Hong Kong Airlines (HKA) update 2
ROSTER
This is something that I forgot mention from the pilot meeting highlights. Apparently, you are no longer able to trade a trip with another person who has greater than 50 hours while you have less than 50 hours. This change was done I almost guarantee you by the GMF....I will reserve my choice words. Remember the company wants you to have more than 50 hours for the distribution to equal with everyone, ideally. Why? I have never ran the numbers but besides wanting everyone to have the same hours. The company believes that if some pilot are paid more based on the increasing overtime pay after 50 hours then the company has more cost. Like I said, I have never run the numbers to see if an even distribution with everyone around 55 hours cost less overall than a distribution where some guys have high hours and others lower than 50 hours. IDK.
HKA has a very crude trading system. You log into the company system and then you can pull up your schedule and look up other people schedule. However, to do this you have to have a printed list of everyones company number and/or name. The system allows you to look up one crew member at a time and look at their schedule. You can do a wide field search base on the days and trip and pull up everyone who would be flying on those days. Then you can click on each persons name one at a time and see their schedule.
It is very very tedious process. You will have to take copious notes and go thru schedules generally to examine exactly if you can legal make the trade. Then you send a request to the other party to see they are interested in the trade and if they are, then you can submit the trade online to scheduling. Depending on the time of day etc this trade could happen quickly or take hours. So, you keep checking to see if it is approved. If it takes too long you can call in and they can take a look at things if they feel in the mood to do so. Trading is just something that they are not enthusiastic about because the scheduling system is so crude that they see it as a pain for them.
This process has been usurped by a whatsapp trading forum where you can post trades and save a bit of time from having to go thru everyone's schedule one by one. So, on the forum you can specify or screen shot your schedule and assuming that most people check you maybe be able to advertise a trade. Not everyone is on the forum, but it's a large enough pool that you will likely get a bite. Once someone agrees you will need to log into the company website and post the trades formally to scheduling. You call only to push the trade or try to confirm things.