Southwest pilot holds flight for family

Nice work. SWA no doubt gives their front line employees significantly more command freedom. If this had happened at most regionals, the PIC would be doing a carpet dance for missing D-0 and jeopardizing the executives bonus ability.

We've lost a great deal of balls within the 121 PIC authority realm, part is due to our own personal choice - we'd rather not trouble ourselves essentially - but the other is the negative ramifications most will face if they do something outstanding like this.

Anyway - what a great and sad story at the same time.
 
We can't hold an airplane for late passengers, but we sure can find some items that maintenance needs to look at. :)
 
ChasenSFO said:
Good on them!

I can assure you, most airlines would not have held. I've been ordered to close the doors on people in wheelchairs, going to funerals, people going to weddings, children, elderly, you name it. It sucks, but it's not worth a write up for me. Unfortunately I don't have the authority to just hold a flight despite what people think, and most of the time the flight crew doesn't want to over-ride operations. It's just the way it is.
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I've held flights lots of times and even headed back upstairs to check to make sure we have everyone onboard at departure time because I knew we didn't. Sure enough, revenue & non-revs standing around wondering why they weren't on. Customer service in this industry needs some serious work, talk to the crews and see if you can get them to man up and take the delay. Means nothing to me to get the ol 'cockpit checks' delay assigned if I do my job and get people where they are supposed to go.
 
I think it's important to point out that technically the pilot probably didn't hold this flight...this was driven by customer service @ SWA corporate who let them know. Otherwise how would they know? Just something to think about. Good job all around though, that being said I have opened up the door to let pax on and news stories aren't written about it.
 
wheelsup said:
Good job all around though, that being said I have opened up the door to let pax on and news stories aren't written about it.
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Exactly, let some poor schmuck on one morning in Scranton who was doing the "I missed my stupid flight, I'm such an idiot, I need to buy a watch, I hate the airlines dance" at the window. He was actually quite thankful and we still made it on time to ORD on time.
 
About three years ago we flew about a hundred war refugees out of Brussels to the US. Obviously had connected from someplace further south earlier that day and we scared to death. First time out of Daifur, first time on an airplane and were pert much terrified of everything.

I guess since i was the only g working the flight that looked the most like them, I taught a few of the "self appointed" leaders how the lavatory worked, used a lot of sign language to explain that the food was good and that it was ok to take accept beverages, yadda yadda yadda. Some of these kids were born in the camp and this was their first time out of it.

Newspaper article? Nah, it's part of my job, the cool part where you get to bring something home that sticks with you, instead of a stolen bag of snack mix or a 4 ounce bottle of water. It's what we do.
 
Doug Taylor said:
About three years ago we flew about a hundred war refugees out of Brussels to the US. Obviously had connected from someplace further south earlier that day and we scared to death. First time out of Daifur, first time on an airplane and were pert much terrified of everything.

I guess since i was the only g working the flight that looked the most like them, I taught a few of the "self appointed" leaders how the lavatory worked, used a lot of sign language to explain that the food was good and that it was ok to take accept beverages, yadda yadda yadda. Some of these kids were born in the camp and this was their first time out of it.

Newspaper article? Nah, it's part of my job, the cool part where you get to bring something home that sticks with you, instead of a stolen bag of snack mix or a 4 ounce bottle of water. It's what we do.
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Nice story, reminds of a passenger who we made sure got ALL the way to her family in Omaha awhile back. I was working ORD-OMA and the traveler's assistance volunteers brought this lady to our gate who was shoeless, dirty, scared and looked to be straight from a refugee camp. Turns out she was. She had been traveling from Sudan for several days and was nearly home to her son in Omaha. The previous night she had been somehow lost in the fray at O'hare and slept in a stair well, someone found her crying & scared and the nice folks at travelers assistance at O'hare made sure she got to our flight. She spoke only a few words of English so it was a challenge to communicate but we were determined not to let her down.

We arranged for some assistance at OMA and I followed to make sure she got to her family. Makes this job worth it sometimes.
 
I know two SW captains here in Dallas. My shop maintains their personal aircraft, so I get to talk with them on occasion. They have both left very positive impressions on me. They strike me as the sort who would have acted the same way as this SW capt. Both of them have nothing but great things to say about Southwest as an employer.

This story resonates with the positive corporate culture at Southwest that these two gentlemen have described to me.

Good Job Southwest!
 
It really is a bit different over at SWA. I've only been exposed to a bit of their corporate culture so far, but something that really struck me was that when I toured their headquarters, they made a point of saying that they don't call their dispatch center an "Operational Control" center, like most airlines, because they don't want anyone to get the impression that the guys in dispatch are "controlling" anything. Instead, they call it the "Operations Coordinating Center", because they want the front-line employees to feel empowered to make decisions as the circumstances warrant, and the guys at the OCC just assist with coordinating it. I think this specific situation is a perfect example of how that happens, and it's much different at other airlines, my own included.
 
bike21 said:
I've held flights lots of times and even headed back upstairs to check to make sure we have everyone onboard at departure time because I knew we didn't. Sure enough, revenue & non-revs standing around wondering why they weren't on. Customer service in this industry needs some serious work, talk to the crews and see if you can get them to man up and take the delay. Means nothing to me to get the ol 'cockpit checks' delay assigned if I do my job and get people where they are supposed to go.
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Good Job and if I am not mistaken ALPA has asked all the Captains to make the walk to make sure people aren't being left behind, especially crews.
 
Several things at play in this story.

1st SWA employees are given much more latitude to bend the rules in order to take care of their customers than workers at other airlines.

2nd It was not just the pilot, but probably 20 or 30 SWA employees who made this happen, from the person in the call center who took the reservation, to the gate agent who held the seat open until the last minute, to finally the pilot who agreed that they weren't leaving without this guy.

3rd SWA's marketing dept probably "helped" spread the word a bit. You can't buy this kind of advertising at any cost.

None of the above diminishes what these people did to help out a man in time of real need, but it wasn't exactly a lone ranger pilot who did it all by himself.
 
Doug Taylor said:
We've held a lot of flights for a variety of noble and non-noble (!) reasons at the big evil legacy I work for....
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Of course SW always gets the publicity. I dont know of many, if any, pilots who wouldnt have done the same thing had they known the circumstances.
 
Doug Taylor said:
We've held a lot of flights for a variety of noble and non-noble (!) reasons at the big evil legacy I work for....
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I can't speak for the CURRENT dying midwest base CP.... but before him I have had Captains put their foot in the door in order to do the right thing, and given kudos by the CP. NOT true today, I'm afraid.

In ATL, the door would have been closed, and the crew would have known nothing.

To Quote an ATL CSA Agent.... "I don't care if you crash, as long as you get off my gate on time"

The silos are growing taller at big merger airways

It's good to see the positive side of humanity...Great article.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
It really is a bit different over at SWA. I've only been exposed to a bit of their corporate culture so far, but something that really struck me was that when I toured their headquarters, they made a point of saying that they don't call their dispatch center an "Operational Control" center, like most airlines, because they don't want anyone to get the impression that the guys in dispatch are "controlling" anything. Instead, they call it the "Operations Coordinating Center", because they want the front-line employees to feel empowered to make decisions as the circumstances warrant, and the guys at the OCC just assist with coordinating it. I think this specific situation is a perfect example of how that happens, and it's much different at other airlines, my own included.
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Tastes good, doesn't it?

I tell someone at Big Merger Airways that no one washes a rental car, and I get a "HUH?" in response.

So many have no clue, or don't care about what an AIR LINE actually does.

Big Merger Airways... NO ONE empowered to make a decision, except the Captain, who is FORCED to. The ONLY line of defense in many cases, Vs. the last one.

I won't comment on SWA's operations. Their "culture" has almost collided with me twice on the ramp.
 
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