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Comment by shagie | Hacker News Reader

The app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sequence-decoder/id1439988599

    For the public:
    -Past and future departure information for all airports
    -Past and future arrival information for all airports
    -Individual flight info lookup
    
    For flight attendants:
    -Flight specific info inflight
    -ETB alerts
    -Open time alerts
    -Flight alerts
    -Open time display
    -Sequence details
    -Calendar
    -Reserve call out list
    -Standby list
    -Crew chat
    -Save notes about crew members
    -Display prior sequences flown together with others
    -Layover weather forecast
    -Pilot sequence info
    -Legality checker
    -Hotel amenities and pickup locations

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Two thoughts:

1. Wow, that looks like an extremely useful app if you're a flight attendant!

2. How is their employer not providing this functionality? I guess maybe they are, but only parts, or it's a shittier version. But still.

The critical bit is probably the "legality checker". Absolutely no way an employer would offer one of those.

Reading between the lines, flight attendant scheduling is probably quite .. adversarial, as shift scheduling at restaurants can be. The employer would like employees to have the minimum information so they meekly accept the shifts they're given.

What's a legality checker?

My guess is it checks whether their shifts are compliant with labour laws.

These aren't labour laws strictly speaking, more like airline safety laws. I.e. they aren't about well-being of employees but safety of planes operated by overworked crews.

Well they are about the well being of the employees. That’s just not the ultimate justification for it—rested employees mean safe flights.

They are labor laws. They restrict the exchange of labor for income.

https://www.paddleyourownkanoo.com/2022/10/04/u-s-flight-att...

> Although the law was passed back in October 2018 and was meant to be implemented within 30 days, the Trump administration allegedly put the measure on the backburner and “on a regulatory road to kill it”.

> The previous administration initially blamed the delay on a massive backlog facing the FAA caused by a partial government shutdown and then the worldwide grounding of the Boeing 737MAX.

My guess is that it has something to do with whether or not a trip can be legally flown by an airline employee given the amount of hours of flying time they already have clocked for a given period.

Checks if the airline scheduler is complying with duty limits. Trust but verify.

"14 CFR § 121.467 - Flight attendant duty period limitations and rest requirements: Domestic, flag, and supplemental operations."

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/121.467

I believe - making sure that they're not working too many flights back to back.

This can get tricky when flying across time zones and date lines.

I would imagine that pretty much every airline offers some sort of legality checker to their crew members. If an FA worked a trip illegally that would mean heavy fines from the FAA and from whatever union contract they also violated.

How does the FA know to complain without a legality checker? They have to go through the work of parsing the legalese and calculating time zone differences etc. And if they did complain, the airline says "Sorry, here's a freebie for your trouble" (worth 0.01% of the fine)

Compare that to every FA knowing every single time there's a breach, being able to compare notes etc.

They don’t. Employees are responsible for checking the math of the scheduler. in the case of pilots, the employee has liability in this situation as well as the airline. Especially in situations where there is bad weather nationwide, employees can be and absolutely are scheduled incorrectly by schedulers and employees have to maintain several sets of numbers (rest time, etc) besides the flying hours that are logged in the airline’s app.

Reading the descriptions under the sibling comment, it seems to be something that every airline absolutely should offer their employees. You don't want them to work illegally as that could mean huge fines for you.

It's quite possible they consider the benefit of overworking their employees to be worth the risk of having to pay those fines.

Which clearly indicates that the fines need to me much higher, + probably specific accountability for individuals who made the calls, rather than just the corporation itself.

Sure, go increase those fines haha. In the meantime..

At most airlines there are two sets of scheduling rules. The regulatory rules, and the union contract negotiated rules. You can guess which one the company doesn’t want audited.

Perhaps surprisingly, I can't.

Violating "regulatory rules" should result in fines and the government coming down on you. I would think this is the worse outcome, but less likely than...

Violating "union contract negotiated rules" should result in grievances ending in legal action if the employer doesn't agree they broke the rules. This should be a lighter penalty but the union seems more likely to pursue the remedy than the government.

So which actually is it that the company considers worse?

Violating union contract rules requires the company to be called out on it. When the scheduling tools they provide to employees are archaic, strings of text spaghetti, and the contract is extremely complex, the likely hood of being called out on a violation by an employee is relatively low. Grievance settlements are often just a small amount of pay hours paid out for days off that are lost. Like maybe 4 hours of flight pay per day that there was an error.

I’m not suggesting they willfully violate the contract either. Many of the schedulers are simply ignorant of the nuances in the rules because they’re complex. They are just trying to get trips covered. When employees are armed with knowledge greater than the scheduler(tools such as this, or often just experience) you end up with phone arguments/discussions that cause delays and cancellations. The company would far rather that they keep moving the jets and settle grievances for the handful of people that catch issues after the fact.

> The employer would like employees to have the minimum information

This kind of old, hierarchical thinking from the 1950s needs to go away.

>>This kind of old, hierarchical thinking from the 1950s needs to go away.

Yes, it does, but no, it won't.

Just as democracies must always be better armed and prepared than expansionist autocracies, or the autocracies will take over, people need to be better armed and prepared than those who want to exploit them, or they will get exploited.

Unfortunately, the exploiters often arrive better armed and prepared, and it is an uphill battle.

Often, the only winning move is to not play the game.

Well the winning move in these cases is usually unionization - when a large number of employees are being exploited by an employer a union that allows collective bargaining can force the employer to act in a more sane manner.

Flight attendants have a union. https://www.afacwa.org

They've recently backed strikes and raised wages https://unitedafa.org/news/2022/1/21/solidarity-works-flight...

The rest is part of the contract - https://www.afacwa.org/flight_attendants_achieve_10_hours_re...

> Washington, D.C. (October 4, 2022) — The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today finalized a rule requiring 10 hours minimum, non-reducible rest for Flight Attendants between duty days – finally implementing a 2018 law that will make aviation safer for over 100,000 Flight Attendants and the passengers in our care. The rule will increase the rest period to 10 irreducible hours when scheduled for a duty period of 14 hours or less. Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, issued the following statement ...

What would one have in a contract to help this issue?

A union is indeed a good form of being forearmed, and more should take advantage of it.

That said, it does not prevent all exploitation. IIRC, the FA's in this story have a union and a contract, yet this form of exploitative behavior is not prevented.

It should be the job of the employer to ensure scheduling is in compliance with safety regulation and agreements negotiated with the unions. The app should be necessary, but given that it is, that can easily be viewed as American Airlines knowingly breaks rules. That seems legally questionable.

They are, it's just spread across multiple websites and datasources as is typical in large corporations. This app scrapes all the sites with the FAs AA credentials and aggregates the data.

My wife and I are going to be doing the whole digital nomad thing across the US, Canada and Mexico starting in less than 2 weeks, getting one way flights and staying in hotels.

Currently, we have been flying out of a major Delta hub and we took for granted what an airline app should be.

Now as we are planning flights between Delta, American and United, I can confidently say that American has by far the worse consumer app of any of the major airlines or hotels.

I wouldn’t be surprised that their internal apps and websites are a similar shit show.

Related (but anecdotal): I was very pleasantly surprised at how good the Delta app is for flyers.

Do you have work visas for all three countries, or will you lie about your reasons for travel when asked?

Working remotely for your employer (as in, you're not traveling for work, but working while traveling) is not in breach of any tourist visa restrictions.

When Canadians travel down to the US for work, they are always instructed to answer any questions with 'I'm just here for meetings/training', because telling CBP that you're going to be doing any programming for your Canadian employer while in the US is a great way to get denied entry.

I'm not sure how this works in the reverse direction, or in Mexico.

At least for driving, into Mexico, there is no real check. For anything. You merely drive through at speed while border guards glance into the cars. You don't actually speak to anyone unless they flag you. I think the U.S. is the only one of the three that would really care.

They don't even check your passport?

Nope. It's very strange coming from just about any other border crossing.

No one smuggles anything into Mexico other than guns. The US government takes care of that step.

Canada definitely cares. Driving into Canada, every vehicle has to stop for an interview. If anything is off, they will send you off to the side for more intense scrutiny.

Ah sorry, I just meant about nitpicking the "working while traveling thing" -- but I was just guessing. Seems like they might care more than I expected.

Again, what you're saying is in reference to traveling for your employer. Being a "digital nomad" is traveling for yourself.

This is notably distinct from visa requirements, but taxes are typically owed in the jurisdiction in which the work takes place, if you are there for a certain period of time or longer. The exact time period varies based on locality (state/county/city in the US).

It is complex enough that the only answer that is definitely wrong is "I'm just traveling for me so I can do whatever I want."

If you’re a professional athlete, and I’m almost sure none of us are, you pay taxes for each state where you played a game. I’m not sure how it is apportioned.

As an extreme example of this:

https://kansaspolicy.org/rethinking-taxes-around-remote-work...

> Kansas has policies that could deter remote work and are deterring greater interstate work with our neighbors. Kansas requires employer withholding for people working in the state just for one day, which creates an annoying hurdle for companies trying to operate even in a small capacity in Kansas. In 2020, the Kansas legislature considered a bill that would have extended the withholding requirement period to 30 days, but the proposal died

I assumed this was always the case, just that no one except professional athletes actually do it. The CA FTB makes me afraid to take lengthy vacations in California.

https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2020/2020-1031-publication.pdf has the "what establishes residency"

> The term “domicile” has a special legal definition that is not the same as residence. While many states consider domicile and residence to be the same, California makes a distinction and views them as two separate concepts, even though they may often overlap. For instance, you may be domiciled in California but not be a California resident or you may be domiciled in another state but be a California resident for income tax purposes.

> Domicile is defined for tax purposes as the place where you voluntarily establish yourself and family, not merely for a special or limited purpose, but with a present intention of making it your true, fixed, permanent home and principal establishment. It is the place where, whenever you are absent, you intend to return. The maintenance of a marital abode in California is a significant factor in establishing domicile in California.

As long as you're remaining transitory and not staying in a single, fixed, permanent home you should be fine.

Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (takes about two to three months to get out of California) won't establish residency in California.

>California residency regulations treat W-2 work carried on in-state as California-source income. It doesn’t matter if the work is performed for a non-California business. So it’s fair to say that if the FTB audited a nonresident and found he was working remotely for an out-of-state enterprise while on vacation, the FTB would assess income taxes (though California doesn’t have a robust method for auditing this; it usually comes up, if at all, after a residency audit is already initiated for other reasons).

This is what worries me, say they start checking Air BnB contracts and start auditing vacationers.

https://www.palmspringstaxandtrustlawyers.com/working-vacati...

Thanks for the input.

THIS IS NOT TRUE! BEWARE OF THIS!

In reality, you are basically relying on the fact that no one can tell when you open your laptop whether you check personal email or work email etc. But legislation wise you very well might be in breach of visitor conditions. And if you stay long enough, taxes might kick in.

Canada is a notable exemption because IRCC issued a note on What kind of activities are not considered to be “work”?:

> long distance (by telephone or internet) work done by a temporary resident whose employer is outside Canada and who is remunerated from outside Canada;

However, unless the relevant immigrant authority or legislation did this , the law still applies.

There are now numerous countries which issue special digital nomad visas. See https://travel.stackexchange.com/q/45092/4188 for more.

A C-level executive at a place I worked went to another country specific to scout out talent the company could hire remotely. Given that he was obviously working there I asked how he got a permit for that. His answer was that he got a tourist visa and was on vacation, so it was obviously legal for him to work while in the country.

> His answer was that he got a tourist visa and was on vacation, so it was obviously legal for him to work while in the country.

Well, that depends. For example, the United States has a B1/B2 visa where you can do business things like meetings. That's not work. But still, if you are a tourist aka you get a rare B2 only visa then no what he did was not legal -- and just because he is C level doesn't mean he won't breach the law in this. Might be out of arrogance or ignorance, even.

His answer sounds like "I am a rich man, laws, pfft" to me.

I don't think it was quite that. But from the conversation, he apparently was of the opinion that wherever the business was incorporated at was his place of work. As in even if he was in Norway but the business was registered in New York, he'd be working in New York.

I'm not an employment lawyer, but I don't think it works like that.

THIS IS FALSE ALMOST EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD AND IF DISCOVERED, CAN RESULT IN CRIMINAL AND/OR TAX PENALTIES.

In general, it’s not legal to be an unregistered digital nomad unless you have the right to work in the country you are in. If you enter a country on a tourist visa, the primary purpose of the trip must be tourism. If you enter on a tourist visa for the intention of being a digital nomad, you have violated the visa.

In practice, it probably doesn’t matter as long as you are discrete. it's difficult for governments to detect this practice and many countries even tolerate the practice. But since being a digital nomad is almost always technically illegal, travelers have had challenges when they are discovered by the wrong person.

The bigger concern is usually your employer. Working overseas without approval is usually a friable offense.

> The bigger concern is usually your employer. Working overseas without approval is usually a friable offense

This is true for my employer. We are allowed to work outside of the country for at most 60 days.

> Working overseas without approval is usually a friable offense.

IOW, the chances of remaining employed will crumble.

Well, I’m a citizen in the US so that’s not a problem and where I will be spending the vast majority of my time. I’m scheduled to be in Mexico at most 35 days and probably won’t be working at all in Canada for the 10 days I will be there.

I’m on a lot of calls and travel within the US for work occasionally. While my company will fly me from anywhere and to anywhere in the continental US, I can’t ask them to fly me internationally

Travel outside of the US is mostly vacations and work just enough days so I don’t burn through my vacation days

Just wait until you actually fly American.

I'll take a flight on Delta with a layover over a flight on American that's nonstop. Of the majors, it's far and away the best. And their app is very good.

American Airlines was featured in a video at Microsoft Ignite last week. They showed how everyone involved in a flight talks to each other through Teams and how Microsoft / AA has worked closely together to get this working. I'm wondering if AA doesn't want this app being used instead?

That's kind of interesting. I take so many flights I never really remember one from the next. But I do remember at least one flight attendant letting us know that videoconferencing in flight is a felony. I could never find any such regulation, but I guess that wasn't an AA flight.

Sounds like the flight attendant had an unusually severe case of "making shit up".

I'm assuming the airline instructed them to make this announcement.

2. How is their employer not providing this functionality?

I'll tell you how. It's because the app doesn't exist under the regime of a CIO and multiple layers of project managers, program managers, extensive regulatory requirements, fiefdoms, competing internal political interests, and the other various "enterprisy" crap that will kill off any entrepreneurial spirit.

That's why.

How is the app getting the information for flight attendants, some of which looks like it might be security- and privacy-sensitive?

If it turns out that the app was getting confidential information using flight attendants' access credentials, potential problems: (1) potentially leaking confidential information to other parties, such as app developer, partners, and other users; and (2) potential additional weakness in handling access credentials.

If it turns out that special credentials weren't required for security- and privacy-sensitive data, then maybe that's a problem.

If it turns out that flight attendants were entering information considered security- and privacy-sensitive, then maybe that's a problem. (Though it looks like the article might've been prompted by the app developer, to pressure scraping access, so presumably there's something from scraping that the app wasn't getting or getting as well from user-entered info.)

The article mentions that it scrapes data from the flight attendants' accounts. The data shown is broken up between "for the public" and "for flight attendants".

It would be surprising if AA doesn't offer this set of information already to their employees via internal systems.

It's difficult to see why AA would allegedly want to block it since it seems like a net benefit for their employee's productivity.

Maybe AA IT hasn't yet combined all this into one big user-friendly app, and therefore they want to punish the perceived disloyalty of the flight attendants.

It seems pretty clear that they want to block it because they want to control how the productivity information is accessed, and that control is more important to them than their employees being satisfied and productive. The article mentioned that the author of the app even previously reached out to partner with them (maybe asked for an API so he didn't have to scrape?) and they were still uninterested.

Imagine your company's official expense reporting system is a 35 year old Windows 3.1 application that constantly crashes and doesn't even integrate with payroll so underpaid assistants have to manually copy records over from DOS to ADP's system. One of those assistants comes up with a web-based app that scrapes the database and makes it easy for everyone. Most large companies I've seen are going to come down on that assistant like a ton of bricks, not reward them for their ingenuity. It's just the nature of power structure in large bureaucratic companies.

I'm not sure if I understand your comment. What do you mean with "productivity information"? And why access should be so important?

The article is annoyingly vague about what information the app actually accesses/provides, so we kind of have to guess and assume it's some kind of information that makes the employees' jobs easier.

At a previous job at a certain 3 letter company, we once developed a simple web app so users could do the unimaginable: change their own passwords for an internal billing system.

Management congratulated us on the initiative and asked to shut it down immediately. The reason: the users had to previously open a ticket to get their password changed (very secure, right?) and, with this app, the customer would see a 30% reduction in tickets and would probably reevaluate how many bodies they rented from the 3 letter company.

So yes, I fully agree that most large companies are not interested in helping their users or workers at all.

Sure sounds like... HAL.

Your example is a business wanting to make things inefficient for its customers in order to increase the business's profits.

That is different from a business making things inefficient for its own workers, which would reduce a business's profits.

The former might even be expected, but the latter is just bad management.

If I was AA I would absolutely want to block this.

One example: Seems like it sends information about the whereabouts of all the American Airlines staff via an unauthorised third party.

> Save notes about crew members

This one must be full of gold

You’d be amazed the creative places flight crew find to write down names/notes of people that are just truly wonderful to work with. Each fleet generally has a known place to look and see some notes.

It's not (necessarily) gossip, if that's what you mean.

Flight crews are generally only together for a couple of days at most, which means a lot of the time you go to work and have a whole set of new coworkers you've never met before - or wait, maybe you did? Like, last year? Do you remember him because he was a ton of fun or because he was an asshole? Should have written it down.

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