H8Flying1

Just a heads up for LUS pilots. Missed a call from scheduling today as a short call reserve and called them back approx 20 minutes later (took almost 5 minutes to get through) when I noticed the call. The policy according to our Chief Pilots is if you don't call back within 10 minutes you get a LCT (late contact). After 15 minutes late you get a NCT (no contact). Scheduling supervisor says you get the NCT if the trip is covered by someone else. It seems to me the NCT used to be reserved for actual no contact with the pilot. I was able to have the NCT removed after talking to a scheduling supervisor. Anyone else have any experience with these remarks in their schedule?

FreighterGuyNow

Call the contract hotline and tell us what they say.

Al Czervik

"Hi I'm LUS"

Click

H8Flying1

I am paraphrasing what the LUS contract administrators told me today:

There is no specified response time in the contract to a scheduling phone call. The APA Reserve Guidelines that reference the contract say you must respond without unreasonable delay while on your RAP. What is unreasonable? Scheduling has arbitrarily decided that the response times are basically 10 minutes for a LCT and 15 minutes for a NCT that results in you being bypassed and the trip assigned to someone else.

My comments: Management uses the remarks in your schedule (LCT"s and NCT's) to track your reliability. If you show a pattern of getting those remarks then you can expect a call from a Chief Pilot to explain why you are getting them. The occasional remark here or there won't show up anyone's radar. Of course we are not helping our fellow pilots if we miss or respond too late to phone calls, and I apologize for the few times over my 28 yr career I've done that.

Dashdog

I believe 10 minutes was specified in the old LUS contract, and I never heard about it changing. Seems like a reasonable amount of time for a short call, no?

Thedude

Kinda hard to keep up with all of the non-implemented changes or hold-overs.

H8Flying

If ten minutes was in there I think it only meant that after that they could bypass you to the next guy. It was not meant to be a time limit used in management's reserve reliability program. Most times I can listen to the phone message or voicemail from scheduling, check CATCREW screens to make sure they called the right guy, look up the trip, check FAR 117 to make sure I am legal for trip, navigate the phone tree and sit on hold for 2 minutes, and then actually talk to a scheduler in the alloted ten minutes. If I happen to be in the shower when the phone rings and I don't get the message for ten minutes, then no, it doesn't work too well. Do we want to set hard time limits for LCT's and NCT's or just live with the scheduler's interpretation of what "unreasonable " is when it is deliberately not defined in our contract? Just asking. If you try and do the right thing and rarely slip up it's not too hard to have a friendly chat with a Chief Pilot when these situations arise,but there are so many gray areas in our contract for reserves it's difficult to navigate them sometimes.

PurpleTurtle

No one should ever answer the phone on reserve. The voice mail, check catcrew legality check is vital before calling back. In unity!!

Years and years ago when I was on probation I missed my beeper (yes, it was back in the beeper days) because I left the beeper on the bathroom counter upstairs. I realized I left the beeper and retrieved it quickly (not out of contact for more than 20 minutes). Even though they didn't call my phone, I had a beep, so called back but was too late. NCT for me. Called the Chief Pilots office and told them what happened. They removed the NCT.

Never happened again and haven't been fired or given time off without pay.

I doubt APA or the company will "fix" this...

The little NCT on their screen probably doesn't mean much if the planes are actually crewed and take off on time.

drinksonme

10 min call back for a short call is not a huge issue, in my opinion. Obviously 15-20 would be better, but a SC knows the deal and usually has their phone at the ready so they can call back.

Now, a long call having to respond in 10 mins is absolutely ridiculous. Most regionals have, at minimum, 1 hour to call back as a long call. A long call, getting a NCT, for a trip 12 hours away, at minimum, is not even close to what our counterparts have as a policy. I know a LC that got a NCT, after calling back 20 mins after the initial call from scheduling, for a trip that was over 18 hours away! Unreal a professional is treated in that manner.

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but our long call counterparts at United have 2 hours to respond. At Delta, they do NOT have to respond at all as a long call. They just have to advise scheduling if they can't make the trip 3 hours prior to departure. They just show up and sign in.....professionals being treat professionally.

Did APA ever even look at what others companies do before they threw out "industry standard." Who are these people that negotiate for us.

Arado 234

Well, they spent $3,600 celebrating this industry-leading contract in DFW and try to dismantle the LUS IVR shortly thereafter. What do you expect? "At AA we have always done it this way, so ... "