because of their bi-directional Shuttle O&D flights and the ability to easily fly the BOS-DCA market. This will cause the base to become more junior with less mainline flying, which will be less desirable to commuters because these pilots and flight attendants will have less per diem and hotel's provided by the company for over nights. Thus, the pilot and flight attendant seniority will become even more junior, similar in scope to last year, when most of the flying was 1-day trips.
The least expensive LGA hotel is the Ramada Airport at $139 per night (unless an on-line service like Priceline.com can be used to obtain a lower rate) and “crashpad†availability is poor. Moreover, many crashpads are intolerable because of 10 to 20 occupants, hot beds, and high rent for what many consider a suitable apartment.
Regards,
USA320Pilot
In the past the Trump Shuttle used to keep the same aircraft and crew matched throughout the day, each crew would fly four flights per day, and there were no RON’s. This system provided great operational performance and eliminated hotel/per diem expense, but had unproductive claim time for flight crew pay.
The paring construction team is close to completing a scheduling plan that will not only provide improved operational performance, match crews and airplanes together more than today, but it will eliminate RON’s without crews obtaining claim time by only flying four flights per day.
Apparently the trip sheet will have some pairings with 6 legs and 7 hours of block time and some pairings with four flights that could include 2 BOS-DCA or DCA-BOS legs to increase block time over 5 hours per day. To accomplish this there must be one segment flown by a mainline pairing.
They believe this change will reduce the company’s Shuttle expense by over $2 million per year with no hotel per diem expense and eliminate unproductive claim time with virtually all trips paid "hard time". He is in the final stages of the project and he hopes to have this change in place for the November schedule, but it may not occur until December.
In my opinion, LGA flight crews will see many of their multiple day trips become 1-day trips because of their bi-directional Shuttle O&D flights and the ability to easily fly the BOS-DCA market. This will cause the base to become more junior with less mainline flying, which will be less desirable to commuters because these pilots and flight attendants will have less per diem and hotel's provided by the company for over nights. Thus, the pilot and flight attendant seniority will become even more junior, similar in scope to last year, when most of the flying was 1-day trips.
The least expensive LGA hotel is the Ramada Airport at $139 per night (unless an on-line service like Priceline.com can be used to obtain a lower rate) and “crashpad†availability is poor. Moreover, many crashpads are intolerable because of 10 to 20 occupants, hot beds, and high rent for what many consider a suitable apartment.
Regards,
USA320Pilot
