Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Communication Breakdown; Distraction; Situational Awareness; Workload
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Other / Unknown
General None Reported / Taken
Company Policy; Procedure
During two flights; Dispatchers sent two SELCAL ACARS messages to the crew on behalf of crew scheduling to ensure at least one member of the crew needed to call scheduling ASAP to verify a new assignment. The first message was received on Taxiway SC during taxi in and the SELCAL chime overpowered the Ground Controllers instruction to hold short of 9R at Taxiway SC. We heard our call sign and verified the hold short and all was normal. The second SELCAL message came approximately over the an approach intersection about 4;000 AGL; again; with a SELCAL message with the message stating something to the effect of 'Scheduling asked me to relay a message to the Flight Attendant to contact them upon landing.' Due to the professionalism of the crew; a [crewmember] was not reached. The schedulers are taking advantages of Dispatcher's ability to reach the flight crew and forcing crews to break sterile cockpit FAR to deal with a non-essential message to the operation of the aircraft. Any and all communication between dispatchers and pilots should be about flight related activities. Scheduling is abusing the dispatch link to the crew. This MUST be stopped ASAP.
A CRJ200 Dispatcher twice used the SELCAL system to contact a flight crew during a critical; sterile flight environment period to relay non-essential crew scheduling information.