AirplaneBoy From United States of America, joined May 2004, 542 posts, RR: 11 Posted (7 years 10 months 3 weeks 2 days 12 hours ago) and read 1321 times:
Hello fellow A.netters.
This question is geared specifically toward our fellow airline community crewmembers (pilots and flight attendants/cabin crew). I'm interested in learning how flying schedules are created at airlines in various parts of the world. For instance, here in the U.S., monthly schedules are bid on based on one's seniority (length of employement with the company). The longer one has been with the company, the more one is guaranteed their preferred trips/pairings/sequences/lines. How are schedules created at airlines in other countries (i.e. China, U.K., France, etc.)? Do you even bid for schedules or are schedules assigned randomly?
Thank you for your input. I apologize if this topic has been discussed before, as I have been unable to find information through the search engine. Cheers and fly safe!
AlanUK From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 1, posted (7 years 10 months 3 weeks 1 day 20 hours ago) and read 1175 times:
Right, I can tell you how it works at BA, for Cabin Crew.
Shorthaul (called EuroFleet and covers all of UK+European operations):
Bidding system called Carmen. Allows crew member to vote for days off (10 days per month on a full time contract) as well as trips by destinations, time of day, lenght away from home etc... It is done on a point system rather than seniority. You can make as many bids as you like, giving 200 points to your most important bid and working down from there.
Generally very good.
Longhaul (called WorldWide and covers everything else on 777/747/767)
No bidding system as such, but part of Rostar implemented. You can request 2 consecutive days per months at home (UK request), and main crew can request a specific trip (by flight number and date) twice a year. 3x per year for Pursers, and 4x per year for Cabin Service Directors. You can also make trip requests with other fellow crew members to be on the same trip at a choosen time. The airline is flexible when changing certain trip (generally back 2 back East US Coast). ie: you could change a BWI/EWR back 2 back to a JFK/ORD back to back if it's available.
The system tries to give everybody a FAIR SHARE of work, again, not based on seniority. ie: all crew should get at least 1 long range, 1 back 2 back per month on a full time contract. And the system tries to avoid long time zone change. (ie: LAX (-8) followed by NRT (+8)).
Still seen as very restrictive, this system allows very little control over cabin crew rosters. It's long due for a change to bidding as is on EuroFleet.
That's BA! As you can see, both systems are not seniority based at all. Seniority comes in handy when booking your holidays rather than getting "good" trips at BA.
Rainbird From United States of America, joined Jul 2005, 32 posts, RR: 0 Reply 2, posted (7 years 10 months 3 weeks 1 day 13 hours ago) and read 1082 times:
At DL they use the Carmen system for the FA's as well . It has the same things as BA ( aircraft type, report and release, trip length, layover length, high, medium, or low scheduled hours), but it uses seniority like other US carriers. You still assign points to items mentioned above but the points are only relative to you and what your seniority can hold. It is a very complex system and the FA group is still getting acclamated to it.
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