PSA - XNA Overnights. Ya'll need to change hotels

[Furloughedagain]

Picked up a J4J buddy who was here (XNA) on an overnight last week.

The hotel you stay at is near the airport, but there is no food or entertainment of any kind within ten miles!

There are a significant number of hotels in town. The ideal location for you would be an area called Scottsdale Center in Rogers. It has an Amerisuites, Fairfield, Residence Inn, Hampton Inn, a Country Inns and Suites is being built right now. It is located right on the interstate.

There are a variety of restaurants (the normal chains, Applebees, On the Border, Famous Dave's, Chilis), shopping, and a movie theater within walking distance of any of those hotels.

Call your hotel committee and have them get on the stick and find you someplace a little more appropriate.

If you do end up a little closer to town try out the "Whole Hog Bar-b-que" - it's behind Krispy Kreme. Can't miss it. Also, if the hotel will drive you, the "Station Cafe'" has the best burgers in Arkansas. And, "Eat This" is a New-York style deli/restaurant/bar about 5 minutes from the hotels.

-Mike

 

[gabby]

Picked up a J4J buddy who was here (XNA) on an overnight last week.

The hotel you stay at is near the airport, but there is no food or entertainment of any kind within ten miles!

There are a significant number of hotels in town. The ideal location for you would be an area called Scottsdale Center in Rogers. It has an Amerisuites, Fairfield, Residence Inn, Hampton Inn, a Country Inns and Suites is being built right now. It is located right on the interstate.

There are a variety of restaurants (the normal chains, Applebees, On the Border, Famous Dave's, Chilis), shopping, and a movie theater within walking distance of any of those hotels.

Call your hotel committee and have them get on the stick and find you someplace a little more appropriate.

If you do end up a little closer to town try out the "Whole Hog Bar-b-que" - it's behind Krispy Kreme. Can't miss it. Also, if the hotel will drive you, the "Station Cafe'" has the best burgers in Arkansas. And, "Eat This" is a New-York style deli/restaurant/bar about 5 minutes from the hotels.

-Mike

Appreciate the info but our company does not want us near anything that has to do with civilization. Nothing.
If there was a hotel at the airport they would chose that. Or better yet a 20 minute drive to an industrial park would do. But never under any circumstances near restaurants/bars/movie theathers etc.... WE are not on Vacation and these are luxury items. When the pilots realize that they are even lucky to have a TV in the hotel rooms then the SSO has doen their job. Till then....

 

[nethan]

Unfortunatly the company actually doesn't directly control our hotels. The SSO does both ours and PDTs. The problem is that they suck. The XNA overnight isn't great, but it is far from our worst. At least nobody has gotten killed in the parking lot recently and there are no drug deals happening outside the front doors every day.

 

[gabby]

Unfortunatly the company actually doesn't directly control our hotels. The SSO does both ours and PDTs. The problem is that they suck. The XNA overnight isn't great, but it is far from our worst. At least nobody has gotten killed in the parking lot recently and there are no drug deals happening outside the front doors every day.

Just what they want to hear. You are on the fence about the place. They want us to be just happy enough with the hotels that we don't complain. (to them).

On a side note. Isn't it in our contract that the company has to give us a choice of hotels and we pick from that?
Oh thats right another contract abuse!

 

[2ndGenPSA]

Check this out. I obtained this email from an individual who filed an ops report regarding another PSA hotel. This is part of the response he/she received from SSO:

quote: <<I know it is nice when we have options around us for something to do, but I would then get complaints because we would be to [sic] far away from the airport for min. rest nights. there is nothing pertaining in the contract that we have to have a hotel van accessible for crews to give them something to do on an overnight. I suggest use of the pool or the exercise room. I know that I have to overnight and checkout these hotels, and the hotels are not taking me around either, but I'm at work and not on a vacation.>> end quote.

With a chief pilot who accepts this response and still allows his crews to stay in various unacceptable hotels, a DO who turns a blind eye and shifts blame to a lack of hotel complaints, and an ALPA hotel committee that refuses to grieve the gross violations of our contractual right to CHOOSE from a list of hotels furnished by the company, WHAT DO WE DO???? The above response comes from the person picking our hotels! I wouldn't want her cleaning my bathroom!!

 

[Dorf]

Check this out. I obtained this email from an individual who filed an ops report regarding another PSA hotel. This is part of the response he/she received from SSO:

I know that I have to overnight and checkout these hotels, and the hotels are not taking me around either, but I'm at work and not on a vacation.>> end quote.

Yea, she stays there one night so it doesn't matter if there is anything to do, or a place to eat. She is probably there just long enough to look at one room,sleep(if she even stays),and then get out of Dodge back to the airport. The crews actually have to stay there much longer and more often. Sounds like this person needs to do a triple overnight in some of the hotels they put you in. And do it for an entire month, not just one night every now and then!
Good luck, remember to document everything, take pictures, and complain loud and often(on paper of course)!

Dorf

 

[evprincess]

How does that explain the CAE and XNA situations? Neither of these have anything near the hotel. CAE has stuff within a 10 minute walk, which is great on a nice, sunny day. The first cold, rainy day, then apparently it's acceptable for us to either walk it, or just starve. XNA at least has food to purchase in their shop. I've only been there on 20 hour overnights, at least when I go for a walk, the pasture is semi-relaxing.

Also on the pool, in CAE has it been opened yet? That's a great plan if it was open.

That whole email just enrages me. I don't think any of us believe we are on vacation, but I don't think we are asking for anything for a van to take us somewhere. Why can we not have decent hotels in decent locations. Why is it okay for us to stay in sub-par hotels? I truly don't understand this.

Have you heard about the FLO hotel PDT stays at. Ask a PDT person about it and then about her reply after staying there a night.

As for getting choices. According to someone on the pilots side, during the 2nd bankruptcy they propsed a side letter stating they wouldn't have to seek approval for hotels anymore. I'm not sure what happened with that on the FA side, if they signed it or not. I'm guessing they did or wouldn't a grievance been filed around the time the Sleep Inn became acceptable? Same on the PDT side, I wonder if they agreed? I don't know.

 

[2ndGenPSA]

A "progressive" management would say something like this:
Thank you for the heads-up. We are looking for a cost-effective solution to the hotel issue you have raised. Please choose from the following list of three hotels that we feel offer a balance of affordability and desirability (sp?).
Instead, we get old-school lazy-ass "Shirly" defending her crap-ass choice of a hotel either in the middle of nowhere, or AT the freakin airport (which is what her original response was referring to), and a union that just shrugs and says, "oh well, we have bigger issues to deal with."

This is fun.

Oh, and Parker saying that the days of getting paid more for flying more seats are over. But I guess the days of flying less seats for less $ live on...

 

[732guy]

Have you heard about the FLO hotel PDT stays at. Ask a PDT person about it and then about her reply after staying there a night.

Where is PDT staying in FLO now? Several years ago I think it was the Fairfield Inn, which according to some PDT crew members, was one of the "better" RONs.