Narrative:

We were holding short of the departure runway at a class B airport; and were expecting an immediate departure clearance. We had accomplished the before takeoff check to the line; when the SELCAL alert went off; momentarily interrupting our ability to hear ATC's transmissions. The ACARS printer output a message; which turned out to be a message from crew support asking me (the first officer) if I could cover a standup that night and into my day off.both my captain and I found the message very distracting; since it occurred during sterile cockpit and during a critical phase of flight. Neither of us had ever had a SELCAL while holding short of the runway; so we thought maybe we'd had a security threat to the airplane; or a flight cancellation; or something serious. If this message had arrived during an even more critical phase of flight (say; a go-around from a category ii approach; or a traffic warning call from ATC); the loud 'SELCAL' sound could have interfered with critical communications.the root cause appears to be the fact that crew support is deliberately sending non-critical communications to pilots while aircraft are enroute. I feel that if this practice is continued; it could result in a degradation of safety.ACARS messages for enroute aircraft should be restricted to flight-critical messages only (weather or flow delays from dispatch; communications from maintenance; gate arrival information from operations; etc.) I do not believe that crew support's attempts at covering open time should be considered flight-critical messages.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A CRJ-700 First Officer reported the flight crew was distracted by a company communication while awaiting an ATC clearance and holding short of the runway.

Narrative: We were holding short of the departure runway at a Class B airport; and were expecting an immediate departure clearance. We had accomplished the before takeoff check to the line; when the SELCAL alert went off; momentarily interrupting our ability to hear ATC's transmissions. The ACARS printer output a message; which turned out to be a message from Crew Support asking me (the First Officer) if I could cover a standup that night and into my day off.Both my captain and I found the message very distracting; since it occurred during sterile cockpit and during a critical phase of flight. Neither of us had ever had a SELCAL while holding short of the runway; so we thought maybe we'd had a security threat to the airplane; or a flight cancellation; or something serious. If this message had arrived during an even more critical phase of flight (say; a go-around from a Category II approach; or a traffic warning call from ATC); the loud 'SELCAL' sound could have interfered with critical communications.The root cause appears to be the fact that Crew Support is deliberately sending non-critical communications to pilots while aircraft are enroute. I feel that if this practice is continued; it could result in a degradation of safety.ACARS messages for enroute aircraft should be restricted to flight-critical messages only (weather or flow delays from dispatch; communications from Maintenance; gate arrival information from Operations; etc.) I do not believe that Crew Support's attempts at covering open time should be considered flight-critical messages.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.