Just Curious

[klfrodo]

Sitting here in the Admirals Lounge across from D15 in MIA

 we boarded our AA flight and pushed back On Time.

 

They ended up pushing us back to the gate because one of the engines wouldn’t start.

Mainteance came on board.

 

We deplaned and are supposed to return in an hour.

 

my question

 

how does this affect flight attendant pay and how does this affect crew time?

[love to cruz]

It is my understanding the crew does get paid until the airplane is on the tarmac. We got stuck on a plane once & at the gate 3 hours. A magical time, since the entire flight crew had to go home and the airline order another crew3, from heaven knows where. Several of us chose taking an alternate flight.

 

[Globaliser]

3 hours ago, love to cruz said:

A magical time, since the entire flight crew had to go home and the airline order another crew3, from heaven knows where.

 

If this was at one of the airline's hubs, it's very likely that they have many standby crew there for eventualities such as this.

 

It's more difficult if an aircraft goes sick at an outstation and a crew goes out of hours there, because you have to wait until another crew can be flown in.

[love to cruz]

It was at Tampa Airport.

[buggins0402]

I observed interesting FA dynamics on a flight to Beijing last year.  We were booked in first on a three class UA flight out of Dulles. The flight was delayed a couple hours due to mechanical.  UA found another plane, which we all boarded. While enjoying champagne, they discovered a problem with this plane.  We then got off and we’re directed to the original gate for a wait and see.  I could see one of the first class FA’s making an issue...with the clock.  The other, who had been servicing our side, obviously wanted to fly and was not a happy camper when she got timed out, after we boarded the flight a second time (I have no idea if this was the original equipment we were supposed to fly).  After the first FA’s left, two business FA’s moved to first and  then some youngsters came on board from what was probably the pool in a hub. 

 

My guess was the most senior FA’s in first were operating under different time out in their contract, but not sure. All I know, it was an interesting shift of staff.

 

 

[klfrodo]

Follow-up

 

we reboarded about an hour later. Officially 2 hours late. Asked our FA how that worked for them. He said their time zeroed out. Was as if it never happened.

[Tapi]

Airline crew member here!

 

- We start getting paid when the door is closed and the parking brake is released, and we are done getting paid when the door is opened.

- There’s a minimum guaranteed number of hours we get paid each day. We also get paid “per diem” for every hour we are away for our home base,

- Two things are tracked by the airline and crew members:  FLIGHT (block) hours and DUTY hours. So when you hear that the crew “timed out” it could mean that either flight hours or duty hours have been reached.

- These limits are determined by the FAA as well as the union contract. There may be times when something may be legal per the FAA, but not legal by the union contract. Limits vary based on number of flights in one day, time of day when the crew member duties on, type of flying, and previous day flying among others.

 

Here are two examples of “timing out”

 

Example 1

 

- Let’s say that today  you can be on duty for a maximum of 15 hours. Your next flight is scheduled for 3 hours, but it’s delayed. You are approaching your 12th hour on duty, so very soon you will be unable to legally accept your next flight because by accepting it, you will exceed 15 hours of duty.

 

Technically you could sit at the airport all day without flying. The clock is still ticking and when the duty time limit is reached, you’re done. The airline is also required to include an additional 15-30 minutes after the flight’s arrival in their calculations to allow the crew to finish their duties and check out. 

 

Example 2

 

- Let’s say that today you can fly a maximum of 9 hours, and you’re going to fly a round trip, 4 hours and 15 minutes each way. On your first flight, you had to hold for 45 extra minutes due to weather. By the time you finally made it to the gate, you have already logged 5 hours. Now you can only legally fly 4 more hours today. Since the return is scheduled for 4 hours and 15 minutes, you can’t legally accept it, even if you will not violate duty time limitations. Airlines usually avoid scheduling crews with little wiggle room specifically to avoid situations like this one. 

 

Hope the information is helpful!

 

 

[SFCAcruiser]

2 hours ago, Tapi said:

Airline crew member here!

 

- We start getting paid when the door is closed and the parking brake is released, and we are done getting paid when the door is opened.

- There’s a minimum guaranteed number of hours we get paid each day. We also get paid “per diem” for every hour we are away for our home base,

- Two things are tracked by the airline and crew members:  FLIGHT (block) hours and DUTY hours. So when you hear that the crew “timed out” it could mean that either flight hours or duty hours have been reached.

- These limits are determined by the FAA as well as the union contract. There may be times when something may be legal per the FAA, but not legal by the union contract. Limits vary based on number of flights in one day, time of day when the crew member duties on, type of flying, and previous day flying among others.

....

 

Thanks for the details. I have a question re: Pre-departure beverage service in F. This service is provided while the door is open and passengers may be boarding. Are FAs paid for this, or is it simply just counted as "duty" time? I would hope you would be paid, but I suspect this may not be the case.

[Globaliser]

6 hours ago, Tapi said:

Example 2

 

- Let’s say that today you can fly a maximum of 9 hours, and you’re going to fly a round trip, 4 hours and 15 minutes each way. On your first flight, you had to hold for 45 extra minutes due to weather. By the time you finally made it to the gate, you have already logged 5 hours. Now you can only legally fly 4 more hours today. Since the return is scheduled for 4 hours and 15 minutes, you can’t legally accept it, even if you will not violate duty time limitations. Airlines usually avoid scheduling crews with little wiggle room specifically to avoid situations like this one. 

 

Thanks for all the information about this.

 

May I please ask a question? Does the FAA have any provision for discretion in a situation like this? EASA regulations (and before that, I think, CAA regulations) allow for a flight time extension at the crew's discretion, if they judge it safe to continue.

 

AIUI, this can come into play if there's a long-haul flight (eg Singapore to London) that has to divert into another airfield en route for (typically) a medical emergency and the crew would go out of normal hours if they then continued the flight to London. But going out of hours at a remote place where the airline doesn't normally fly could leave the aircraft, crew and passengers stranded for perhaps 12-24 hours while a rescue flight is organised and despatched. So the crew can agree to go into discretion to continue the flight.

 

Or from personal experience: Before departure from Hong Kong, it was known that there would be long departure delays because of weather across southern China, but takeoff slot times would only be issued after the aircraft was ready to go. We ended up waiting for about 3½ hours for ours. The crew would have gone out of normal hours, but agreed that they could go into discretion provided they took extended rest, which had the effect of cancelling breakfast and having that provided in London instead.

 

Obviously, these aren't situations which would be likely to apply to flights scheduled for 4:15 block time, but I wondered whether there's any provision in the FAA regs for this sort of extension. If not, how would such situations be managed?

[Tapi]

8 hours ago, SFCAcruiser said:

 

Thanks for the details. I have a question re: Pre-departure beverage service in F. This service is provided while the door is open and passengers may be boarding. Are FAs paid for this, or is it simply just counted as "duty" time? I would hope you would be paid, but I suspect this may not be the case.

Technically, the FA’s are not getting paid while they are doing their pre-departure drinks, just like us pilots are not getting paid while we do our preflight preparations in the flight deck. But it’s all part of our duties. Once in a while, a crew member grumble and say that “we should be getting paid to do this” but in the most part, everyone accepts it. Keep in mind that we get paid a minimum number of hours a day, whether we fly them or not. Let’s say that an airline guarantees a minimum pay of 6 hours a day, but you will only fly 3 today. You’ll still get paid 6 hours. It all evens out at the end. Hard to complain about one thing when you get the other.

[Tapi]

5 hours ago, Globaliser said:

 

Thanks for all the information about this.

 

May I please ask a question? Does the FAA have any provision for discretion in a situation like this? EASA regulations (and before that, I think, CAA regulations) allow for a flight time extension at the crew's discretion, if they judge it safe to continue.

 

There are provisions that do allow for extensions, but these are also outlined in the regulations and contract. For example, at my airline we have a provision that allows us to extend our duty time an additional two hours if all crew members consider themselves to be physically fit to continue. But we wouldn’t be allowed to extend beyond 2 hours even if we felt fine to do so. 

 

There’s also another provision that allows us to continue to our destination if we are already in flight, and because of in-flight delays, it’s determined that we will exceed duty or flight hours then. 

 

Finally, there are tables used to determine rest periods based on the type of flying that a crew member is performing. If you have a more grueling day, then you must have a longer rest period before you can report for duty the next day. Some times, the crew needs to report later for their next day flight because their rest had to be adjusted or extended if they faced irregular operations or delays the prior day. 

 

With all all of this said, the airlines build their schedules and staff in a way to minimize the chance of scheduling nightmares like the one in your scenario, specially when flying to remote destinations, and will provision accordingly. For example, even if a crew could legally fly an entire flight or round trip, additional crew members will be brought onboard, and they will rest while the other crewmembers works and vice versa. 

 

There may be times when one of these scenarios will be inevitable, but thankfully they are rare. Airlines will resort to tough measures to return their schedules to normal as fast as possible to minimize long term impact and the number of affected passengers. These measures may include cancellations, reroutes, and airplane and crew repositioning. This is very evident when a major weather event hits. It’s chaotic, even for a few days after the skies have cleared, but it’s usually the best way to return things to normal. It may be painful for those passengers caught in the middle of one these scenarios, but the goal is to minimize the overall number of passengers that will be severely affected.

Edited November 5, 2018 by Tapi

[sumiandkage]

The FAA apparently does have a hard limit when it comes to 'depart by XX:XX or the crew is illegal'. I know someone who got caught up in one of those situations- mechanical delay followed by a minor ground hold and apparently even though the pilot was begging the tower for takeoff priority because of the crew rest issue, the tower told them to wait their turn, resulting in the crew going illegal by literally two minutes, a 24 hour delay in Italy for the flight proper to get sorted out and a scramble for the airline to get people rebooked on alternate options sooner than that. 

 

The FAA penalties for altering a flight log for even a minute or two to sneak past the crew time limits are apparently so severe that no US airline, even the ones with less than great reputations, will go there. 

Edited November 5, 2018 by sumiandkage