American Airlines accused of pilot rostering blunder
American Airlines appears to have become the latest airline to make a mess of its pilots’ rosters.
Unions are warning of major disruption to the airline’s flights over Christmas after it accidentally allowed all its pilots to take holiday.
It is believed that more than 15,000 flights do not have sufficient crew assigned to them, although the airline is insisting all flights will operate as normal.
The issue came to light after the Allied Pilots Association Union issued a statement saying the airline’s management had ‘disclosed a failure within the pilot schedule bidding system’.
"As a result, thousands of flights currently do not have pilots assigned to fly them during the upcoming critical holiday period," it said.
"Management has issued an update detailing the ‘significant holes’ in the operation and unilaterally invoked a solution for crewing affected flights."
American Airlines said in a statement: "We are working diligently to address the issue and expect to avoid cancellations this holiday season.
"We have reserve pilots to help cover flying in December, and we are paying pilots who pick up certain open trips 150 percent of their hourly rate – as much as we are allowed to pay them per the contract.
"We will work with the APA to take care of our pilots and ensure we get our customers to where they need to go over the holidays."
Earlier this year Ryanair was forced to ground 20,000 flights after messing up its pilot rostering.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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