Communication Breakdown; Troubleshooting
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
General None Reported / Taken
Environment - Non Weather Related; Company Policy; Procedure
We were on day 3 of pairing. It was scheduled for 7:42 minutes. Leg one took us over-block by nearly 45 minutes prompting us to keep an eye on our max flight time of 9 hours. Next leg we were over by :14 minutes. Upon arrival; we checked our schedule and the block time was changed from 1:41 to 1:30; a difference of 11 minutes. We sent an ACARS message to our Dispatcher asking why it was different and he had no idea why. He said 'I have not touched a thing' I then asked 'So Scheduling lowered our block time without talking to our Dispatcher?' and his reply was 'no one has told me anything honestly.' It seemed very fishy that our block time was changing the closer we got to our 9 hours scheduled block time. I find it very hard to believe that the block time for that leg should have been lowered in the conditions we had. There were EDCT programs and delays up and down the northeast and deicing conditions in the Northeast as well. How could that warrant a lower block time? I didn't complain about it then because I knew our block time was going to be over that and it would have been changed back to the actual time anyway. They then changed our block time on the next leg from 2:54 to 2:52. We blocked 2:59. If we had any extra delays on the ground on our final leg we would have timed out. To us it looked like Scheduling was changing our block times to look legal. I have heard that the schedulers could adjust the times after talking to our Dispatcher and finding actual winds and conditions for that flight; but our Dispatcher did not talk to them. The conditions in no way warranted under blocking anything. I am glad we made it in the MAX 9 hours but as you see it was close. If there is to be a change in our scheduled block time; we need to see proof from our dispatchers so we know what was done was legal. I have heard of schedulers reducing flights by up to 25% in the past keeping people legal by 1 minute. I hope the FAA can review this matter and make the right decision. If this is legal; we as the PIC; need more information so we know where they came up with their information
An ERJ-175 Captain reported that Scheduling change the actual flight time on this day with adverse weather at nearly all stations so as to keep the crew below 9 hours.