American Airlines Accidentally Let Too Many Pilots Take Off The Holidays (npr.org)

A glitch in American Airlines' pilot scheduling system means that thousands of flights during the holiday season currently do not have pilots assigned to fly them. From a report: The shortage was caused by an error in the system pilots use to bid for time off, the Allied Pilots Association told NPR. The union represents the airline's 15,000 pilots. "The airline is a 24/7 op," union spokesman Dennis Tajer told CNBC. "The system went from responsibly scheduling everybody to becoming Santa Claus to everyone." "The computer said, 'Hey ya'll. You want the days off? You got it.'"

Comments

Sounds familiar

[amalcolm]

Do they use the same holiday scheduling software as Ryanair?

Re:Sounds familiar

[hcs_$reboot]

Indeed.

Re:"As much as we're allowed by the contract"???

[Registered Coward v2]

"We have reserve pilots to help cover flying in December, and we are paying pilots who pick up certain open trips 150 percent of their hourly rate â" as much as we are allowed to pay them per the contract," he told the network

Hold on a second, the union contract specifies a maximum bonus to the hourly rate that the company can offer? How in the world could that clause benefit either the workers or the company?

My guess is the union wants to limit the incentives for pilots flying the maximum hours they are allowed by law in order to get the airlines to hire more pilots. Some statistics I've seen show pilots may fly 900 of the legally allowed hours per month, on average. If the airline could pay enough to get pilots closer to 1000 hours per year they could cut the number of pilots they need. I would hazard it'd take more than a 50% increase to get enough pilots to forgo vacations, etc. since the extra 50% would not make that much of a difference in your annual paycheck for pilots with enough seniority to avoid the less desirable routes the airlines would need to fill.

Re: Simple fix.....

[ranton]

Imagine being an A380 or 777 captain making $250K+ a year flying all over the world, then getting hit by a car or losing your vision.

You go on long term sick leave and still make over 6 figures. And the way airlines are hiring right now, any commercial pilot who leaves an airline not due to performance or loss of medical will find a job somewhere else, they will just start over in seniority and pay.

Long term disability insurance tends to cap out at under six figures, or at least it has at the last three employers I have worked for. While my company's plan covers 60% of salary, that caps out at $90k per year so it doesn't actually reach 60% of my salary. It also doesn't account for bonuses which is a significant part of my total compensation.

A pilot making $250k a year certainly wouldn't be poor if he became too disabled to be a pilot, but he would probably take a $7500+ reduction to his take home pay each month which is no small thing.