Crew Scheduling & Reserve: The Life of a Regional Pilot

I just concluded my reserve sequence for the week.

Update: I am now starting my reserve sequence for the week.

I started this blog entry last week and got one line into it before I was able to sit down and finish it today.

Amazingly, I am no longer the bottom-feeder First Officer at the O-Hare base. There is a new class of new-hires beginning their IOE (Initial Operating Experience) this week, which means my "Ready Reserve" days will hopefully be fewer and farther between. The difference between being on reserve and ready-reserve is that reserve is on-call at home; ready-reserve is on-call at the airport. However, when I move my base to Dallas in May, I will again be at the bottom of the list and will get the opportunity to sit ready-reserve more often.

So, I decided to take it upon myself to meet and greet the folks at crew scheduling. Some prefer the term Screw Scheduling. I hadn't had any negative dealings with them up to this point, but figured they would appreciate a box of fresh, hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts as well as my happy, smiling face and charming personality. As I figured, the folks that consist of Screw Scheduling are nice, down-to-earth people. The thing that people in this industry should recognize is that, just like us, they have a job to do. The only difference is that their job is hard.

The role of crew scheduling in a nutshell is to ensure each flight has a Captain, First Officer and Flight Attendant. If a flight is missing any one of the three required crewmembers, the flight cannot and will not happen. Now, let's say, for example, there is a weather event occurring in Dallas and a flight to Nashville is planned to occur, and it's the last flight of the day for that aircraft and flight crew. There is a crew at the hotel in Nashville who is scheduled to take that particular aircraft to Cincinnati the following morning. Because of the weather in Dallas, the flight to Nashville gets canceled. Now, you have a stranded crew in Nashville and are a plane short to leave Nashville the following morning. So, what does crew scheduling do? I have NO idea. An option for them, and usually one they use, is to deadhead the crew from Nashville to wherever they were supposed to go. Now, multiply this same kind of scenario occurring 50-75 times at the same time. Again, I'm not sure how they do it, but somehow they do. This scenario was the root cause for why JetBlue was forced to shut down for a few days a month ago. Their operations were not equipped to handle a massive de-synchronization of flight crews and aircraft. Fortunately, we have good people figuring out these solutions on a daily basis…I'm just glad I don't get paid to do that.

Crew scheduling does get a bad rap from pilots and flight attendants. I've heard the analogy comparing their apparent shortsightedness to a car swerving to miss a pot-hole and driving off the side of the road off a cliff. Obviously, that's just a little dramatic. I believe they do the best with what they have, and at times there are breakdowns in the system, whether maintenance or weather-related. However, meeting them face-to-face has given me more confidence in them and how they solve issues as it relates to my individual schedule. I did let it be known that I wanted them to use me whenever they needed me. Maybe I opened myself up to abuse, but hey I would rather work too hard doing what I love, than sitting around wondering why I'm not making any money and not getting flight time (not that there's much to be made in my current position.)

The day before I was to come up to Chicago for my sequence last Friday, my lovely, sweet, beautiful wife had the misfortune of spilling coffee all over my laptop. So, after powering it up and…nothing…she agreed that it was time for a new laptop. We found a great deal on a HP Pavilion dv2014us which we bought that same day. It's small, lightweight and a perfect travel companion, besides of course, my wife. It came with a built-in webcam and the new Microsoft products are awesome!! The biggest improvement in Outlook is the ability to download all the RSS feeds that I subscribe to. This means that any update to someone's blog in our Aviation Blogoshpere, it is directly sent to my email inbox. The second most significant improvement, in my humble opinion, is the ability to write my blog in Word and then directly upload it to Blogger. This is a great advance. When I am not connected and I have my laptop, I can work on my next blog entry. With the webcam I can take pics like the one I just took on my Non-Rev flight to Little Rock on the CRJ.

Well, off to Chicago for my week of flying (i.e. sitting) reserve.