Once again....thanks for nothing

Assigned reserve at home yesterday. Standard call out. Called at 10:05AM for a 1:45PM sign in. Simple assignment. Ferry a plane to a maintenance base for scheduled maintenance. Sit around for 2 hours and then deadhead home arriving back in base by 6:40PM.

Since it was such a short time I decided to princess park, AKA park at the terminal in short term parking versus employee parking. I parked at 1:35PM and signed in at 1:40PM.

I then check too see who I was flying with. No one assigned. I checked the reserve Captain list. No one available until the 2PM standby Captain signs in. Nice.

After chit chatting with the gate agent, he thought it was a revenue flight and was happy to learn it was a ferry, I headed down to the plane.

The rampers thankfully applied GPU power. I powered up the plane then did my preflight duties. After done I grabbed a bottle of water from the galley and took my seat and played around on my phone waiting for the Captain.

[singlepic id=444 w=640 h=480 float=center]

At 2:10PM I decided to head up to the gate to see if the Captain was there. Nope. I ask the gate agent if he knows if a Captain had been assigned. He stated, "Oh they didn't tell you, it's a revenue flight now, your flight has been pushed to 9:30PM." No...no one told me. Nice.

I headed back down the ramp, ran the terminate checklist and packed up. Heading up the jet bridge I called scheduling and asked why I wasn't called, "oh we forgot," was the answer. I then asked to be released.

"Why don't you call back at 3PM and ask the night scheduler." said the scheduler.

"Because that's not legal (per the contract), you have to either give me an assignment or release me." I replied.

"Are you already signed in at the airport?" she questioned.

"Yes, it's 2:15PM. I was assigned a 1:45PM sign in." I answered.

"Oh I didn't know, then yes you are released." she replied.

Glad I princess parked. Three bucks for parking and 14 minutes later I was on my couch.

It didn't stop there.

I checked my schedule as I should have been paid per diem for the time I was on duty, from 1:45PM until 2:15PM. At less than $2 an hour it's not a lot of money, but it's the principal of the issue.

My schedule was cleared, as though I was never there. No bueno.

I spent 20 minutes on the phone explaining how they screwed up and that I wanted my duty time in my schedule. Yadda, yadda, yadda they fixed it.

Off for three days. Pondering flying to see my dad. With Spring Break this month, flights are VERY full.