A scheduling error could impact thousands of American Airlines flights during the holiday season.
If the Christmas season isn’t stressful enough, American Airlines have now warned that up to 15,000 flights may be affected by a blunder in the scheduling system.
The glitch resulted in staff shortages, as pilots were given the green light through the scheduling system, to book a holiday and clock off from pilot duties during the festive season.
Jeopardy has now struck with the glitch giving too many pilots the time off, and not enough crew members to operate the thousands of scheduled flights.
The Allied Pilots Association (APA) released a statement to members via their website, saying that the glitch had now been resolved, but the aftermath will now have an impact on flights.
“On Friday, management disclosed a failure within the pilot schedule bidding system,” APA said.
“As a result, thousands of flights currently do not have pilots assigned to fly them during the upcoming critical holiday period.”
“The system went from responsibly scheduling everybody to becoming Santa Claus to everyone,” APA spokesman Dennis Tajer said to CNBC.
“The computer said, ‘Hey ya’ll. You want the days off? You got it.'”
American Airlines’ spokesman Matt Miller said the carrier is working on the issue to reduce cancellations.
“We have reserve pilots to help cover flying in December, and we are paying pilots who pick up certain open trips 150% of their hourly rate – as much as we are allowed to pay them per the contract,” Mr Miller said to USA TODAY’s Today via Sky blog.
However, it doesn’t sound like APA are convinced, because they have filed a grievance against American Airline’s proposed solution and accused them of violating their contract.
APA stated that the airline have “unilaterally invoked a solution for crewing affected flights.”
“By not including APA in developing collaborative solutions to this critical holiday scheduling failure, management’s actions contrast with their handling of previous scheduling failures involving other work groups,” APA said.
