121 guys, how does this happen? (AKA,Oh Delta)

I mean really, if you're a Company Man (tm, non-gender specific), you could probably even do so much math that you reverse your course of action. Memo says "no APU and try to be on time because (reasons)" but if it takes 3 hours to cool off the cabin with PCA, how much money does it actually save the company by the time you factor in misconnects, hotels, crews and planes off schedule, etc? I bet burning the APU for an hour is cheaper.

🤷‍♂️

I just work here.
 
trafficinsight said:
I have two or three stories of having to fight the man in order to get the right thing done... they invariably involve a psychotic devotion to D:0.
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The handful of times the “Man” called me at our mutual former employer were quickly resolved with “this was why, and I will probably do it again.” Or, in one case that involved a short flight, no autopilot and no ACARS that ended in a diversion and down line cancellation, “what the [bleep] did you expect?”

That said, MSP was a different place under some honest to goodness leadership (oppose management) when I worked there too, with conditions far more austere and severe than any of the blue-sky west-coast management dorks ever saw.
 
statusseeker1 said:
Are you technically exercising pilot in command duties when the jet is in the chocks with the boarding door open?
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Oh I’d love for someone to try this argument with a Chief Pilot, even at my old employer where Guest Service thought they ran the airline.
 
T/O w/FSII said:
I just can’t see a scenario in which leadership drops the ball this hard. Can you 121 guys explain to this 135 Gulfstream driver how this happens? Would love some insight before I bail for the 121 world.

TLDR. 4 hours on a hot plane in Vegas with “no AC” resulting in multiple paxs and a FA leaving on a stretcher.

I’m seeing it as a 757. I wonder what combination of MEL’s this plane had. And if so, would you have accepted the flight?

Passengers aboard Las Vegas flight pass out while awaiting takeoff in triple-digit temperatures
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“Here at Delta Airlines, we don’t sweat the small stuff - we have stretchers in case the heat gets worse.”
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
On my Captain OE I entered a baking hot aircraft at 5AM. The outside air heat had been hooked up overnight and the plane could only be described as extremely uncomfortable. Every flight attendant asked me to do something about the heat. Here I am the guy with four stripes and I ask the LCA sitting in the cockpit with both windows open to start the APU. "No" he says. "Lets have them hook up the outside air." So he calls ops and 20 minutes later there still isn't outside air. Meanwhile during my FA briefing I'm basically just apologizing and saying look I'm really sorry. The LCA won't let me turn the AC on. Me, the guy with 4 stripes. Completely useless and my crew is miserable. Finally I just get tired of it and insist on starting the APU. "No". I explain that all 4 flight attendants are super uncomfortable and we are about to start boarding. "Flight attendant comfort does not matter." I nearly lost it.

So then I ask. If the flight attendants are human and they are uncomfortable, does it mean the passengers who are human will also be uncomfortable? Or is there something else that I am missing?

At that point he finally let me start the APU.

This is probably my biggest pain point being a former corporate pilot and being at a 121 carrier. It doesn't help that somehow our pilot group has institutionalized making other human beings miserable. After OE it seems like it is poorly managed by the training department. It's a top down training thing. I don't get it and I never will. I'm just sorry that is all.
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I believe at a certain virtual airline, this is probably one of 3 guys. With this kinda virtual person, you just have to reach up, do it. Don’t even ask. If he says anything at all, show him the summer ops update about using APUs to cool cabin.


And pro tip, a sweltering cabin Ike yours isn’t gonna cool down in time with ground air conditioning.

Pro tip tip, check out the hot weather ops supplemental section. Now granted, it reads during taxi and before takeoff. But the point of it is, when engines can’t provide enough air, run the APU on the ground (only) for high pack air. Set up is both engine bleeds off, APU bleed on, and packs as high and high. I’ve had to do that in Vegas. Or now, apparently half of America LOL.

Some FOs didn’t even know about it. It’s all there, supplemental section.
 
I mean...the FO had to be suffering over there also. Anything above 80 degrees and I'm sweating profusely. At someone I'd be speaking up and saying that I'm not sitting there and sweating my rear off to save the airline and miniscule amount of money.

And we also know that there is no getting it cool once these planes get heat soaked.
 
KLB said:
I mean...the FO had to be suffering over there also. Anything above 80 degrees and I'm sweating profusely. At someone I'd be speaking up and saying that I'm not sitting there and sweating my rear off to save the airline and miniscule amount of money.

And we also know that there is no getting it cool once these planes get heat soaked.
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I’m probably in the minority but if the guy in the left seat isn’t taking action after a prompt or two I’m going to reach over and crank the APU. No one (crew or pax) should be sitting in sweltering heat and I’d gladly take a phone call over it.
I’ve been challenged for all sorts of nonsense over the years. “Yep… that happened… I took this corrective action and I’ll do it again if necessary.”
 
NovemberEcho said:
If you’re going to be delayed just pull a Kirby and blame ATC.
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Watching him gaslight the aviation press has been fun, though he does have a point—the pervasive, multi-decade management of the air traffic workforce seems to have really come to a head of late.
 
Avalon781ML said:
I’m probably in the minority but if the guy in the left seat isn’t taking action after a prompt or two I’m going to reach over and crank the APU. No one (crew or pax) should be sitting in sweltering heat and I’d gladly take a phone call over it.
I’ve been challenged for all sorts of nonsense over the years. “Yep… that happened… I took this corrective action and I’ll do it again if necessary.”
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Last summer tried to take a SKY E175 from SEA-DEN as a j/s, with a seat in the back. Informed there was no CA and we were waiting on that. Okay. Now we are SWEATING. All boarded up. It was the hottest I’ve ever been on a plane. Luckily I had a big water bottle and that helped. Finally after over 30 minutes sweating away, we de-board. CA apparently will take longer than expected.


Getting off the plane, I was in the back so I was off last. The FO left the flight deck right behind me. Extremely young, had to be a 21-23 yr old. I commented that it sucks when we have no APU on hot days…

I kid you not, the kid goes “oh we have an APU, but I didn’t touch it because CAs do that…”

I thought it was a joke. But the kid was actually serious. (The first and only time in my life I’ve told a pilot at another airline how to do their job). I couldn’t say “look, son…” because I was 38 and still looked young-ish. But as nicely and professionally as I could, I said hey look, it doesn’t matter if the CA isn’t there, you have a plane full of people boarded up and they’re boiling. You have every right to reach up, turn the APU on, and then establish the bleeds/packs and get cold air going. If the CA isn’t there, you can do it.

The kid called me Sir and I could tell he was waaaaay green. And he did mention he was fresh off IOE.

I don’t care what Skywest’s policy is. The FO should feel empowered to run APU and packs if the CA isn’t there. Probably just a green horn case, but hopefully he learned for next time.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Last summer tried to take a SKY E175 from SEA-DEN as a j/s, with a seat in the back. Informed there was no CA and we were waiting on that. Okay. Now we are SWEATING. All boarded up. It was the hottest I’ve ever been on a plane. Luckily I had a big water bottle and that helped. Finally after over 30 minutes sweating away, we de-board. CA apparently will take longer than expected.


Getting off the plane, I was in the back so I was off last. The FO left the flight deck right behind me. Extremely young, had to be a 21-23 yr old. I commented that it sucks when we have no APU on hot days…

I kid you not, the kid goes “oh we have an APU, but I didn’t touch it because CAs do that…”

I thought it was a joke. But the kid was actually serious. (The first and only time in my life I’ve told a pilot at another airline how to do their job). I couldn’t say “look, son…” because I was 38 and still looked young-ish. But as nicely and professionally as I could, I said hey look, it doesn’t matter if the CA isn’t there, you have a plane full of people boarded up and they’re boiling. You have every right to reach up, turn the APU on, and then establish the bleeds/packs and get cold air going. If the CA isn’t there, you can do it.

The kid called me Sir and I could tell he was waaaaay green. And he did mention he was fresh off IOE.

I don’t care what Skywest’s policy is. The FO should feel empowered to run APU and packs if the CA isn’t there. Probably just a green horn case, but hopefully he learned for next time.
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Unless something drastically changed in the last five years, that’s absolutely not true for SkyWest. I was in that FOs position many times and most certainly had the APU on while waiting for a CA. Have also had FOs do that for me numerous times when I was a CA since I was on reserve a lot and often showed up to a loaded up airplane.

It’s far more likely the new FO was simply not comfortable with turning on the APU since he was unsure of himself. But that’s not good either, and it’s probably something every pax airline should cover in IOE when summer is approaching/present.

First Officers at SkyWest actually had more autonomy than they do at FedEx. Quite a bit more to be perfectly honest.
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
On my Captain OE I entered a baking hot aircraft at 5AM. The outside air heat had been hooked up overnight and the plane could only be described as extremely uncomfortable. Every flight attendant asked me to do something about the heat. Here I am the guy with four stripes and I ask the LCA sitting in the cockpit with both windows open to start the APU. "No" he says. "Lets have them hook up the outside air." So he calls ops and 20 minutes later there still isn't outside air. Meanwhile during my FA briefing I'm basically just apologizing and saying look I'm really sorry. The LCA won't let me turn the AC on. Me, the guy with 4 stripes. Completely useless and my crew is miserable. Finally I just get tired of it and insist on starting the APU. "No". I explain that all 4 flight attendants are super uncomfortable and we are about to start boarding. "Flight attendant comfort does not matter." I nearly lost it.

So then I ask. If the flight attendants are human and they are uncomfortable, does it mean the passengers who are human will also be uncomfortable? Or is there something else that I am missing?

At that point he finally let me start the APU.

This is probably my biggest pain point being a former corporate pilot and being at a 121 carrier. It doesn't help that somehow our pilot group has institutionalized making other human beings miserable. After OE it seems like it is poorly managed by the training department. It's a top down training thing. I don't get it and I never will. I'm just sorry that is all.
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Hell even at Yellow we start the APU if the cabin reaches 80 degrees. We are not allowed to board if the cabin is above 84. Sitting in the back of SWA in Phoenix sometimes I know it’s gotta be in the 90’s inside. That’s one thing I’ll give Spirit though, if I wanna use the AC, I use the AC. If I wanna get more fuel, I get more fuel. Never any pushback from anyone.
 
Box hauler said:
Hell even at Yellow we start the APU if the cabin reaches 80 degrees. We are not allowed to board if the cabin is above 84. Sitting in the back of SWA in Phoenix sometimes I know it’s gotta be in the 90’s inside.
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Run 'em all on taxi-in. For safety.
 
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