Posted on 06/30/2022 6:14:58 AM PDT by Ebenezer
(Translation)
Over 550 flights were cancelled and almost 2,400 were delayed in the United States due to a lack of airline and airport personnel, mainly pilots, in the wake of high tourist demand following the lifting of pandemic restrictions.
According to the FlightAware portal, 567 flights were cancelled in the nation yesterday, 500 on Tuesday, 800 on Monday, and 1,500 during the entire weekend, with the tendency possibly worsening for the July 4 Independence Day holiday.
The EFE news agency indicated that, during the Memorial [Day] weekend that was celebrated on May 29 and is considered the unofficial beginning of summer travel, some 2,800 cancellations were recorded.
The main airlines such as American, Delta, JetBlue, and United have announced cuts in their routes this summer, and according to a letter sent this week by the employers' organization Airlines for America to the Department of Transportation, flight offerings between June and August have been reduced by 15%.
The main problem has been the lack of airline personnel, especially pilots who have denounced long work shifts once COVID-19 restrictions were lifted and demand better working conditions, above all regarding salaries and protections.
sit-down strike
Just another transportation catastrophe under Buttigeig/Biden. Add that to the supply chain crisis and the skyrocketing diesel prices hampering ground transportation and we have a major fail.
Sounds like the industry shills are blaming those greedy lazy pilots
its all about mandatory jabs...our busy travelling summers in America have not just been invented.
Well, when you fire pilots who won’t take the Jab, then y’all shouldn’t complain about a pilot shortage ...
There was a pilot shortage before the pandemic. When coved hit, pilots approaching retirement chose to retire. Others chose not to take the jab. Now that demand has returned, there aren’t enough people to fly the planes. A lot do not want to take the jab the airlines and corporations are requiring.
Here's the best way to describe my yearly flying: Flight hours are limited to 30 hours in 7 days, 100 hours in a month and 1000 in a year. Scheduling rules also say I need at least 1 day off a week, so 6 day trips are the max for me (121 US domestic scheduled).
Let's look at a typical trip, which at my company tended to be a 4 day trip. You want good productive trips, but you can't always get them. On a 4 day trip let's say I have 6 hours of flight scheduled each day, or 24 hours scheduled that week. I am getting paid the better of 24 hours or the actual flight time. Now let's look at my duty day. For a 6 hour day with 4 legs it was not unheard of to have a 12 hour duty day.
So now for a 4 day trip, I'm "at work" 48 hours and being paid for half of that. Now consider that I'm not going home every night and my trip starts at 6 am on Friday and ends at midnight Monday night -- that totals to 90 hours away from home.
How does this compare to a 40 hour work week in an office? In that case you are on duty 40 hours, getting paid 40 hours (or salary) and if you have a 1 hour commute one way, you are spending 50 hours away from home.
Back to the flight schedule. A given month will have trips less productive than 24 hours and although you can probably build a 96 hour month if you tried, the average line of flying is typically going to be 75 hours of flying. You can ballpark that will equate to 150 duty hours and 300 hours away from home for the month. Extrapolate that to a year, and you have 900 flight hours, 1800 duty hours and 3600 hours away from home. I would say this represents the average US domestic 121 pilot. Some do more, some do less, but this is pretty typical.
What do we do with all of that duty time that isn't flying? Let's see:
· Eating · Checking the weather · Checking the paperwork · Coordinating with gate agents, ramp agents, fuel agents to make sure we leave on time · Programming the FMS and getting our IFR clearance · Preflighting the airplane · Postflighting the airplane · Doing the weight and balance · Sleeping
Note, that all of these activities require we are at the airport, in the secure area and we are not being paid. The pay clock starts (roughly) when the airplane is buttoned up and the parking brake is released and ends when the parking brake is set and main cabin door opened.
14 CFR 121 contains the legal limit for flight time for airline pilots in the US : (a) No certificate holder conducting domestic operations may schedule any flight crew member and no flight crew member may accept an assignment for flight time in scheduled air transportation or in other commercial flying if that crew member's total flight time in all commercial flying will exceed— (1) 1,000 hours in any calendar year; (2) 100 hours in any calendar month; (3) 30 hours in any 7 consecutive days.
I hope this helps.
I just "occasionally" forget to put the gear down, run out of fuel...
Thank you for the details from someone (you) who knows.
I also found it interesting that someone asked Mayor Pete a couple days ago about continuing to have an age 65 mandatory retirement for pilots.
I don’t know whether that is good or bad, but seems like, if Biden can be “leader of the free world” at his age and in his cognitive condition, there must be some pilot out there, who are still capable at age 67, for example.
A lot more to it than being an “equipment operator” isn’t it?
· Eating · Checking the weather · Checking the paperwork · Coordinating with gate agents, ramp agents, fuel agents to make sure we leave on time · Programming the FMS and getting our IFR clearance · Preflighting the airplane · Postflighting the airplane · Doing the weight and balance · Sleeping
Who negotiated such a set of stupid terms to not be paid for work necessary to do the work?
With fuel prices going up and nothing being done that will reduce them this problem of pilot shortages will not last long.
The whole system in the world, not just this country, is going to come to a grinding halt. What is taking place is unsustainable and will not be fixed very soon even if the destruction stops. It takes time to fix a mess like this and not everybody knows how to do it. In fact, most don’t know how to do it.
If you like your plane ticket, you can keep your plane ticket (you just can’t use it)
It does
Just wondering though...Did you take the jab because you wanted to or had to?
I too fly for a US based 121 Carrier. Thanks for explaining that to others who probably don’t know how it works. One exception thought. I believe the 30 in 7 went away with FAR 117. My monthly time away from base is around 280 hours or so on average. Way more than the typical person works.
Thank you for explaining Reality of pilot’s job!
I work fully remote now, it’s awesome.
My brother is a pilot, so I know you guys, and gal for you, get hosed.
You are the former USAF female pilot right?
I’m your guy as long as you don’t need to land successfully.
"Keep the blue side up"
I just get a bit confused when flying over bodies of water...my passengers bodies end up in the water.
It’s coming to the point that people will reconsider making elaborate travel plans well in advance if those plans include air transportation.
Read the comments about non customer service.
An American Airlines passenger drove to Denver airport to rebook his seats after the airline’s customer-service center left him on hold for nearly 4 hours
https://www.yahoo.com/news/american-airlines-passenger-drove-45-104554777.html
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