Carmen

[Keg]

Qantas is using Carmen to develop the patterns of flying for crew but hasn't yet moved on to using it for allocations. A recent burst from the Chief Pilot indicated some interesting things that Carmen can do with respect to the actual distribution of trips and it's impact on seniority.

I'm after feedback from people who may be using Carmen for allocation of trips at the moment. Happy with the way it allocates trips? (Not how it creates the trips initially as we're already seeing the results of that now! ) How does it deal with seniority? How does the 'preferences' that you put on it work? Basically, any information you may have.

I've read the web site about it but it's all company spin so I'm after 'real life' reports about how it goes!

Thanks in advance!

Keg

[The Moo]

I work as cabin crew at ba and have to say that Carmen works for me.
Sure I get a couple of crap rosters a year but in general it gives me what I want. I tend to get 90% of my days off I request.
Forget senority Carmen just tries to satisfy a % of you bid here at ba it is 60%.

P.s we work in a very negative environment and you will hear horror stories. you can not please all of the people all of the time and I'm sure you will see a lot of negative comments just giving mine thats all

[Hot Wings]

At BA we have Carmen for LGW based flight crew. Avoid it like the plague!!!
Carmen's priority is work coverage.

[scroggs]

Carmen is a computer program. It will work to whatever priorities it is given. It is entirely possible to include seniority, lifestyle requirements and all sorts of other things in the list of constraints it has to work with. However, at Virgin it seems to have become apparent that not even Carmen's own staff fully understand the power or flexibility of the program and its various modules; pilots from our union have been in to give them a hand - and have significantly improved what it can do for the company and for us.

For more information, get your people to contact the Virgin Atlantic Company Committee via BALPA.

Scroggs

[LLuke]

I totally disagree, it has nothing to do with understanding. The social aspects, planning of leave, etc, are just BS to sell it to the crews. It is just a matter of time untill managers start abusing it and try to squeeze more out of Carmen and from all those advantages for crew and company, only the ones for the company remain. Prepare for minimum leave, max anything else. If you don't have a labour agreement that defines everything, you're doomed. When you complain about your roster, your company can now blame Carmen. Resistence is futile.

In my 4 year experience with Carmen, only the ratio of pilots over flights had an influence on the schedules. Carmen will never be able to reduce the total amount of nightstops, the total amount of flying hours in your division, etc.. All flights have to be flown, all nightstops have to be crewed. With no extra crews, there's simply no room to plan for Carmen. (ex. with 800 hrs flight and 10 FO's, each FO will fly 80 hours avarage. for every hour you fly less, your colleage has one more.) Carmen is dangerous stuff, that can hurt when not handled with care.

[Hirsutesme]

It is exactly as Scroggs says, it is a program with huge capabilities, both for good and bad.
Virgin's Balpa guys have done a great job with it, and a call to them will give pertinent facts/info.

[LLuke]

It would help if somebody could tell more about the miracle that happened with Virgin while being certain it is not an effect of having temporary more crews or less flights.

[Brakes...beer]

Carmen has to work within the parameters set by the airline; obviously it's main priority is going to be work coverage - airlines are not flying clubs. If your airline is undermanned and operates flights at unsocial hours (name one that's not like this) then Carmen is going to produce some unpopular trips and the pilots are going to be working hard. How much the pilots fly is not the responsibility of a computer programme.

I have used Carmen from a junior and senior position within my fleet (BA LGW)for several years and am generally fairly satisfied. I have not used bidline and I'm prepared to accept the consensus of those who have used both that bidline is better than Carmen. Some people bid for days off and some for style of trip (late/early, daytrip/nightstop or particular destinations), but the key from the user's point of view is to keep bids simple. Trying to construct your own roster by 'clever', complicated bids does not work. I generally get what I want and there are some people with whom I very rarely fly, because they bid for the opposite from me (nothing personal, you understand!). So Carmen must be pleasing some people.

BA does not use Carmen for allocating leave. The company at LGW also operates a system of trump days: four separate, 2-day blocks per pilot per year allocated in a book on a first-come, first-served basis. So you can accept a wedding invitation in 6 months' time in complete confidence. This manual system outside Carmen mitigates the uncertainty of bidding for days off within Carmen and is a very popular adjunct.

[Keg]

Thanks for the responses so far....it looks like it will be an interesting development.

The main difference for QF crews (as I see it) is a move from the pure seniority to the 'points' system whereby the system will look at the various rankings that you've given certain things and weigh up whether you get them on the basis of what you got last roster and what other people want this roster! Fun and games.