Captain ran out of hours - why?

[MitchT]

Last Sunday the OH and I were supposed to fly MAN to VIE at 17:15. We all made it as far as the waiting area at the boarding gate, the plane (inbound from BFS) rocked up at 16:45. All is good, I thought. Not so. By 17:20 we were all still waiting and some people in high-vis jackets perched at various points around the aircraft talking on their phones suggested that all was not well. Eventually we were told that there was a crew shortage and that they were trying to find a replacement. Then we were told our flight had been cancelled and bunged in hotels around Manchester overnight.

Our replacement flight was scheduled for 10:50, which then became 11:20 and we were finally on the takeoff roll at 11:50! Why the hell was it not scheduled to be the first out the following day? The captain of our eventual flight told us that the previous day's captain had run out of hours. How can this happen when the inbound flight was apparently on time?

We've lodged our compo claim so the blow will be softened a little, but I don't get how an airline can be so disorganised in the first place. Maybe some of the plane people on here can elaborate.

[5150]

MitchT said:

but I don't get how an airline can be so disorganised in the first place.

Welcome to modern-day aviation! What you've experienced is the tip of the iceberg I would say - particularly with the aircraft and crew operating multiple sectors beforehand.

Interesting you mention that your flight was on time; my first thought with this is that your flight to VIE was the penultimate flight of the day, i.e. - the aircraft was based in MAN and was to operate MAN-VIE-MAN. My guess is, that the Captain on that flight inbound to MAN was possibly called off standby to operate that day, and therefore his flight duty period (when the clock starts ticking) began a lot earlier than the rostered/normal period for that 4-sector schedule. Captain's are allowed to exercise what is known as 'discretion', which is essentially voluntary overtime. It's entirely legal to extend past your allowed duty period (based on your start time), but it can't be rostered and it's not compulsory. This could well be the case that they were on standby at the airport from say 6am, sat around for a few hours, then were called out to operate the first two sectors (with the airline probably hoping he would go in to discretion to do your flight to VIE and back), but when they refused to operate into discretion, the airline had no more standby crews to take over, and therefore had to cancel the flight.

Just one theory (which I've seen happen) - but there could be many more!

[48k]

MitchT said:

Our replacement flight was scheduled for 10:50, which then became 11:20 and we were finally on the takeoff roll at 11:50! Why the hell was it not scheduled to be the first out the following day?

Airlines enter into agreements with airports to "own" (read: pay for) a package of departure slots. This is because airport capacity is limited and there is a lot of competition. If the airline concerned doesn't "own" the first departure slot of the day it can't simply push in and try and depart its aircaft out of sequence. It has to agree a slot with the airport.

The ops team at the airline will also have needed to make an aircraft available, which isn't a 5 minute job (unsurprisingly airlines don't have lots of spare aircraft hanging around to cover issues like this, because it's expensive to have aircraft sitting around doing nothing).

Similarly they will need to have contacted the flight deck and cabin crew staff who were rostered to be on standby in that period and get them to report for duty.

MitchT said:

The captain of our eventual flight told us that the previous day's captain had run out of hours. How can this happen when the inbound flight was apparently on time?

Your comments about the people around the aircraft suggest that the aircraft may have gone tech (had a problem). The captain (in fact - all the crew) can only work a certain number of hours before they must have a certain amount of rest. So if the aircraft could not be fixed in time for the crew to still be able to complete the outbound sector before going out of hours then another crew is needed.

I can appreciate it must have been a frustrating experience for you but I think calling the airline disorganised is a touch harsh.

[MitchT]

48k said:

Your comments about the people around the aircraft suggest that the aircraft may have gone tech (had a problem). The captain (in fact - all the crew) can only work a certain number of hours before they must have a certain amount of rest. So if the aircraft could not be fixed in time for the crew to still be able to complete the outbound sector before going out of hours then another crew is needed.

I can appreciate it must have been a frustrating experience for you but I think calling the airline disorganised is a touch harsh.

If it had gone tech then why didn't they just say that? There was no mention of it going tech.

Also, I don't think calling them disorganised is harsh - they were a complete shambles. First, we were left waiting in the boarding area until 17:20 before there was an announcement that we were delayed by a "staff shortage", even though the flight was supposed to depart at 17:15. Second, the update we were promised in 15-20 minutes took half an hour to materialise. Third, We were then told the flight had been cancelled and that we needed to go back through immigration and baggage reclaim but not where to go after that. Fourth, we were also told that duty free would have to be returned, but not to whom or how to go about it. We didn't have any but numerous people did and they had no idea where they were supposed to take it. Fifth, when we'd got through baggage reclaim we had to guess where to go - the easyjet desk in the bag drop area seemed to be where everyone was going - there was ONE member of staff on the desk and it took us TWO HOURS of queueing to get to the desk and establish where we were going to stay overnight. Finally, the OH and I were told to go to The Clayton, "just out of the doors over there and to the right - you can walk from here" was the vague instruction. Well, it might well have been in walking distance but finding a way of getting there safely on foot with zero pedestrian facilities or crossings was another matter. Disorganised and short staffed. Stelios needs to open his wallet and employ some people. He can afford it.

[surveyor]

On an economic front.... To put the OP flight at the front of the queue would probably mean stealing another flights slot. They've then got two sets of compensation to wriggle out of, rather than waiting for a spare plane and just being on the hook for OP's flight delay.

At least there were hotels available. A couple of years ago I tried to stay in quite a large Heathrow airport hotel that was closed due to a gas leak. They rehoused us at 10PM and were desperately ringing around booking rooms, to beat BA who was also trying to find rooms for a 747 number of people...

Our local airport is a small Flybe base. I've found that delays in the previous day can lead to delays the next morning due to minimum rest periods. The bd being that they will text you to tell you the flight is delayed the next morning, but still expect you to turn up at the same time to hang around a tiny airport for 2 extra hours....

[48k]

MitchT said:

48k said:

Your comments about the people around the aircraft suggest that the aircraft may have gone tech (had a problem). The captain (in fact - all the crew) can only work a certain number of hours before they must have a certain amount of rest. So if the aircraft could not be fixed in time for the crew to still be able to complete the outbound sector before going out of hours then another crew is needed.

I can appreciate it must have been a frustrating experience for you but I think calling the airline disorganised is a touch harsh.

If it had gone tech then why didn't they just say that? There was no mention of it going tech.

Also, I don't think calling them disorganised is harsh - they were a complete shambles. First, we were left waiting in the boarding area until 17:20 before there was an announcement that we were delayed by a "staff shortage", even though the flight was supposed to depart at 17:15. Second, the update we were promised in 15-20 minutes took half an hour to materialise. Third, We were then told the flight had been cancelled and that we needed to go back through immigration and baggage reclaim but not where to go after that. Fourth, we were also told that duty free would have to be returned, but not to whom or how to go about it. We didn't have any but numerous people did and they had no idea where they were supposed to take it. Fifth, when we'd got through baggage reclaim we had to guess where to go - the easyjet desk in the bag drop area seemed to be where everyone was going - there was ONE member of staff on the desk and it took us TWO HOURS of queueing to get to the desk and establish where we were going to stay overnight. Finally, the OH and I were told to go to The Clayton, "just out of the doors over there and to the right - you can walk from here" was the vague instruction. Well, it might well have been in walking distance but finding a way of getting there safely on foot with zero pedestrian facilities or crossings was another matter. Disorganised and short staffed. Stelios needs to open his wallet and employ some people. He can afford it.

You didn't provide any of that detail in your OP which is why it came across (to me) as harsh.

MitchT said:

Stelios needs to open his wallet and employ some people. He can afford it.

Ah now the key detail is revealed! Pay more for your ticket and go with a non-budget airline if you want non-budget service when things go wrong.

[surveyor]

48k said:

Ah now the key detail is revealed! Pay more for your ticket and go with a non-budget airline if you want non-budget service when things go wrong.

You think BA would do better?

[48k]

Maybe I picked the wrong smiley.

[MitchT]

48k said:

You didn't provide any of that detail in your OP which is why it came across (to me) as harsh.

To be honest I think it was fair enough to accuse them of being disorganised when they simply failed to have a crew for a flight that was otherwise able to depart on time. That's their job when things are going normally - I'd expect them to get that bit right!

[Shakermaker]

surveyor said:

48k said:

Ah now the key detail is revealed! Pay more for your ticket and go with a non-budget airline if you want non-budget service when things go wrong.

You think BA would do better?

No - they would do exactly the same.

Whenever a flight is cancelled, all the airlines use a third-party company to find available hotel rooms - someone like Flight Delay Services.

Doesn't matter which airline you are flying with, they are all calling the same call centre which has a finite number of staff available to them to answer the phone. You might have 2 staff at the desk instead of one, but that isn't guaranteed either

[48k]

MitchT said:

48k said:

You didn't provide any of that detail in your OP which is why it came across (to me) as harsh.

To be honest I think it was fair enough to accuse them of being disorganised when they simply failed to have a crew for a flight that was otherwise able to depart on time. That's their job when things are going normally - I'd expect them to get that bit right!

The thread is titled "Captain ran out of hours - why?" and you asked for reasons how it can happen. Some people have taken the time to explain some possibilities. Some of the possibilities include things not going normally. That doesn't necessarily mean the airline is disorganised. It's just one of those things you have to accept with the complicated beast that is commercial air travel.

[FourWheelDrift]

I'd rather have a wait if the flight crew have run out of hours than crash because of crew fatigue.

Couple of examples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_80...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_34...

Or be late at your destination because the flight crew were asleep
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Airlines_F...
http://aircrewbuzz.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/fatigue-...

[MartG]

I can see the OP's point - the SOLE reason the flight didn't leave on time was due to a lack of crew - the airline simply didn't employ enough people to crew all their flights that day.

Stinginess, hoping crew would voluntarily fly more hours 'at their discretion', or bad management ?

[pushthebutton]

MartG said:

I can see the OP's point - the SOLE reason the flight didn't leave on time was due to a lack of crew - the airline simply didn't employ enough people to crew all their flights that day.

Stinginess, hoping crew would voluntarily fly more hours 'at their discretion', or bad management ?

Stinginess on whose behalf?

Always interested in these cases whether the OP searched around for the cheapest flight available. Obviously, some flights are ruled out due to excessive journeys.

Pretty much all airline analysis has shown that pricing is the number one and sometimes only factor considered when choosing a flight.

[Shakermaker]

MartG said:

I can see the OP's point - the SOLE reason the flight didn't leave on time was due to a lack of crew - the airline simply didn't employ enough people to crew all their flights that day.

Stinginess, hoping crew would voluntarily fly more hours 'at their discretion', or bad management ?

Lack of crew potentially because of sickness or similar though - meaning that all standby crew had already been used up - happens occasionally and is one of the most common reasons for delays.

The airline crew standby system is generally far better way of dealing with sickness than many other businesses, because of the expensive impact of not being able to operate a flight.

The HR Director where I work is a former HR and resourcing manager from EasyJet and has some good insight into how they actually design their rosters.

They have calculated their average level of expected staff no-show due to sickness/other unplanned absence and taken into account a lot of other variables - day of the week, time of day, time of year, major events occurring, national holidays, predicted weather etc. They can then arrange enough additional staff to be either on-site standby crew, or off-site standby, to hopefully avoid a situation such as the OP has experienced. But that still happens occasionally, as you can't predict everything.

[MitchT]

MartG said:

I can see the OP's point - the SOLE reason the flight didn't leave on time was due to a lack of crew - the airline simply didn't employ enough people to crew all their flights that day.

Exactly. If the inbound aircraft had been delayed I could understand the crew running out of hours, but it wasn't, so it was nothing more than poor planning.

Anyway, the muppets are now covering themselves in further glory by offering £6 each for the evening meal which cost us £25 when the paperwork they gave us says we're entitled to "up to £25 each".

[surveyor]

MitchT said:

Exactly. If the inbound aircraft had been delayed I could understand the crew running out of hours, but it wasn't, so it was nothing more than poor planning.

Anyway, the muppets are now covering themselves in further glory by offering £6 each for the evening meal which cost us £25 when the paperwork they gave us says we're entitled to "up to £25 each".

Just because the flight is not delayed does not mean other things have gone to plan. Crews are moved around all the time as needed. Presumably your flight was where it fell down

[pushthebutton]

MitchT said:

Exactly. If the inbound aircraft had been delayed I could understand the crew running out of hours, but it wasn't, so it was nothing more than poor planning.

Anyway, the muppets are now covering themselves in further glory by offering £6 each for the evening meal which cost us £25 when the paperwork they gave us says we're entitled to "up to £25 each".

Crews also swap aircraft during the day so it doesn't necessarily follow that your crew were operating the inbound.

£6 against a ticket price of?

[Prawo Jazdy]

It's worth pointing out that until you boarded the aircraft, you didn't come into contact with a single airline employee. All those people on the ground wearing lanyards with the airline logo on will work for a separate handling agent, who will be contracted by the airline. This is a problem now that low cost airlines have 'matured' a bit and have to stand out on customer service. They have very little control over the experience a customer has until they board, because with a lot of carriers only the pilots, cabin crew and head office staff are direct employees.

It's also worth pointing out that Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou hasn't been the CEO of easyJet for a long while. He is still the single largest shareholder though.