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Pilot didn’t show up today at SAV - 24 Dec. 2018

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Pilot didn’t show up today at SAV - 24 Dec. 2018

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Old Dec 24, 2018, 7:53 am
  #1  
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Pilot didn’t show up today at SAV - 24 Dec. 2018

Got on the plane for my flight to IAH only to be deplaned. Agent says pilot never showed up to work. In all my years this is a new one. Anyone else ever heard of this happening before?
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Old Dec 24, 2018, 8:18 am
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Yup. Pilot got sick.

I think he had the fish.
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Old Dec 24, 2018, 8:31 am
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Had it happen once before, but can't remember the route or anything.

Have to imagine the pilot was sick, I don't think not showing up for work as a pilot is a career advancing move
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Old Dec 24, 2018, 8:48 am
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Drunk from the night before?

A million reasons this could happen.
Not really sure the "agent" is privy to exact reason, or correct reason.
What did the United app give as reason?
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Old Dec 24, 2018, 8:49 am
  #5  
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Sick, injured, dead.

Chances are that the GA has zero idea what she was talking about beyond the fact that the Captain physically did not turn up.
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Old Dec 24, 2018, 8:55 am
  #6  
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Never heard!!! may be due to uncertain conditions the pilot dint show up But they could have arranged another pilot in that matter.
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Old Dec 24, 2018, 8:56 am
  #7  
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Originally Posted by Often1
Sick, injured, dead.
Won the lottery!
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Old Dec 24, 2018, 9:17 am
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Originally Posted by slickvik
Got on the plane for my flight to IAH only to be deplaned. Agent says pilot never showed up to work. In all my years this is a new one. Anyone else ever heard of this happening before?

I am in CHS and although it is rare, it happens. I am friends with the gate agents and although they may not know the exact reason at the time, they typically find out from either the rest of the crew that shows up or the next day or whenever the pilot does show up.

I am assuming it is Mesa, not sure what you have there for turns, but up here they would have to either wait for the pilot to recover or fly in a relief on the next flight.
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Old Dec 24, 2018, 9:50 am
  #9  
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Originally Posted by slickvik
...Anyone else ever heard of this happening before?...
Yes, had a LAX-based pilot no show for a LAX-IAH redeye. 2012, during the Smisek meltdown. The rest of the crew was annoyed.
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Old Dec 24, 2018, 9:58 am
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Looks like a pilot timed out so he wasn't legal for the flight.
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Old Dec 24, 2018, 10:52 am
  #11  
 
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Originally Posted by LarryJ
Looks like a pilot timed out so he wasn't legal for the flight.
Crew Scheduling must have dropped the ball here since they knew the pilot was not legal for the flight next day. :-:
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Old Dec 24, 2018, 4:50 pm
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Originally Posted by LarryJ
Looks like a pilot timed out so he wasn't legal for the flight.

Does Sav use the last flight in crew mans the first flight out plane?

Here in CHS previously when we got a mainline 737 from ORD (8pm takeoff - 11:30pm land) in the winter the crew would fly in, go to the hotel and then operate the 0600 CHS-ORD flight. Basically they were using some funny math or as long as when they get back to ORD they weren't times out, they were good - something like that. So far this winter we have had enough mainline flights that they have crews here in hotels - we even had a few go ORD-CHS-EWR and EWR-CHS-ORD, which is kind of weird, but nice at the same time.

The problem with that scenario is you aren't far from illegal crew....on the morning flight
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Old Dec 24, 2018, 4:57 pm
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Curious on this... I don't remember ever getting on a plane when the pilot wasn't already there... if the pilot has all their checks to do before the plane can move, that takes longer(?) than to board a small jet, why are pax boarded?
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Old Dec 24, 2018, 5:10 pm
  #14  
 
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Originally Posted by Intl359Widget
Crew Scheduling must have dropped the ball here since they knew the pilot was not legal for the flight next day. :-:
Unlikely, they probably went over on the inbound to SAV and that made them illegal for the next morning. At that point, there's no way to get a replacement crew into position in time for the scheduled departure time.

Originally Posted by Hipplewm
Does Sav use the last flight in crew mans the first flight out plane?
I have no idea. It was an Express flight so I can't see the crew's schedulje.

Here in CHS previously when we got a mainline 737 from ORD (8pm takeoff - 11:30pm land) in the winter the crew would fly in, go to the hotel and then operate the 0600 CHS-ORD flight. Basically they were using some funny math
In those cases, the crew spends ~30hrs on the layover. i.e. arrive late Monday night, layover all day Tuesday, fly the early flight out Wednesday morning.

Originally Posted by LimeyFlyer
Curious on this... I don't remember ever getting on a plane when the pilot wasn't already there... if the pilot has all their checks to do before the plane can move, that takes longer(?) than to board a small jet, why are pax boarded?
Only the F/As have to be onboard in order to board the flight.
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Old Dec 24, 2018, 5:45 pm
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Most likely the pilot was sick and decided he was not fit to fly. Has happened to me a number of times over the last 30 years. Most of the time you never know it happened as the airline has a pool of standby pilots on call for exactly this issue. The problem is with a smaller outstation like SAV, where there is no chance to call on a local standby pilot. 99% of the time the pilots and FA(s) fly in the night before and overnight in a local hotel. If one goes down, that's it, the flight will be cancelled. They have to fly the replacement on the next scheduled flight inbound. It's unfortunate but does happen, albeit rarely.

Last edited by timfountain; Dec 24, 2018 at 5:58 pm
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