Pilots not allowed to have enough fuel?

[LSS]

Yep, keep it a secret like all the other dirty laundry that is until something happens and the finger pointing begins!!

Cannot speak for anyone else, but I kind of respect the new USAPA!! Being on the maintenance side, all have had their diffferences over the years, but they are taking a stand on something they believe in!! Company is not used to a group that refuses to bend over and spead when they speak!!

AMEN, BROTHER!

 

[Dog Wonder]

Freedom, here’s a roll of Cargo Pit Tape. Wrap it around your head before it explodes:

This post is double ROT-13 encrypted to keep Tempe off my back.

I think you will need more tape.

 

[AAA73Pilot]

1. You don’t seem to get the POINT
2. Under no circumstance should USAPA have taken this public ….
3. All they’ve done is shaken the public’s trust in our airline , hurting our bottom line ….
4. The ONLY thing that matters in july 2008 IS the bottom line!!! That’s IT !!!!
5. USAPA is endangering our own jobs with their irresponsibility … just because the company didn’t do as USAPA wanted in no way , shape or form gave them a WAIVER from sanity to do what they did ….
6. USAPA is an enemy of every us airways employee .

Your anti USAPA drivel on multiple threads is most enlightening. The attempts at painting USAPA as anything but a union is so far off the planet to be beyond belief. In addition, if we followed your "Advice" and sent ole Doug a letter you would find a way to label us as weak and ineffective. The attempts to paint USAPA into a corner will not succeed, except only in your imaginations. I guess I'm jealous because the voices seem to talk only to you.

1. Yes, we get the point. Maybe its you that does not understand that business as usual, like our predecessor, is a thing of the past.
2. After all attempts privately fail, then what? USAPA told the company exactly what was going to transpire. Or would you rather the leadership come out and say "Golly gee people, we tried"? We have lived that era under ALPA for too many years. It is not business as usual.
3. I would talk to Doug about that. If your license was put in jeopardy, how would you feel? Once again it boils down to trust in management. Which right now there doesn't seem to be any.
4. Is it? really? The bottom line coming from a management that has no scruples whatsoever. Just remember one thing. Liars figure, and figures lie. Is it bad out there? Yes!! Do you trust this management in solving our problems? From what I've seen so far, not on your life! And that is being kind.
5. Waiver? Your opinion. If the company wants to cashier 8 pilots without a fight, you're sorely mistaken. BTW. Many of us have said there were many reasons for dumping ALPA, and we ALL know how Herndon would have reacted. Nothing, Nada, Zip. And an apology to the company for questioning them. If I have to make a decision on what I think the company would want, then there is no Captains Authority.
6. No we're not. Sorry you feel that way. My best advice, get over it.

 

[CubsFanJohn]

They were still talking about yesterday afternoon on CNN, while I was at the Gym.

 

[CubsFanJohn]

PMFJI I was made aware of a few facts this afternoon:

There are 58 A-330 Captains in PHL. 7 were called in. What's the old saying..."Shoot 1 and 1,000 fall in line?"
One of them is a Line Route Instuctor....
There was no syllabus given and the "demonstration" became something totally different than what was advertised. The union reps were tossed. The training committee was also tossed.
The beat goes on..................


Just a quck clarification question, were the 7 A330 Capt's called in for the little meeting? You would think there would be a syllabus given.....

 

[traderjake]

Speak for yourself. I back USAPA 100% but I am a true union man.

By that you mean a mindless lemming who follows the 51% where ever they go.

 

[sharonstoneseat]

Sadly, I have seen Chapter after Chapter of YouTube videos of pilots acting badly, and I mean mobbish and screaming out there on video for public consumption.

Unfortunately, I have witnessed behavior outside of the professional code of conduct for an airline pilot.

We also have the (alleged) phone calls and the mailings and lawsuits.

And finally, for the entertainment of the entire company, we have most recently been treated to the July 8th PHX Pilot Crew News session that featured petulant teenage boys and girls, "We hate you guys" and AQP is a waste of time cause my friends aren't there. And the parental response is....don't be unproductive and be nice to each other. Not......you need to attend remedial pilot psych 101 re-evaluation or I'll Crandall your A*@.

You know folks if this type of me and my feeeeelings and undisciplined public emoting is the new breed of pilot I am not lovin' it.

So I can understand that the East pilots refuse to be the Bad Pilot Poster Boys for the company.

USAPA's tactic is from the American Airlines Pilot Unions Play book. Why is everyone acting like this is the first time they have seen a pilot's union take issue with management with a full page ad?

Also keep in mind that CNN was running, running running with this because....They are headquartered in Delta/Atlanta.

 

[jerseyfinn]

Freedom is a difficult to explain concept to most people …. Most equate freedom with anarchy , but given the choice between oppression and anarchy most rational human beings would chose oppression ….

Freedom, just because you've dabbled in Rousseau, philosophy, or political aesthetics doesn't mean you understood the book. It's actually embarassing.

Consider freedom to be that frame work within our own company and everything that goes along with it … Consider anarchy to be liquidation ….

Speaking from the pax side of the equation. Your company is one of many actors in the business of aviation. How each company elects to go about their business is up to them, but the bottom line always remains the bottom line. Devise a product, target a market, execute a coherent plan, do so credibly and consistently, and you have a company which might actually survive the fray of competition.

Now Tempe came into this acquistion as cocky, self-assured riverboat gamblers who thought they knew all there is to know . . . call it freedom of thinking if you wish. In any case, they had dreams of grandeur via mergers instead of running the damned airline they claimed to be integrating. OK . . . Tempe gave the pilots their "freedom" by failing to signal their position on combining east/west pilots . . . . we all know how that one has turned out. We pax also pay big time for all of the screw ups that this management team pours over our heads ( so too do the employees ). I guess I'll call this freedom to get screwed.

So your airline is presently in a fight for survival. Welcome to the real world dude. But guess what? That world ain't standing still for any of us. The game has changed for airlines and suddenly, it really does matter if you have a competent, capable, and trustworthy management to lead it through the simultaneous oil/recession gauntlet from which every airline is probably not gonna emerge. Survival of the fittest . . . sounds more like Darwin than Rousseau to me.

As a pax, I gotta put my faith in the cockpit crew ( that MAD crew of mine did a fantastic job a couple of weeks ago adjusting to reality ). Those folks know what they're doing despite the present acrimony in the family. And if your pilots have told the company that they disagree with fueling procedure, and those folks up top are blowing them off, then I wanna know about it. I know that planes are not gonna be dropping out of the sky on empty, but I respect those folks who have my safety in mind. One can always argue that a different approach is better.

But your company is what it is. You talk of anarchy and liquidation. Have you been reading Emma Goldman's biography again? What's wrong with US is more fundamental than what you cryptically suggest. Your management lied to pax and they executed badly. Your pax, especially elites, marched out the door . . . using their freedom of choice I guess. If you want them back then you need both product and the integrity to win back their trust. It just so happens that you must do this at a dire phase in the history of commercial aviation.

It's unfortunate that management presently elects a prickly pear cactus response. My hats off to those pilots who are willing to disagree with a management which is desperate to rubber stamp itself through this potentially fatal business crisis instead of acknowledging the wisdom that many tiers of their employees have acquired over the years. But I'm glad to know what's going on with the airline that we're presently investing our travel $$ in.

Sorry for intruding into an internal debate, . . . I suspect I must be allergic to freedom, although anarchy also makes my butt itch.

Looking forward to our return flight from MAD in a couple of days.

Barry

 

[allstrike]

Believe me , I’ve had my back to the wall , sometimes by myself before and come out on top …

My position is simple and easy to defend …(honestly I just want you to see reason )


Oil’s killing our company ,, we can’t afford these kind of stunts that USAPA just pulled .

Well then learn to start your own bag tug instead of letting it run all night this winter and turn it off when you stop by the break room to pee.

 

[pilot]

You don’t seem to get the POINT


Under no circumstance should USAPA have taken this public ….

All they’ve done is shaken the public’s trust in our airline , hurting our bottom line ….


The ONLY thing that matters in july 2008 IS the bottom line!!! That’s IT !!!!


USAPA is endangering our own jobs with their irresponsibility … just because the company didn’t do as USAPA wanted in no way , shape or form gave them a WAIVER from sanity to do what they did ….


USAPA is an enemy of every us airways employee .

The sky is falling!! The sky is falling!! The sky is falling!!

Kirby was given precise and complete information about what was going to happen. Kirby was told that USAPA wants to be a partner in the success of this airline. Kirby was told no one MORE than the pilots want to save freakin gas at this airline. Kirby was told NO ONE has more to lose than the pilots of this airline. Kirby was asked to step back, start over, and get a handle on how to rectify the fuel situation, real or imagined, with our help AND BLESSING. Kirby was told that trying to intimidate, antagonize, and disrespect pilots as well as all past practices regarding training and the use of the simulator as a punitive tool is in no ones best interest.

The president of this company made the decision to proceed with a tactic that flies in the face of team building, and asset management, as well as smashing most of the tenets of building employee morale and relationships that are essential for successful corporations. Either he is relying on people who give him absurd advice or he is totally out of touch with the value of a strong, on board, and properly motivated pilot group. Any executive that equates intimidation and antagonism with motivation has no business in charge of anything much less an airline.

Imagine Herb Kelleher foisting this "technique" on his pilot group. This is the kind of stuff management used to do to the airmail pilots back when this industry began. We moved beyond this decades ago.

We're in a huge pissing match now. Kirby and Parker can stop it in a heartbeat. Or they can continue to stay the present course. The call belongs to the company.

USAPA is not going to back down. On that you can be certain. This isn't about fuel. This is about the integrity of Captains Authority and the attempted intimidation of this pilot group to usurp the same.

We cannot wait to work with this company to make it the best it can possibly be. We cannot afford to wait.

I sure hope they figure that out. Because no one is going to win if they don't. We're all going to lose.

pilot

 

[dexter]

So what is the cheapest city to divert to for fuel costs here on the east coast? Maybe we can figure this puzzle out some way.

 

[N346PS]

So what is the cheapest city to divert to for fuel costs here on the east coast? Maybe we can figure this puzzle out some way.

The cheapest city to divert to, is just stay home that way you dont have to spend for gas to get there or use fuel to fly an airplane, just that simple, solves most problems that way.

 

[insp89]

I wonder what the companies dispatchers think about this situation.
I thought the dispatchers were the ones that calculated the fuel loads.

 

[FM2436]

I wonder what the companies dispatchers think about this situation.
I thought the dispatchers were the ones that calculated the fuel loads.

The president of the dispatchers' labor group said Thursday that the charge by pilots is "nothing more than hot air."

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080717/pilots_fuel.html?.v=2

 

[ussnark]

The president of the dispatchers' labor group said Thursday that the charge by pilots is "nothing more than hot air."

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080717/pilots_fuel.html?.v=2

The dispatchers are not pressuring the pilots. I don't believe anyone asserted that.

When a pilot "requests" extra fuel, the dispatcher may review the circumstances of the flight, but always will acquiesce to the pilot, per FARs, though lately, also annotating a form that the pilot added x amount of fuel.

The company then took all those forms and just happened to select eight, by what criteria, no one seems to know. Since seven are 330 captains, I might think that a combination of most fuel "requested" (seemingly ignoring percent of total requested) and seniority played a part.

It is that attempt to influence the fuel decision by management that is egregious, the deliberate introduction of cost to a decision that, for safety sake, should be focused on safety and not "cost". It is a deliberate intrusion on the FAA mandated captain's authority. It defies all logic, not just in the course of action chosen, but the manner that it was carried out. I can think of two completely different and respectful ways to have dealt with such a "perceived" problem, in any case, any competent management group would have brought the union in on a solution, first. The solution chosen betrays the arrogance and lack of respect some members of management hold for their fellow pilots.

The "training" turns out to be a joke, a deliberate, heavy-handed, grade-school attempt to intimidate the last chance to prevent an accident, the pilot.