Update: Statement from American Airlines, the job posting is “from earlier this month that was reposted after the Thanksgiving holiday. Entirely unrelated to the pilot scheduling issue.” And, I would add, unfortunately timed.
American Airlines still can’t schedule US Airways flight attendants to work on legacy American Airlines planes, or American flight attendants to work on legacy US Airways planes.
When the airline moved flying from US Airways planes to American planes for some routes out of Philaldephia they started flying with more flight attendants on the remaining routes as a ‘make good’ so just as many US Airways flight attendants could still fly to lucrative fun destinations despite the higher costs.
That’s an IT integration issue mostly, rather than crew scheduling. However we just learned yesterday that the airline managed to schedule flights for Christmas with no pilots. And their costly solution — if indeed it solves the problem — is to pay pilots more to work.
Two years ago by the way legacy US Airways flight attendants had to be paid a premium too after American ran their Christmas schedules wrong.
It should come as no surprise that about 12 hours ago American started looking for a new Director of Crew Scheduling, someone to help sort out their mess.
Responsible for the day-to-day operation of Crew Scheduling. Provides leadership and direction to the Crew Scheduling Team with an emphasis on providing the best possible service to our crewmembers while delivering a reliable and efficient operation.
Four hundred people will report up to this new hire who will be in charge of “help[ing] drive culture change in transforming the Crew Scheduling group into a Customer Contact center for our crew members” as well as “ensure scheduling practices comply with CBAs and FAA regulations.”
If you have 6 years of crew management experience, a degree in a related field, proficiency in Microsoft office and preferably experience negotiating labor contracts you might be able to sort out American’s mess for them.
(HT: Greg)
I thought it was a “computer glitch”? :-O
I take it this is a new position, and that they’re not looking for a replacement, right?
Lol that was fast. Good luck to the sucker that gets placed in this role.
As someone who builds software for a living, I would say that ‘computer glitch’ fits into the broad category of issues we typically find at work.
“Error occurs between chair and keyboard.”
wiat, 400 people to schedule crew for an airline?? even with the large number of crew that they have, that figure seems absurdly high. are they doing it with pencil and paper? Hey AA, if it is strictly crew, FAs and Pilots, i’ll do it with a team of 40. Call me.
Its a Joke Scheduling is not that hard of a job the pay for the position prob is awful. When you scrap the bottom of a bucket what you think you going to get.
@ben, it’s a 24/7 365 job to handle scheduling for 17k+ pilots and probably close to 80k FAs…it requires a lot of people…
I have no doubt crews will show their gratitude for the out of cycle pay raise Doug gave them by stepping up in droves to serve
@ian – so 400 people to manage 97,000 employees; that is 1 scheduler per 240 flight crew members, which, per the initial comment, does seem extremely high for something that is supposedly done using a computer system and not pencil and paper…