[QuickQuestion1234]

Our American Airlines international flight was recently canceled due to a pilot rest time issue. This seems like a very preventable problem and it is discouraging we suffered due to AA's lack of planning. We made it on a flight the next day, and were put up in a decent hotel, but missed out on part of a once in a life-time trip we can never get back. The airline emailed us and said as a courtesy they would like to offer us 20,000 miles each. I was wondering if anyone had been successful getting more than this from the airlines (more miles/an actual ticket--miles don't go as far as they used to/or any other form of compensation). Based on the Customer Service plan it seems like they met their stated commitment with the hotel room. However, I would imagine that a squeaky wheel would get some more grease. Does anyone have a good strategy for being more fairly compensated for the very preventable inconvienence.

[Leatherboy2006]

Sounds like they did right by you, 20,000 miles is more then I have ever heard them give.
Sounds like the greed monster starting, if looking for more.

[PHXFlyer]

Was that 20K miles each or total? Honestly I would try for 25K miles each so you could at least get a free domestic round-trip ticket.

[jimworcs]

The offer of miles under the level of a free round trip requires you to use the airline again in order to get enough miles to use them. I would ask for 25,000. A crew rest issue is entirely in the control of the airline.

[PHXFlyer]

Originally Posted by jimworcs

The offer of miles under the level of a free round trip requires you to use the airline again in order to get enough miles to use them. I would ask for 25,000. A crew rest issue is entirely in the control of the airline.

They will either offer miles or a voucher good towards future travel. Either way you will be flying them again. Hopefully the next time will be without issues.

[Corbel]

i have had many times as a cabin crew where crew rest is a big issue and not preventable. i have been delayed the next time (as working crew and passenger) because the weather put us behind and our rest went into the next departure hour. belive me, we dont want it to happen or delay a flight for rest, but the FAA has strict duty rules and hours for employees

[jimworcs]

Yes, but I am afraid this is preventable. Airlines must have systems in place to address how they will manage schedule disruption. You would not accept a hospital cancelling your surgery because a nurse called in sick, the hospital is expected to have cover arrangements. This is not rocket science... every day, in every business, arrangements are made for people to be called in from standby, etc. I have a friend who is a pilot for a european airline. He has so many duty days, so many rest days and so many standby days. Standby days are set aside for just such an eventuality. It is therefore preventable... without breaking FAA rules on staff rest time, which are far too lax as they are.

[Corbel]

standby days? i have never heard of that. that may only be european carriers or vary by airline.

[jimworcs]

Well perhaps, but when on standby there is an 8 hour window, and during that period he must be within 1 hours driving time of his home airport, in this case BHX. My main point was that there are ways of managing problems which minimise disruption to the passenger, but seems like the disruption to the passenger is the easy choice and so the US airlines just go with that. It is time that changed.

[Jetsetter767]

Crew related delays are considered within the airlines control, yes... However crew scheduling can get complex. There are A LOT of factors that go into it. The original post made mention of this being an international trip... That is one BIG factor right there... Depending on the flight time, additional/relief crewmembers may be required... Also it was mentioned that it was a pilot... The airline cannot just throw any pilot on the senority list onto any airplane. They have to be qualified to fly that equipment... In a perfect world there would be one back-up crewmember for every working crewmember. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Someone also made mention of the day of standby... Airport standby is not very common among the pilot groups. You see it with Flight Attendants, but not so much with pilots.

Again, there are SO MANY factors that could have played into this specific incident it is hard to pin-point exactly the way it should have been. Without a doubt, it SUCKS, but I would say if you got 20k miles out of it, you did pretty well.

[The_Judge]

As much as I hate to do this I have to agree with jimworcs. The OP doesn't say where this took place but if this was in one of their hubs, there is reserve crew just for instances like like this. The "timing out" should have been foreseen and planned for. These don't just happen. I would like to know more details of the situation though. Was it an already delayed flight? Was it a flight that was waiting for a crew from another flight that was delayed? Was it a first flight of the day? Was the flight at an out station and was it late in the night before? Lots of variables.