EK Swap system

[TCU LUX]

Dear Guys/Gals,

A couple of months back, at one of the roadshows, the EK recruitment team suggested that there was a swap system in place at EK - basically you find someone suitable to swap a duty with, enter the details on some online program and it's as good as done!

I'm guessing it is not as easy/efficient as the recruitment team would like people to believe but I am interested to hear from EK pilots about their experiences with this.

Do you guys share your roster info in order to find suitable swap candidates?

Thanks for any comments.

[BigGeordie]

There is a computerised swap system but it has more bugs than a tramps beard- these are being slowly fixed. However, unless you are trying to swap one trip for another which more or less departs and arrives at the same time it is almost impossible. The swap computer knows all the flight time limitations of course but it also has various company restrictions which are not published. You only find out about those when you try to do a swap and it is refused.

Nobody has enough days off to be able to swap them so if you are thinking of trying to swap trips to get enough days off for commuting forget it.

It is better than nothing and it does have a facility where you can "advertise" trips that you want to get rid of, or want to operate. If somebody wants to do a swap you will get an automated e-mail with the details and you just give a yes or a no. You can also search for who is operating a particular trip on a particualr day and try to do a swap directly that way. If we had enough pilots (or fewer restrictions!) the system would probably work reasonably well.

[Kennytheking]

Sorry guys, I humbly beg to differ. I believe the eswap is a fine evolution of the portal and has been introduced for our benefit.

Of course it has bugs which need to be worked out as with any new application(even Apple has this problem). I agree that the pilots workload is high and as a consequencee swaps are not easy to engineer. That is a fact of life but if you want to go to Munich iso Paris or SFO iso LAX, then there should be few limits. The system was never intended to change the profile of hours that the crew fly in a month. This means that it won't work for the guys that would like to commute.

In terms of the swap rules, the bulk of them are available in the Bid Assist packages which details time off before & time off after a trip. You guys know the FTL rules.....why should the company have to spell it out for you. Another big one is the 120 hours between east/west rotations which was introduced for the benefit of the pilots who were complaining about flights that would go east and then next flight would go west causing fatigue. This restriction was introduced to 'artificially' bias rosters to all eastbound or all westbound flights. Unfortunately this now causes problems when you want to swap as well, but we cannot have it both ways.

The fact that swaps are locked from the time bidding is closed(13th?) is a reasonable and practical limitation. By then you would have had almost 3 weeks in which to do your swapping. You cannot plan a pilot's flying for the next month when you do not know how many hours he is doing in the current month, hence the limit. Pain in the backside, sure but certainly not unreasonable.....

In short, I agree that the system is limited but at least IMHO the company is trying to provide tools to make life a little easier for us.

[BigGeordie]

If the bidding system worked we wouldn't need the swap system....

[glofish]

it's a no brainer:

A system that has suddenly more restrictions (i.e. max 7 day off rule), that makes a swap more difficult, is definitely not what we expected.

It has been installed to restrict us more and to make CC work less.

Now we not only face a bidding system that has been degenerated by some silly managers to the extent of failure, but our only refuge, swaps, have been sent degenerating down the same drain.

No matter how you dress it up, it's a step backwards.

[helen-damnation]

Apparently if a swap puts a crew menber over 90 hours in 28 days (for me that was 7 months of 2011) the swap will not be approved. The restriction is intended to provide a buffer of 10 hours to avoid the potential for busting 100 hours.

Had this very problem, the buffer has been reduced to 5 hours :*

[TCU LUX]

Thanks for all the comments. It's nice to get some real insider view of things.

Sounds like the swap system is not really working very well - which is a pity.

I have many gripes with my current employer but at least the swap system works well (at times). I just managed to swaps days either side of Xmas and will be able to spend one week back home. However, during the summer it does not work that well - as people are running high on hours.

Do you guys run close to 90hrs every month?

Do you feel this will get better as EK recruit more pilots... or will the ratio of pilots to AC remain the same?


Thanks again for any replys.

[ekpilot]

Close to 900 hours but for less money since they removed the overtime...

[Kapitanleutnant]

Because EK has a requirement for a takeoff and landing every 35 days, you cannot swap a trip more than 35 days out or else it will deny saying you're not current

Also found out it won't let you have more than 15 days off per month even though the trip is legal to trade in all respects.

Keep Discovering....

Kap