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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.'"
Do they use the same holiday scheduling software as Ryanair?
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
I'm gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Christmas. That'd be great.
American drags pilots on. What a lovely industry!!!
Software must have been written by Clem and Bubba Software, Inc.
Would rewriting this scheduling software in a modern programming language like Rust or Go or Node.js, which make logic and programming errors much harder to introduce, help prevent future incidents?
American Airlines Accidentally Let Too Many Pilots Take Off The Holidays (npr.org)
Merry Xmas Delta.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I work in the airline industry. This is a huge mess for American...it's not like they can just get some temporary holiday help off the street, and airlines have very few pilots sitting around on reserve. Even with the reserve pilots, who are usually the newbies, they have to match up who's qualified to fly certain equipment, keep track of duty hours, maximum flying hours per month. Having a few key flights cancelled due to crew shortages cascades through the whole system...crew and equipment expected to be in certain places doesn't get there in time, so the onward flights in the schedule can't run either. This is where you see things on CNN showing airport terminals with thousands of people milling around with nowhere to go.
In a seniority-based system. the least senior pilots are probably going to end up getting their vacation cancelled and paid extra to entice them to not say they're unfit to fly. They're also going to have to pick whose turn it is in IT to be the official scapegoat. Airline scheduling is not an easy thing, but the computers doing the schedule rely on human inputs as well.
Low guys (or gals) on the seniority totem pole have their vacations cancelled........... that is usually how most places fix stuff like that.
Union contracts makes that slightly more difficult, and the contract also limits bonus payments (to convince them to work during that period) by not allowing the airline to offer more than 150% of the base pay. AA has a number of "reserve" pilots that can be called back in times of overload. However, just having bodies available is not a magic solution, as the FAA requires type certification (you cannot pilot a 787 if you are only qualified on a 737), and any one pilot cannot work more than xxx consecutive hours (so unlike in IT you cannot just put some low seniority PFY in the seat on the help desk and feed them coffee for 24 hours straight).
You wouldn't quit if you were a pilot. Where would you get a new job?
Airline pilot economics is a little different than your average IT or development job. You invest years and years in training, and know everything about how the aircraft types you're qualified to operate work. It's also kind of like military experience, in that it's not easily transferrable to jobs outside the industry. Pilots often buy "loss of license" insurance because losing the ability to fly basically means you've flushed all that investment in training and time-in-grade down the toilet. 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.
So the airline isn't totally powerless in this scenario, but their options aren't good either.
Yo Miss Mash, you should write less awkward titles.
American Airlines Accidentally Let Too Many Pilots Take Off The Holidays
Putting take off next to pilots makes the reader expect that you are talking about flying the plane. This title is a slang statement to begin with. Once the reader has grasped what you are trying to convey, he scratches his head at how awkwardly you wrote it. Talk about vacation or leave instead of saying "take off."
Also,
computer said, 'Hey ya'll. You
this makes NPR look like a bunch of retards, which they essentially are. Starbucks latte sipping snobs who get a new Prius and Macbook Air every year. They can't even spell, but that doesn't matter because they are ABOVE that, far too important to bother with things like spell check and proofreading.
The problem is that with the way the airline industry works, once the "system" approves your bids it is a contractual obligation between both parties.
It will be fixed, the question is just how much money extra it will cost American.
It's not getting a job that is the issue, it's keeping your seniority. Pilot jobs are easy to get if you have the necessary hours and ratings. What you cannot do though is retain your seniority. Seniority is how you get the routes you would like to fly. Without seniority you get the routes nobody else will take.
And these are the people you trust to take you up to 30,000 feet in an aluminum tube and get back down again safely. Good Luck with that.
Immediately rescind all holiday vacation to start then correct the software.
Not rocket science, geezus.
Holiday vacations were most likely already awarded months ago. The glitch didn't give people off, it just didn't assign them any work. And, since pilots are unionized with strong contracts, you can't just say "oops, we screwed up, you're working now".
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
"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?
It clearly sucks for the company, because now they've fucked up and should be responsible for paying out however much bonus they need to pay the pilots to entice them to pick up the extra flights.
It clearly sucks for the workers, because they forego the higher bonus that the company might have paid them. Many of them might have been perfectly willing to reschedule what the computer gave them at 200% or 250% pay.
Maximum suck would be if the rigidity of the contract prevented them from offering enough, forcing them to cancel flights. That would cost the airlines far more than offering mea-culpa bonus to the pilots and would completely ruin the travel plans of customers.
Interestingly enough, only 20% of the cost of your flight is salaries. Of that, pilots are probably 5-7% or so (there are many more ground and gate crew per flight than pilots). So even if they had to pay 300% bonuses to get enough pilots to voluntarily do those shifts, that would only be a 10% increase in net costs, bringing their margins for those particular flights from 2.5% to -7.5% (or, making $6 a passenger to losing $10 apiece or so). No matter how you slice it, it's much cheaper for the airline to offer pilot bonuses to compensate for their mistake.
In a post to its website, the union warned its members that because "management unilaterally created their solution in violation of the contract, neither APA nor the contract can guarantee the promised payment of the premium being offered."
First off, management asked pilots to volunteer to do those flights in exchange for money. That seems reasonable enough (except of course for the cap on the percentage). Second, I can't imagine that management would promise a premium and then not pay it. That would be an open-and-shut violation of labor law.
If they really wanted to help, the APA would be organizing the pilots to see how much they would have to be paid to give up the vacation they were promised and then present that to the airline in a package-deal format. Something like "I have 1500 pilots willing to take shifts fro 150% bonus, 2500 for 250% bonus, ..."
Funny though, isn't it, how the pilots' union leaders are turning it into an opportunity to criticize the airline management and milk more $ from them for this mistake.
They fucked up, stop making stupid excuses.
They could try to take the cooperative approach and say, "ok, no harm done yet,
False. People will have already made plans. How do you reimburse them fairly for that?
let's redo the schedule and not have to pay people 150% normal rates for time they would've worked anyway during these mistake days",
Fuck that. If the airline is jerking people around, they should have to pay them more.
but no, they're saying that the contract doesn't cover working if not scheduled -- and it's "management's" mess to clean this up.
That's right, they caused the problem, and it's their job to fix it. What are the managers good for if they can't manage personnel? Isn't that their job?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Ah, but this is a union shop. So what they'll do is grovel and beg people to work at time and a half. Which is what they are doing and they're close to filling the gap.
I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
They made an agreement, and now they need to back out of it due to their own fault (they bought the crappy software or misconfigured it). Paying the pilot some money to change plans that they made depending on the promise made to them seems reasonable.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Those giant executive salaries? We're told the unicorns who make this money do so because their leadership genius is that good and there's so few of them able to do it.
And fuck this "we'll cooperate with management" idea. That is the *same* management that would fuck their employees out of a nickel if they could get away with it.
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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.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Immediately rescind all holiday vacation to start then correct the software.
Not rocket science, geezus.
You're right, it's not rocket science. It's pilot union science, where vacation time, once approved, cannot be cancelled. All the airline can do is offer financial incentives (limited by regulations to 150% of normal pay) to entice the pilots to cancel their vacations themselves.
So the pilots should cooperate with the bastards who cancelled their contracts & pensions through bankruptcy (and are consequently raking in record profits) by letting them cancel vacations without recompense, too? Anyway, the 150% is written into the current contract as a maximum allowable, so the unions have to be involved if 150% doesn't buy enough workers.
In any event, it actually is the management's mess, not the pilots', and it is the managements responsibility to clean up, regardless of any other considerations. Preventing (or cleaning up) messes like this is one of the main purposes of management.
They made an agreement, and now they need to back out of it due to their own fault
A contract is a contract, agreement + promise.. You don't get to back out of those, not without a major reputation hit for failing to keep your word and major legal consequences, anyways.
They'll either need to cancel those flights, find more pilots, or entice some pilots to come to a new agreement;
probably by offering a huge chunk of change and bidding up that amount until they find pilots willing to accept that much $$$ to switch their vacation time around.
It sounds like the pilots in question will *not* be taking off.
Probably because in this world, employee's are treated like crap all the time. I remember when companies did the right thing at least some of the time and employees did favors for bosses in a pinch. Now it is a game and both employee's and employer's try to screw each other at every opportunity. So the question would be, if I am a pilot do I want to be the chump that does the company a favor by working at the same rate when I know the next chance the company gets they will screw me? I know I'll still do stuff for customers gratis, and I also know I am a dying breed of chumps.
A contract is a contract, agreement + promise.. You don't get to back out of those, not without a major reputation hit for failing to keep your word and major legal consequences, anyways.
I doubt there would be "major legal consequences." Cancelling a pilot's planned vacation probably isn't going to ruin their life. The airline will have to do something like pay those pilots double their normal pay and reimburse them if they have to cancel hotel bookings, but those costs would be relatively small.
I doubt there would be "major legal consequences." Cancelling a pilot's planned vacation probably isn't going to ruin their life.
They have no ability to do that. The pilot will simply refuse the airline's attempt to cancel their vacation,
and the airline will still be obligated to pay the pilot based on their contract.
Pretty sure this problem, like most airline problems, is easily solved by throwing money at it. Offer pilots enough money, they will change their plans and fly the plane for you. Might make a dent in American's quarterly profits, however.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I'll do it. I've got like 1000 hours in Falcon 4.0.
Where's the switch for the AMRAAMs?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
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.
While it's true the Regionals are hiring - So getting a job earning $30K flying from Fargo to North Platte isn't hard - Getting a job at a mainline American "big three" carrier remains extremely competitive and difficult.
I remember Microsoft flight simulator with meigs field can I fly
A contract is a contract, agreement + promise.. You don't get to back out of those, not without a major reputation hit for failing to keep your word and major legal consequences, anyways.
I doubt there would be "major legal consequences." Cancelling a pilot's planned vacation probably isn't going to ruin their life.
And that sort of logic is why they have union to begin with. Contrary to what people think, money issues rarely cause employees to want to unionize. Bad management however is what does it. Management thinking that the only thing workers should ask when they say "jump" is "how high" and other abuse really gets people's hackles up. Tell people their family vacation is cancelled because of some management fuck up for which they must pay for, and all your ex-military Rush Limbaugh listening conservatives will be screaming to unionize so there are rules that management must adhere to. That's how it was at my work anyway.
I completely agree. Doing it would possibly piss off a lot of the pilots, which could have some negative consequences in the future. And definitely don't believe that the airline should be able to just say, "Too bad, you all have to work on Christmas." My only point was that there wouldn't be "major" legal trouble, only whatever remedy is specified in the contract, otherwise liability for compensating the pilots for any money that they lose (e.g. for vacations that they've already booked) plus some amount of punitive damages.
If both sides act like reasonable adults, though, I would hope they could resolve the issue. If the airline says, "Look, we screwed up, but we don't want to ruin our customers' holidays. If any pilots are willing to cancel their time off, we'll pay you extra," I would like to think that the pilots would do what they reasonably can instead of telling the airline to fuck off just because they can.
767 ran out of fuel, glided for 17 minutes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Indeed.com :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
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It's not getting a job that is the issue, it's keeping your seniority. Pilot jobs are easy to get if you have the necessary hours and ratings. What you cannot do though is retain your seniority. Seniority is how you get the routes you would like to fly. Without seniority you get the routes nobody else will take.
I'm not an airline pilot, but what's the difference on what route you take? You're just a big flying bus anyway, who cares?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
There's no pilot shortage.
There's a shortage of pilots willing to work for less than McDonald's wages.
Kinda sorta. The salaries mean people aren't willing to go to flight school in the first place.
So yes there's a shortage of pilots, but it's due to the reason you state - Low salaries.
Where you get to spend time between flights, I would guess. A lot of routes are long enough that you can't just do both legs of a round trip without a break between, and if you have to overnight, you may prefer to do it in NYC with a good hotel and restaurants than Guam.
Here's some median salary data for United Airlines. Can't say how accurate it may be, but indicates that for the pilot/co-pilot/flight engineer category, the median pay is $118,390. [Do they still have flight engineers at United? Mostly, a phased-out job.] Median means 50% of employees in that category get paid less than that, and 50% get paid more than that. https://www.payscale.com/resea...