bmi pilots to call crewing at end of every duty day

[Phileas Fogg]

(Why also do they always always always roster you to start on an early shift after leave)

Because they can. According to the regulations, originally written by a pilot (with no legs), for the pilots, you can commence at 0600 local after a day off.

An airline cannot be criticized for adhering to the regulations, there are plenty around that don't adhere. A pilot expects the airline to adhere to the letter of law, well what's good for the goose .....

[superste]

bmimainline,

Your post sums up why the only people qualified to comment on this thread are bmi pilots

Yet again another post, like acbus1, which suggests that you are not prepared to consider valid opinions of others.

At present you and an number of other pilots may suffer roster disruption as a result of one pilot not being contacted.

Now, if that pilot was successfully contacted????

Yes, it is disruption if you are that pilot, but the overall disruption is potenially reduced.

It is by no means the answer, but it is a small step towards reducing roster disruption and it will obviously not end there.

[bmimainline]

Yet again another post, like acbus1, which suggests that you are not prepared to consider valid opinions of others.

The previous post contained no valid opinions for me to consider for the reasons I explained in my post. Like many on this thread you are not listening to anyone else other than yourself.

[Bart O'Lynn]

ACBUS,

I work my ass off. Iam flexible with my employers. I dont suffer from any of the afflictions in your post re family health etc.
Maybe if you suffer from any of those it may be a personnality, pshycological or genetic problem, and not your company's. Take a year off and find out.

If you wanted such a stable predictable existence why on earth did you become a pilot. Didnt you read the small print . Over staffing is a sure way to a permanant case of no staffing.

Im not for free flying or employers taking the pish , rather a mutually beneficial arrangement of flexibility tempered by a sensible proffessional approach.

It never fails to baffle me why people turn into such office clerks having worked so hard (in most cases) to get to the front of an aircraft.

Then again i came to the Uk system having already formed my personal philosophy and passion for flying in a less jobsworthy enviroment and wasnt poisoned by the elitism of it all. Usually characterised by the "how dare you , i'm a captain " brigade.Closely followed by the how hard we work gang and the "youve disturbed my rest" mob , said while wide awake watching telly.

Almost as laughable as the fireman claiming to be hard working heros 24/7 while still mangaing to sleep, run second businesses, and master the finer point of pool. (had to stick that one in)



Edited to add: those of you that are dissollusioned with bmi rostering to a point where you are ready to walk will get a rude awakening when you do unless you go to BA where you can be a stable number who is more tired than a bmi pilot.

Some of the selfish ,childish, jobsworthy, unproffessional attitudes toward their companies do not bode well if those same attitudes migrate to operating aircraft. Or is the term unprofessional only valid when someone is critising a mistake or actions of a Captain who screwed up.

Right back to reruns of trisha, I hope they dont disturb my rest.

[CosmosSchwartz]

The company have dictated that you have to call in even if you are on days off the next day

Ignoring the arsey tone of your reply, maybe I didn't make myself clear.

We have to call ops at the end of every shift, whether we're on standby the next day, working the next day, on leave, off to the moon, whatever.

The point I was making was that in the majority of cases the only roster change given is to call someone in off standby. There are occasions when the next days roster is changed, or even days later in the month/week.

Don't even think for a minute that BMI have rostering problems that none of the rest of us can understand, almost all airlines have exactly the same moans. It's just that the rest of us don't throw out toys out of the pram over it.

You don't fly for bmiBABY by any chance do you? My that would be ironic

[Vol7]

MY GOD!!!
I can't beleive some of the rubbish I am reading, how on earth can this be such a big deal to some Pilots.
The idea behind this is not to shaft crew members but to improve relations and roster disruption.
What is the difference between them putting your name on the board or you calling in anyway (at least this way you are free to go straight to your cars after getting off the aircraft rather than the office to check if your needed).
You get 30mins from being on blocks before you are off duty so during this time call in (oh dear such a hardship). This is standard practice at a lot of other airlines and will dramatically reduce roster disruption caused by the few that refuse to call in even if their name is on the board at least this way the onus is on them and can be properly repremanded when they continue with their refusal to call in (These peoples attitude makes me sick when they believe rather than having a change of duty they would rather their colleagues are shafted) Now ask yourselves are crewing screwing you over are management screwing you over or have you indeed been well and truly shafted by your counterparts (The few ignorant counterparts that result in mass disruption!!!)

[bmimainline]

Ignoring the arsey tone of your reply, maybe I didn't make myself clear.

Do me a favour mate and stick to what has been written rather than making up a comment like that to suit the argument you are trying to make.
Depending on what duty you are finishing and where you are finishing you do not always have 30 minutes of duty time to make this call - if you are positioning you may go off duty on arrival at the gate. The next thing I'll be asked to do is call in on a day off - again people who do not know the detail (like yourself) are posting complete uninformed rubbish in this forum. - now, was that arsey enough for you

[superste]

bmimainline

Like many on this thread you are not listening to anyone else other than yourself.

Firstly, I am listening to others, I am just merely making a point from the company's point of view.

Secondly, CosmosSchwartz is also advising us of how it works in other Airlines. All you did was shoot him down in flames.

From your posts, I read it that you do not believe the new system will work and you believe it will make things worse. Fine.

My point is to those who think the system is designed to "shaft them."

I believe this not to be the case, as made in my previous post.

[dirty737]

No standard practice at my place... But, who pays for the call?

[catchup]

Calling crewing at the end of the day

Seems to be common on the island....

Leftover of M.Thatcher?

regards

[Hudson Bay]

Just claim the cost of your phone call back. I do. Average about £5 a month. I also claim my rental back and nobody questions it.

[Level2]

In the airline I work for it has always been included in post flight duties to call Crewing to check for changes. Most Pilots I talk to would rather find out what changes they have in advance to stand half a chance of planning their lives during a busy summer season.
How any airline can run without the 'call crewing after flight' or 'swipe system' is beyond me. I can assure you that the method of ringing in after a flight is a very effective way for Crewing to manage roster changes and reduce roster disruption. It's not an aid to 'shaft' people as stated in the first post that's a ridiculous comment. Trust me I like nothing more than to sit there all month and let the rosters run as published and keep everyone happy but in our airline we have delays, sickness etc so that's never going to happen.


Here's an example of how that quick call can save disruption;

Captain 'A' gets back from his flight and turns his mobile phone off. He has a change in two days time after his days off. He was on an 0600z standby but has been changed to a 1500z DLM flight. Crewing print off a list of all pilots who have changes for the following day and realise that Captain 'A' (knowing him well!) won't switch his phone on until 0600z at the start of his standby. 1500z DLM ! Ouch that won't be legal off his standby ,what shall I do? Damn he was our last standby aswell. I know we'll delay Captain 'B' off his 1130z PMI flight onto the 1500z DLM and call captain 'A' for the PMI which is legal. Oh and sorry Captain 'A' you'll now be doing Captain 'B's 0630z PFO tomorrow as he won't be in hours. He'll be doing your 1300z SZG instead.

[acbus1]

It's clear that a wide variety of people are posting their views.

Least qualified of those are the non-aircrew who aren't subject to frequent changes in personal life at ridiculously short notice. They should definitely butt out of the discussion. Their opinions are of absolutely no value whatsoever.

Then we have a group of non-bmi aircrew. If you don't or haven't ever worked for bmi then you have absolutely not the slightest concept of the degree of the problem. What goes on in your airline (and I have experience enough to be able to comment) is just a taster of the sort of thing going on in bmi. So why don't you lot butt out as well. You're doing your bretheren in bmi a disservice by protesting that your life is just fine. Lucky you.

As for evidence of the effects, the disbelievers are obviously not keeping track of the stress related and lifestyle related illnesses on record, nor the effects on divorce rates and resignations.

Basically, lots of waffle out of the tops of lots of hats, as is usual on PPRuNe.



Any, repeat any bmi aircrew (except the inappropriately named management) of more than four or five years experience of the effects of bmi's totally selfish, short-term-penny-pinching (at the cost of pounds) approach will testify to the complete destruction of any decent form of life beyond the time spent slaving to fill the pockets of a few greedy, not to mention lucky (in a business sense), individuals.

So, stand up for yourselves, bmi aircrew and tell them where to stuff their roster disruption.

All bmi have to do is recruit more pilots and get more organised. One costs money, but saves more in the long run, the other.....getting more organised....well....the impossible may take longer!

[MaximumPete]

I cannot get my head round this one!

You can buy a seat on line, get your seat number so you know what sort of aeroplane it will be so..... why can't the crew be rostered and FLY the roster they are given.

Standardisation of aircraft means that all your pilots can fly all your aircraft. I accept there must be roster changes due to training committments.

I felt for a long time that the sub-culture at the management level that was endemic in the bmi crewing department was the root of their problems.

Don't shoot the messengers!

MP

[Faire d'income]

I'm non BM so please don't bite my head off if I'm wide of the mark.

It seems to me flight crew have at least some degree of responsibility for aircraft, crew, passengers, maintenance at out-stations, fueling, incidents etc, punctuality, standards and of course safety.

Some airlines then also want you to take some responsibility for their rostering! And more than half the posters here think its a good idea!! Maybe we should get invloved in payroll and other departments ( because getting paid suits us! ). Wise up people.

[CosmosSchwartz]

acbus1 - Well don't bloody post on a public forum then. Last time I checked there was a BMI forum so why don't all you hard done BMI types sod off there and moan! You seem to be talking more about roster disruption in general, and the decay of your quality of life at BMI over time. You're absolutely right, those of us not at BMI don't know what it's like there, and I sympathise if conditions have deteriorated as they seem to have done everywhere else. However, that was not the subject of this thread. In saying that, despite what you and bmimainline seem to think, practically all airlines have roster disruption. We all get calls and some point or another changing our next days flying, hell I even get called some mornings to change THAT days flying. I've seen nothing in anything posted by BMI pilots that's worse than what goes on where I work and at a few other airlines where I've got friends working.

Notwithstanding all of the above, the point was about calling at the end of shift and I still can't see any way that increases your roster disruption. If the roster is changed it's changed. Whether you call at the end of shift or get woken at silly am by a phone call from ops what difference does it make, you're still getting changed!

As the post related to calling ops at the end of a shift, I'd suggest that it's you guys who don't know what you're talking about, seeing as you don't actually start doing it until Monday. The rest of us who do it as a matter of course are telling you it makes little or no difference to roster disruption. Maybe you should listen.

Time to go back to the land of non-bmi and non-aircrew in our ignorant little world.

[Little Blue]

Yup, I'm non-aircrew, but, working for bmi at the other end of the argument in ops/crewing, so I see for myself the consequences of crew not calling in, despite their names being written on the board in either HUGE red letters, or printed on the sheet.
It's a two-way thing, innit.
Shaft your colleagues or play ball.

[Phileas Fogg]

(They should definitely butt out of the discussion. Their opinions are of absolutely no value whatsoever.)

There are two sides to every story, there are logical reasons for many things and for those who are prepared to listen.

[b mi baby]

despite their names being written on the board in either HUGE red letters, or printed on the sheet.

I understand what you are trying to say but you need to acknowledge the fact that the people who do not respond to their names on the board in HUGE RED LETTERS will still not phone in just because the company ask them to. The new system will be far easier to abuse because:

1. The name will not appear anywhere anymore - much less visible.
2. There is no way the company can monitor engaged tones so will never be able to dispute a 'I called but could not get through'.
3. There will also be no need to go to the crew room anymore after a duty reducing even further the chances of contact.


You are right about it being a two way street though which is exactly why there are so many disgruntled crew at the moment.

[Maximum]

Those who cannot see this for what it is must be young, naive or both.
This phone call to crewing after duty should not be accepted as the norm unless you are quite happy to have no life outside work at all.
Let me try to explain why.

In bmi (like many other airlines) pilots work very disruptive shift patterns, yet do not get the kind of days off one should be entitled to as a shift worker to recuperate and have some kind of normal existence outside work.

The seemingly innocuous phone call to crewing basically leads to a situation of perpetual standby. So for example, you thought you were on earlies tomorrow, now at the last moment you're switched to lates, or you're nightstopping or both. Say goodbye to any arrangements you may have made for a life after work.

It's not that the guys complaining are inflexible, or not willing to help the company out occasionally. It's simply that it's all take by the company and no give.

I repeat, this phone call just puts everyone on a semi-standby throughout their week's duty, making it so much more flexible for crewing and the company, and so much harder for the pilots to make any plans outside work at all.