Crew scheduling: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 06:57, 1 April 2016

Revision as of 12:03, 12 August 2016

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* returning crew to their base at the end of their trip (called [[Deadheading (aviation)|deadheading]])

The first phase in crew planning is building the crew pairings (also known as trips, rotations, among other popular descriptions). This process pairs a generic crew member with a flight so that at the end of this process all aircraft flights are covered and all trips (combination of flights starting at a crew base and returning to that crew base or co-terminal are crew legal. The next step is the allocation of those trips to the individual crewmember. For the US, Canada and Australia, seniority generally rules. The two processes (which are completely different) are referred to as bid lines and preferential bidding. In seniority order, pilots bid for either a line of time (bidline) or trips and days off (preferential bidding. these are awarded based on seniority and modified only when their selections have already been taken by a more senior crew member (bidlines) or their trip and day off selections (preferential bidding) do not make up a complete line (hours, days off, etc. parameters agreed to by the company and the union). The senior folks have more time off, better choice of time off and fly better trips than the junior crew members, generally speaking. In the US, this is considered fair. I personally would not want to be around US pilots suggesting a move to the fair roster system common in the rest of the world. For European airlines and other airlines in the rest of the world, the allocation process is completely different. The company builds the pilot schedules directly to meet their needs, not the pilot's needs. Before assigning a single trip, the schedulers put all planned absences (vacation, training, etc.) onto the crew members' schedule. Only then are trips assigned to the individual crew members. As such, fairness means that the most senior captain and the most junior captain have the same amount of duty time, block hours, night time, time away from base, layovers, expense pay, etc. in a given schedule period. Seniority is out and all work is completely homogenized. For them, anything else is unfair, undemocratic. That's not to say that a good bottle of liquor to crew scheduling won't get a pilot that specific trip or day off they want. Slowly over the last thirty years, foreign airlines using the "no seniority" rostering system have allowed some measure of seniority to creep into the allocation process from pilots who may now ask for a specific day off or trip once a quarter or make multiple requests within a schedule period. Although this may sound very much like preferential bidding, it is not. The disparity between junior and senior crew members is still very limited and thus achievement of your choices is limited. Candler Brooks, crew scheduling guy for thirty years

== Disruptions ==