"Carmen" and BA Crew
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"Carmen" and BA Crew
BA .. Your help please
My company is planing to introduce "Carman" rosters. The following is a quote from on of our ex BA managers...
"While flying on Mid & Euro fleet with British Airways I was rostered using the Carmen system. I can speak from experience that Carmen was not only a benefit to the company, but definitely brought huge benefits to the Cabin Crew Community. Due to the introduction of the Carmen system, I and many of my colleagues at BA experienced improved rostering and a better quality of life.
Following the success of Carmen on their Shorthaul flying programme, BA have recently implemented Carmen for the rostering of all their Longhaul flying."
I know nothing of this rostering system and would welcome you honest and constructive comments.
Thanks for your help.
Cheers,
My company is planing to introduce "Carman" rosters. The following is a quote from on of our ex BA managers...
"While flying on Mid & Euro fleet with British Airways I was rostered using the Carmen system. I can speak from experience that Carmen was not only a benefit to the company, but definitely brought huge benefits to the Cabin Crew Community. Due to the introduction of the Carmen system, I and many of my colleagues at BA experienced improved rostering and a better quality of life.
Following the success of Carmen on their Shorthaul flying programme, BA have recently implemented Carmen for the rostering of all their Longhaul flying."
I know nothing of this rostering system and would welcome you honest and constructive comments.
Thanks for your help.
Cheers,
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Did a quick Google on it and found this http://www.carmen.se/products/pdf/pr...aintenance.pdf
Not sure it helps much other than gives the sales blurb.
You really need someone who's worked within a Carmen system I reckon. 'Fraid that's not me.
Good luck.
ST
Not sure it helps much other than gives the sales blurb.
You really need someone who's worked within a Carmen system I reckon. 'Fraid that's not me.
Good luck.
ST
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i used it as flight crew for BA at gatwick. its great if you dont have any unrealistic expectations. Dont expect to get every weekend off etc. take time to learn the system. Those that complain about it are the ones who wont take advice on how to bid. My preference was for not starting before 0930 (not morning person) and i didnt for 12 months until i moved elsewhere, bliss.
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I'm on Eurofleet/LHR and having come from an airline where bidding didn't exist, it's a nice touch.
As someone has already mentioned, it's an imperfect system in the sense that you won't always get what you ask for, but there are ways of improving your chances.
The system basically allows you to bid for your days off, or for specific flights or nightstops in specific locations. You get a points system that runs from 1 -200 whereby the more points you attach to a specific request, the more you want that specific request.
For instance, bidding 200 points "all nightstops" basically tells the computer you're desperate for loads of nightstops, but you don't really care where they are.
You might then put a second bid in, 150 points for an IST nightstop. The computer will then try to find you 1) A few nightstops, anywhere 2) In addition, a nightstop in Istanbul.
You can also bid for your days off, rather than have them randomly allocated by rostering.
However, the more bids/requests you make, the more difficult you make it for the computer to decide what to give you, as at BA, there are 13,000+ other crews' requests to deal with.
My advice, keep it VERY simple. When making more than one request, space out the points you give to each request by at least 50 - make it easy for the computer to see what you really want, and what you're not really bothered about.
Everyone has their own way of bidding, and different success rates, but the above is a good start.
It's a nice perk, but you won't be able to write your own roster with it! Most crew at BA appear to be quite happy with it.
As someone has already mentioned, it's an imperfect system in the sense that you won't always get what you ask for, but there are ways of improving your chances.
The system basically allows you to bid for your days off, or for specific flights or nightstops in specific locations. You get a points system that runs from 1 -200 whereby the more points you attach to a specific request, the more you want that specific request.
For instance, bidding 200 points "all nightstops" basically tells the computer you're desperate for loads of nightstops, but you don't really care where they are.
You might then put a second bid in, 150 points for an IST nightstop. The computer will then try to find you 1) A few nightstops, anywhere 2) In addition, a nightstop in Istanbul.
You can also bid for your days off, rather than have them randomly allocated by rostering.
However, the more bids/requests you make, the more difficult you make it for the computer to decide what to give you, as at BA, there are 13,000+ other crews' requests to deal with.
My advice, keep it VERY simple. When making more than one request, space out the points you give to each request by at least 50 - make it easy for the computer to see what you really want, and what you're not really bothered about.
Everyone has their own way of bidding, and different success rates, but the above is a good start.
It's a nice perk, but you won't be able to write your own roster with it! Most crew at BA appear to be quite happy with it.
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I was had the pleasure to work through the summer 0f 2002 when we tried using Carmen. It resulted in roster changes everyday because crew were constantly going out of hours. It rostered crew for a flight from different bases and you were constantly hopping off one a/c to get on another, and always started or ended your duty with positioning. When one a/c was delayed it had a knock on effect and by the end of the day the thing had snowballed and everything was delayed or cancelled.
Apparently this was not the fault of the software though. Our leaders in their wisdom decided to use the CAP371 max flight duty periods as the starting point for the software, so Carmen rostered flights right up to the maximum FDP, causing everyone to go out of hours. My duty one day was 17 hours, I couldn't even fly home in discretion because I had already exceeded the 3 hour extention to my FDP.
You wouldn't find anyone at easyJet who would have a good word to say about Carmen, but maybe it could be implemented better at other airlines.
Apparently this was not the fault of the software though. Our leaders in their wisdom decided to use the CAP371 max flight duty periods as the starting point for the software, so Carmen rostered flights right up to the maximum FDP, causing everyone to go out of hours. My duty one day was 17 hours, I couldn't even fly home in discretion because I had already exceeded the 3 hour extention to my FDP.
You wouldn't find anyone at easyJet who would have a good word to say about Carmen, but maybe it could be implemented better at other airlines.
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My understanding is that Carmen can do many things ... however, the flexibility it offers depends on what the objectives required to be achieved (normally determined by the company) are.
It can be tailored from 100% company to 100% crew. There is therefore no universal answer to the query - it depends on agreement between the user area (cabin crew or flight crew) and the company.
Both have (sometimes) diametrically opposed objectives (min vs max work, etc). Not everybody can always win. Depending on the implementation, then different techniques will be most beneficial, imho - from feedback received at BA (LHR and LGW).
** speaking as a pilot **
It can be tailored from 100% company to 100% crew. There is therefore no universal answer to the query - it depends on agreement between the user area (cabin crew or flight crew) and the company.
Both have (sometimes) diametrically opposed objectives (min vs max work, etc). Not everybody can always win. Depending on the implementation, then different techniques will be most beneficial, imho - from feedback received at BA (LHR and LGW).
** speaking as a pilot **
