Narrative:

After a [long] delay due to maintenance; then no flight attendants; then no ground crew; we were boarded waiting for baggage to be removed from the jet-way. My first officer got a call from tracking saying she was illegal to continue flying without taking a 2 hour extension to call back. With the toxic environment at [airline] scheduling no one returns calls because of constant reassignments. We both started the trip at the same time and we both had the same [start] time which was about 3 hours later. We could not figure out how she could be illegal. So rather than violate far 117 she decided to call tracking. The scheduler immediately said she was legal and he said that just to get her to call to reassign her to another flight. He threatened her with a refusal to fly and I told her to hang up so we could shut the door and continue our flight. We were both very upset and angry that [airline] had to blatantly lie about your legality to get you to call because they have a crew shortage. Scheduling has no credibility. My first officer was still upset taxiing out so I pulled over in the penalty box so we could both regroup and make sure we were both in the green.[the airline] is primarily responsible for agreeing to the worst scheduling contract in the industry by allowing the constant reassignments which has created an environment where pilots won't return calls so scheduling has to do whatever it can to get in touch with them.[airline] scheduling is the greatest threat when I am at work. It dominates all conversations. Scheduling should not be able to call a pilot while on the flight deck because they are a major detraction and a threat to a safe operation.

Related reports:

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air Carrier flight crew reported being confused by crew scheduling if they were legal to fly.

Narrative: After a [long] delay due to maintenance; then no flight attendants; then no ground crew; we were boarded waiting for baggage to be removed from the Jet-way. My First Officer got a call from tracking saying she was illegal to continue flying without taking a 2 hour extension to call back. With the toxic environment at [Airline] scheduling no one returns calls because of constant reassignments. We both started the trip at the same time and we both had the same [start] time which was about 3 hours later. We could not figure out how she could be illegal. So rather than violate FAR 117 she decided to call tracking. The scheduler immediately said she was legal and he said that just to get her to call to reassign her to another flight. He threatened her with a refusal to fly and I told her to hang up so we could shut the door and continue our flight. We were both very upset and angry that [airline] had to blatantly lie about your legality to get you to call because they have a crew shortage. Scheduling has no credibility. My First Officer was still upset taxiing out so I pulled over in the penalty box so we could both regroup and make sure we were both in the green.[The airline] is primarily responsible for agreeing to the worst scheduling contract in the industry by allowing the constant reassignments which has created an environment where pilots won't return calls so scheduling has to do whatever it can to get in touch with them.[Airline] Scheduling is the greatest threat when I am at work. It dominates all conversations. Scheduling should not be able to call a pilot while on the flight deck because they are a major detraction and a threat to a safe operation.

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.