How about this little story. You talk about GREEEEED I'll tell ya.
Picture it MIA c.1996ish.I am based in MIA Int'l(IMA is correct code used for f/a's based in the international operation @ MIA) & I am working a 3 day B727/757 as Purser(@ AA ALL int'l flights have a qualifyed Purser working the #1/lead pos. regardless of a/c type). We had just landed in MIA for the 5pm "bank" so as you know how MIA ops. our gate was ocpd. A A300 dest. LIM had a mech. and "ramp control" would not give us another gate so we had to wait. Well the only thing the cabin crew cared about was getting through customs&imigration and making it to the MIA empl.parking lot intime to get on I-95 so we wouldnt miss rush hour south FLA style,yes we were completing our seq.The c/p crew (727 so how many pilots does a B727 have? hehe no silly not counting the...never mind I'll be nice) however was in the middle of there seq. and were gonna go onto somewhere in the carib or c.a. you know where AA sent the B727 out of MIA. Well OK the juice of this so you can move on.....as the Purser I sat at FWD j/s doorside and the #3 f/a sat asileside.We could hear the chatter from the c/p and the radeo so ya know we knew w/o being told what was up. WELL with out notice,no call no nothing,the c/p door come flying open the f/e(flight engineer-lol) comes out and goes right to the FWD entry door and CRACKS it open!!!!! YES yes the door is still ARMED and we are still in our j/s's (I know hard to believe). The f/e doesn't say a word to me/us just opens the door until either the capt.or f/o says OK that did it and he then closes the door and returns to the c/p and shuts that door. I looked at the #3 and just asked "You just see what I saw?" Oh yes couldnt miss that one for sure. Well nothing was ever said fr. the capt. and to be honest I didn't call him to ask him what the HELL that was all about. SO we sat there some more and some more then finally they got that scareBus fixed and pushed off the gate so we proceeded on in. The agent knocked I cracked/open and WOOOOSH out went the f/e and f/o before one psgr had time to even get there belongings out of the OHB's and get up to the FWD entry area. The c/a did stay for about half of the deplaning process and said something along the lines of having to make sure they could make there next flight since it was a tight connect they didnt want to get replaced/reassigned because it already had happened to them once before earlier in the month. So out he goes and the rest of our customers and as we were getting our lug.and stuff I told the #2&4 f/a's what had gone one while we waited for our gate. Well it dawned on all four of us like a sitcom that we had better go to OP's and check our seq.(trip)to see what time it showed us "blocking in". Sure enough you got it tah dah it showed the time that the f/e had opened the fwd entry door while we were still out on the ramp w/psgrs waiting for our gate!! one of the f/a's had been an agent prior to becoming a f/a and he knew of a Sabre entry that shows the out/in times,a/c type,orig/dest.,reasons for a delay etc by GATE. So he did his thing and there we had it-the times for the A300(in/out) reason for delay this was coded 'Mech" and the ACTUAL in time for our flight. So we had in good old CRT back and green our seq, reflecting one time and this entry for the gate showing another.How much dif. you ask? A whopppping solid 30 MINUTES! Thats 30 mins of flight pay LOST to the f/a's and yes the pilots seq.'s reflected the same "in" time so I assume they LOST 30 mins as well. However besides the $$$ and the fact pilots make more then f/a's so that 30 mins is apples to oranges what about the hole opening/cracking an ARMED door out on a taxieway and NOT even informing ME,the Purser,who's door it was that I am responsible for durring an evac and an inadvetant slide deployment if that had occ. would have been halled in to the office to try and explain this little minor act of god. Not a word I mean NOTHING. So you ask what did we/I do about it? Did I call magmnt and snitch on a fellow union brother as one is told NEVER to do? Did I call professional standards and report it to both APA & APFA? Well lets put it this way we sure as hell got our 30 mins of $$$.A far a paper trail,there is known so the c/a & his crew were not "turned in" as you would say but I bet when they looked at the seq. when they arr.for there l/o it showed 30mins that they didn't know where from it came.
So the story to this story is, that you can show a "block"time not just by brakes alone nor by a door being open(ed). The man is always watching,in our case his name is Sabre so you better watch out you better not lie better not strike I'll tell YOU why. Because Sabre Clause IS Robert Crandall in disguizzzzze. Yeah babie Thrrrrr.You wanna shag now or NOW bAAbie-
🙂
Peace to everyone.
SB
(no animals were harmed in anyway in the writing of this post.)