US Airways Pilot Keeps American Pilots Off His Jumpseat

PhilosopherPilot said:
And I'll NEVER understand the precedence that "on time" takes over doing what the company claims to be in business for (fly passengers) at some airlines. It seems as if some gate agents would prefer to leave empty rather than take a delay to get everyone on. If there are 100 pax at the gate, and I have 100 seats on my plane, no one should be left behind.
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Gate agents take a lot of flack if the delay is on them. Once the flight crew is willing to take the delay, there appears to be a sigh of relief.
 
WestIndian425 said:
Gate agents take a lot of flack if the delay is on them. Once the flight crew is willing to take the delay, there appears to be a sigh of relief.
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I understand that. I'll happily take the delay if it's my fault. I won't leave on time if they were just late boarding, and want to leave nonrevs/jumpseaters behind. They control who is aboard, but pilots control when the aircraft moves. They really have no choice if you say, "This plane isn't moving until there's either no more seats, or everyone standing at the gate is on this plane."
 
Jimflyfast said:
Maybe I am in the wrong base?
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I have nothing against the South guys. But my experiences with the north ones back when they were part of an 80's rap group were nothing but fantastic.

I jumpseated on everything from a DC-9 from IND-DTW to a 747 from DTW-AMS. Every single pilot I talked to were more than accommodating, even though my status was/is scumbag regional FO.

I think the best experience was a 747 captain in DTW. I caught him at the gate and asked for a ride. He said no problem and we talked for a while. I lamented the fact that as it was in international flight, I couldn't occupy the jumpseat at least for take off and landing.

Later on I'm getting settled into my seat, enjoying some pre departure orange juice and the f/a says the captain wants to see me upstairs. I head up expecting something along the lines of "hey, sorry. Turns out we can't take you." Instead he just said "it is too bad you can't sit up here in flight, but I figured you might want to come up, meet everybody, and take a look around before we push."

In the grand scheme of things, not a huge deal. I've seen the flight deck of a 747 before. But just the fact that he thought to do that a good 30 mins after we spoke says a lot.
 
Derg said:
I think I've arrived in DTW probably three times in three months, never started trip out of there and haven't spent more than two hours on the ground there. Soon!
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Ah, finally something that I'm very well versed in from being at the regional level for so long!
 
Well, there's a handful of guys in some of the 'mossier' regions of our system that haven't had to deal with integration as much as we have in other bases. So, I assume, they haven't had the "OMG, you like baseball… I like baseball… Let's go have a beer and be besties".

When the fences come down on the 747 and 777, and there are some more people bidding into SEA, there's going to be another round of drama, hopefully short lived, and then it will be finally be complete.

The problem with mergers is that there are small pockets of people, on either side, who develop "Group Think" — the items that confirm their preconceptions (See? This would NEVER happen at XYZ) are overemphasized and the situations that would dispel the same are marginalized.
 
Derg said:
Well, there's a handful of guys in some of the 'mossier' regions of our system that haven't had to deal with integration as much as we have in other bases. So, I assume, they haven't had the "OMG, you like baseball… I like baseball… Let's go have a beer and be besties".

When the fences come down on the 747 and 777, and there are some more people bidding into SEA, there's going to be another round of drama, hopefully short lived, and then it will be finally be complete.

The problem with mergers is that there are small pockets of people, on either side, who develop "Group Think" — the items that confirm their preconceptions (See? This would NEVER happen at XYZ) are overemphasized and the situations that would dispel the same are marginalized.
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I hate group think. Pretty much the main cause of bad ideas world wide since the dawn of time.

Look at any management, union representatives , political party, etc that is dysfunctional. They're almost always large groups of like minded people without anyone around to raise the BS flag.
 
PhilosopherPilot said:
I understand that. I'll happily take the delay if it's my fault. I won't leave on time if they were just late boarding, and want to leave nonrevs/jumpseaters behind."
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The problem of course is that you've got to look downstream and see what happens if you are late. It's possible that you'll blow a whole bunch of connections and by waiting for 4 people you'll end up making 20 people miss their next flight. Last flight of the night? Sure. No problem. But during the day you've got to double check you can make up the time later on.
 
BobDDuck said:
The problem of course is that you've got to look downstream and see what happens if you are late. It's possible that you'll blow a whole bunch of connections and by waiting for 4 people you'll end up making 20 people miss their next flight. Last flight of the night? Sure. No problem. But during the day you've got to double check you can make up the time later on.
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Meh. If they aren't at the gate, that's not my problem, but if they are standing there ready to go, I'm not leaving them. Of course, I'm not a captain anymore, so it's no longer my call. :)
 
Yeeaah, we ain't that hip! Well, some of them anyway. Not me though. Or you. ;)

I told 'em gold, but they wouldn't let me finance it. This is all I could afford. :(

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