Missing crewmembers/Flight reroutes

[Not Hiding]

Maybe we can keep this one going as a running commentary on the wheels falling off:

879/27OCT: sickness 6 hours before departure; no reserve available; 3-crew SFO to ICN

[4 driver]

Not a difficult fix. Increase reserve coverage. Possibly five day patterns with a day of reserve at outport. Or make the based guys sit more reserve.
The company will protect the operation - seen it before......

[Shep69]

Actually, it IS a difficult issue. Other than a cost issue, scheduling reserve dramatically exacerbates the manning problem due to FTL limitations (even without additional ASR-Fs, sickness rates, etc caused by schedule disruption)--especially in light of the "old" A day system.

Fr' instance, at an outport with 2 morning flights and 2 evening flights under the 'old' system a person could be asked to cover 4 potential flights on the first day. At best, a reserve duty cuts that in half.

During a typical "A" day under the same circumstance an individual could be asked to cover the 2 evening flights on the 'day of'. This drops to 1 due to the 23-hour FTL limitation (it's doubtful those tagged for reserve would be available to answer the 10-hour notification outside the reserve block even without CC so's it wouldn't happen). In fact it needs even MORE lead time than the old system because the person has to be notified near the beginning of the block, given 10 hours, then report. And this might cause problems where due to the long-haul and schedule reversal the reservist is required to call fatigued under the terms of his license--depending on his personal rest.

If given a positioning flight on a reserve call up to operate from ANOTHER long haul outport, not only must the PT time be considered but also a room booked and 10 hours on top of this. Further reducing the asset availability and increasing costs.

Deploying people to HKG and having them pull reserve there MIGHT reduce some of this, but it also has lodging and allowance costs, FTLs, and duty cycle limitations. Not to mention fatigue issues. Even without the ASR-F factor straight reserve at outports can be horribly inefficient for the company. And fatigue isn't a company issue--it's a CAD and certification issue. The company can't waive the requirement that pilots not fly unfit, nor for AOC, safety, or liability would it sanely want to try.

Bottom line is if we're already short on people scheduling reserves at outports will make it worse.

[The Management]

Mr. Scheduling has it under control. He knows what he is doing and is the only person in the universe that can run the CX rostering system. Not even a $50 million USD computer program can do what he is doing.

Our ultra-modern Rostering system is so sophisticated only Mr. Scheduling knows how to use it. Why because Mr. Scheduling has told the COO, DFO, GMA or anyone in a position of power that he is the only one that can do the job and our higher powers believe him. Mr. Scheduling is holding it all together and without him, it will simply collapse.

These flights are not being crewed because we believe that the pilots are doing contract compliance, on their own, without the knowledge of the HKAOA General Committee. We can’t seem to prove the pilots are initiating contract compliance as the revote is ongoing. When contract compliance is voted in, we will know who to penalize and add them to our ongoing list for the People’s Director.

We don’t see an increase in ASR’s due to body clock disruptions, poor rest and other safety related issues. Everyone seems to be having proper rest.

We don’t see an increase in pilots not using commanders discretion especially our freighter operations where it is needed almost on a daily basis. Most don’t know how to calculate which of the crew is FTL limited and whom is acclimatized or not. Most cargo loading is on time which is a big credit to our cargo team. It very rarely has an impact on FTL limitations.

Our attrition rate on the freighter is acceptable thanks to the GMA’s initiatives on tax, basing policies and rostering.

To penalize pilots for disrupting our Highly Developed Rostering system, we will develop patterns that will have HK based crew sitting reserve at outports and Outport based crew sitting reserve in Hong Kong with patterns extending from 8-10 days. In the short term it will be expensive but will solve our crewing problems and may even become the norm.This is especially efficient to ports where we have multiple flights per day. With flights up to 15 hours per direction we can fit in two 12 hour reserve periods per 7 day period and possibly more after the seventh day.

As in 1999-2001 era rostering will not get better for the short or long term. We simply don’t not have the appropriate people in place to make these changes and the people here now just don’t have the will to change.

We will follow the true fired (pun intended) way of just bullying our way through these circumstances by firing several people and the rest will fall into line. The Director’s People is putting together an initiative as we speak as he has been so successful in the past.

To My Bonus
The Management

[Flying Clog]

Is this really the message the Management of Cathay Pacific is sending to it's staff, in particular it's pilots, these days? I find the above post truly sickening.

Cathay Pacific - shame on you.

:yuk:

[India Four Two]

FC,

Speaking as an outsider and a mere occasional SLF on CX flights, I always enjoy "The Management's" posts. They are tongue-in-cheek jibes at CX's real management, by an individual with inside knowledge.

[ColonelAngus]

NC,

Can you please put forth some numbers comparing the cost of tech stop and missed connections to the cost of proper reserve which would avoid such situations?