Pilot morale
03-16-2022, 06:25 AM
#21
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2008
Posts: 19,610
Not that long ago a big complaint was that we needed trips like SW because guys wanted to work fewer days. Our trip value per day is much better now than pre 2016 but now the trips are to hard.
03-16-2022, 06:26 AM
#22
Line Holder
Joined APC: Dec 2013
Posts: 75
I haven’t really liked coming to work since 2018. I distinctly remember my wife asking me that summer, “Do you even like this job anymore?” No, I spend all my time trying to get a schedule that doesn’t have miserable trips. I’ve called in fatigued 4x since then and anticipate more as I become more aware of how tiring these trips are, and specially when things don’t go as planned.
03-16-2022, 07:10 AM
#24
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2007
Position: Road construction signholder
Posts: 2,432
When you say "5 minutes" you actually are talking "35 minutes." What, you say? There is the FAA max duty day from the FAR 117 tables (and then the two hour extension beyond that), but there is also our contractual max PWA duty day, which at the time of trip construction is limited to 30 minutes less than that. And, there is no such thing as a "PWA max duty day extension"...only an FAA extension.
The bottom line is that we already are giving the company 30 minutes of PWA max duty day extension/flexibility for free before we go into the FAA extension even one minute. That is all fine and good, as this is the airline industry and stuff happens. However, no need to mentally fret about "it's just five minutes" when you decline going into the extension. Not that anyone does, but I wanted to highlight that. "It's just five minutes" means you are extending 35 minutes past the max PWA duty day when the trip was built in the first place.
The bottom line is that we already are giving the company 30 minutes of PWA max duty day extension/flexibility for free before we go into the FAA extension even one minute. That is all fine and good, as this is the airline industry and stuff happens. However, no need to mentally fret about "it's just five minutes" when you decline going into the extension. Not that anyone does, but I wanted to highlight that. "It's just five minutes" means you are extending 35 minutes past the max PWA duty day when the trip was built in the first place.
03-16-2022, 07:24 AM
#25
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2009
Posts: 3,108
03-16-2022, 07:28 AM
#26
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2009
Posts: 3,108
Not hard to drag the average down when you have 3 days of 11-12 hour duty with short layovers to then flip the clock with a 24-30 hour layover into a red eye to end the trip and catch up on sleep during your off time. The long layover at the end and short duty day makes it actually more fatiguing, but helps your precious numbers. Numbers don’t tell the whole story as much as you like to opine about it.
2x 11 hour layover + 1x 25 hour layover = 15.67 average
3x 11 hour duty + 1x 5 hour duty = 9.5 average
That describes pretty much every trip I’ve flown in the last 3 months. DTW320. No credit at all thanks to the optimizer so you need to fit all that flying in the first 3 days 3-4 legs a day to pay the company for the privilege of doing a redeye
Thankfully my union speaks for me
2x 11 hour layover + 1x 25 hour layover = 15.67 average
3x 11 hour duty + 1x 5 hour duty = 9.5 average
That describes pretty much every trip I’ve flown in the last 3 months. DTW320. No credit at all thanks to the optimizer so you need to fit all that flying in the first 3 days 3-4 legs a day to pay the company for the privilege of doing a redeye
Thankfully my union speaks for me
03-16-2022, 07:41 AM
#27
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Mar 2012
Position: Airplane
Posts: 684
When you say "5 minutes" you actually are talking "35 minutes." What, you say? There is the FAA max duty day from the FAR 117 tables (and then the two hour extension beyond that), but there is also our contractual max PWA duty day, which at the time of trip construction is limited to 30 minutes less than that. And, there is no such thing as a "PWA max duty day extension"...only an FAA extension.
The bottom line is that we already are giving the company 30 minutes of PWA max duty day extension/flexibility for free before we go into the FAA extension even one minute. That is all fine and good, as this is the airline industry and stuff happens. However, no need to mentally fret about "it's just five minutes" when you decline going into the extension. Not that anyone does, but I wanted to highlight that. "It's just five minutes" means you are extending 35 minutes past the max PWA duty day when the trip was built in the first place.
The bottom line is that we already are giving the company 30 minutes of PWA max duty day extension/flexibility for free before we go into the FAA extension even one minute. That is all fine and good, as this is the airline industry and stuff happens. However, no need to mentally fret about "it's just five minutes" when you decline going into the extension. Not that anyone does, but I wanted to highlight that. "It's just five minutes" means you are extending 35 minutes past the max PWA duty day when the trip was built in the first place.
I get the 30 minute free extension they are already getting. That’s where I stop. They already got theirs so I’m not giving any more time past that. Stop building the schedules within minutes of the PWA max and I would be more flexible.
03-16-2022, 10:42 AM
#29
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2007
Posts: 4,637
Care to share the daily average comparison? I'm genuinely curious. My category is lower due to the international pull down. I'm working more days for the same hours, but still commuting both ends..
03-16-2022, 10:47 AM
#30
seeing the large hubs...
Joined APC: Oct 2006
Position: 73N A
Posts: 3,754
Our trip value per day might of gone up, but our duty day also went up too.
I don't think people wanting max duty days so we can get in 6 hours of flying in a day. We're talking about efficiency and no sits. I've noticed that our turns in hub have gone up a lot - where they used to be under an hour, now they seem to be more on the 1:20 side... which makes the day longer with no additional flight time.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
