User-Defined Flights and Numbering

jer029 wrote:

Following Eric's tracking method, that still is not an adequate reflection of hub activity as measured by flight hours by pilots of a particular hub.  For example, I'm assigned to MSP, but if I fly a MIA flight, the flight shows as a MIA flight not as MSP flight activity.
 

This here is my hangup.  MIA getting credit for an MSP pilot that happens to fly a MIA flight.  Technically, MSP should get the hours credited to their hub activity.  Regardless if the pilot is flying a mainline flight or one that they decide to do on their own (pilots choice), their hub should be credited those hours for the flight.  But even then, there are no pilots assigned to an ECON hub or an SOP hub, so what would we do there?

When I updated the MIA schedule, I posted in the forum that I would be willing to create any flight my pilots would want if they would let me know where they would like to go.  I got zero responses.  Should we say that pilots are only allowed to fly scheduled mainline flights and if they want to fly somewhere not on the schedule, we hub managers can create the flight in the schedule for the pilot?  I wouldn't mind doing that as long as pilots understand that this wouldn't be done immediately in every circumstance.

Thanks Robert,

Your flight today actually had 2, if not 3 scheduled flights in our database, yet you chose to log it as a charter flight.  This is a perfect example of a flight that could have been flown as a scheduled flight.  I can certainly understand where pilots flying into or out of obscure locations need to have a user-defined flight number, but in many cases...like your flight today (and a number of others) could just as well have been flown as a normally scheduled hub route.

I'm just afraid that making allowances for those necessary cirumstances has resulted in a number of pilots just falling into a pattern of using the same user-defined flight number they always use and not even checking to see if they might be flying a regularly scheduled SPA flight that should be filed using the official flight number for that flight.

Before we get carried away with major programming additions, perhaps we might all just try to look at the current schedule of available flights (and consider all the work that went into creating them by the hub managers and webmaster) and select the listed flight if available before just adding our usual default user-defined flight number designation and pushing the throttle to takeoff position.

John

SPA031 wrote:

I consider myself a retired pilot from this airline. So, I would still like to use my logbook to make my flight logbook entries. But, I could create my own logbook using Microsoft Access.

Nah, you don't have to do that Robert.  All we're saying is that you could have logged at least a few of your flights with a flight number thats already on the schedule.  KEYW to KMIA for example is scheduled flight number 2118 for the MIA hub.  The hours that you flew were credited to special ops instead of the MIA hub even though there was a scheduled flight available to log.  What John is saying is that, while we understand you may be flying into and out of obscure places that aren't on the schedule, if you are completing a flight that IS on the schedule, log that scheduled flight.  Nothing more.  Basically, before you log the flight as "CHARTER," check the schedule and make sure there isn't already a mainline flight scheduled and if there is, log the scheduled flight.

However you'd like to go Robert.  Retired pilots have plenty of latitude here at SPA, and your input is always appreciated.  I love to see our senior members continue flying with us.  That said, I don't think I'm requesting too much here.  If it's too much to ask to have pilots fly official flights from origin to destination where they exist rather than creating a user-defined flight number to fly the same flight, please explain why I'm expecting too much.

Thanks,

John