A call from the Chief Pilot's office

Zapphod Beblebrox

Inventor of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster
This relates to non rev travel and jump-seating.

I was operating a flight from DCA to FLL a few days ago. As we were getting ready to close out, I could see two stranded pax desperately waving to get the agents and my attention. The agent was backing the jetway away from the Aircraft. These were revenue passengers not "jump-seaters" or non revs.

I asked the agent to reattach the jet bridge and told the lead FA to open the door and we got both the Pax on board. They were very pleased and thanked us profusely. We pushed 2 minutes behind schedule. Next day I get a nice call from the Chief Pilots office to discuss my delay. I was reminded of the policy on not accommodating late passengers after the jet bridge is pulled. It is up to the agents to deal with these issues.

I am not a trouble maker, and this is the first time I have been called on an issue like this in my 29 years at this company. I don't make policy and it looks like anyone who deviates from policy will get a call, friendly at first and not so friendly if it happens again. Repeated delays will lead to discipline.

I post this here to let you know that the company is becoming fanatical about on time performance and if I am going to get a call about revenue passengers what will they do if I take a delay for jump-seaters? I encourage those of you who have ALPA jump-seat committees to contact the APA jump-seat committee and let them know that they should be advocating that the company place more emphasis on agent training. The agents are all trying to adapt to a new boarding system and software (particularly the former US agents) and the people it is going to hurt most are standbys, non-revs and jump-seat riders. Our boarding process is in chaos and the agents are being held accountable. Now flight crews are also.

I was perfectly willing to exercise captains authority to make sure non revs and jump-seaters get on but now it seems that the company will target anyone who takes a delay, no matter how small. I am sorry to report this but that's the way it is shaping up as this merger progresses.
 
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Uggh, that is too bad not a great way to treat paying customers. Especially not a great way to approach captains who actually give a hoot about customer service.

A different legacy years back got the bright idea to give gate agents bonuses for on time departures. The result as you might imagine? Close the boarding door at 10 prior and leave both revenue and non-rev pax stranded no matter what. Now, I had caught onto this scheme early on and would take my jump seat request card as soon as I could just to get down the jet bridge, introduce myself to the crew & hang around. Of course 10 prior to push on an oversold flight the gate agent would come running down all frazzled and say "oh you're still here?".

"Yep".

"Just grab an open seat, we have a few".

Thus the result of well meaning middle managers flying desks and not seeing the real world consequences. One day I told the crew what was happening and there were a bunch of folks still up top waiting for seats. Thankfully captain said "enough of this" and played the 'this airplane isn't moving until everyone is on board' card. It worked, we went out a few minutes late but everyone arrived on time.

I've done similar things myself but thankfully haven't heard a peep from higher ups. If we can quickly make it happen and not risk connections of everyone else already on board I say get'em on board. Safety first, crew second, customers a close third, then schedule.

Hopefully it is a matter of time before this round of nonsense is over at AA.
 
This relates to non rev travel and jump-seating.

I was operating a flight from DCA to FLL a few days ago. As we were getting ready to close out, I could see two stranded pax desperately waving to get the agents and me to get our attention. The agent was backing the jetway away from the Aircraft. These were revenue passengers not "jump-seaters" or non revs.

I asked the agent to reattach the jet bridge and told the lead FA to open the door and we got both the Pax on board. They were very pleased and thanked us profusely. We pushed 2 minutes behind schedule. Next day I get a nice call from the Chief Pilots office to discuss my delay. I was reminded of the policy on not accommodating late passengers after the jet bridge is pulled. It is up to the agents to deal with these issues.

I am not a trouble maker, and this is the first time I have been called on an issue like this in my 29 years at this company. I don't make policy and it looks like anyone who deviates from policy will get a call, friendly at first and not so friendly if it happens again. Repeated delays will lead to discipline.

I post this here to let you know that the company is becoming fanatical about on time performance and if I am going to get a call about revenue passengers what will they do if I take a delay for jump-seaters? I encourage those of you who have ALPA jump-seat committees to contact the APA jump-seat committee and let them know that they should be advocating that the company place more emphasis on agent training. The agents are all trying to adapt to a new boarding system and software (particularly the former US agents) and the people it is going to hurt most are standbys, non-revs and jump-seat riders. Our boarding process is in chaos and the agents are being held accountable. Now flight crews are also.

I was perfectly willing to exercise captains authority to make sure non revs and jump-seaters get on but now it seems that the company will target anyone who takes a delay, no matter how small. I am sorry to report this but that's the way it is shaping up as this merger progresses.

You're not gonna KDA with that kind of management attitude towards employees and passengers. All I can say is, "keep up the good work, Parker!"
 
You're not gonna KDA with that kind of management attitude towards employees and passengers. All I can say is, "keep up the good work, Parker!"
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That blows.

Two minutes?

Some gate agent or supervisor got their feelings hurt because there was a microscopic spike in their metric but the amount of goodwill you made is yoooooooj.
 
We were preparing to push on the last flight of the night to smf from LAX a couple months ago, we had delayed boarding for a minor maintenance issue but were back in business and I noticed that the jet bridge was being pulled with people still standing in it.

"That's odd." I thought and pointed it out to the captain. He went out to find out what was up.

The people standing in the jetway were non revs and there were still paying passengers up in the gate area. He went to the agent and said "hey we have lots of open seats, why don't we just get everyone on."

An argument ensued, the captain kept his composure but the ramp and gate staff were livid. I seem to recall that the end of the argument was, essentially, "Brake's set, your move."

In the end we took the delay, got everyone on, and still arrived on time. The people who otherwise would have been left behind overnight were very grateful.

As far as I know the captain never heard anything about the delay beyond the explanation we have to do for every delay.

I feel like it worked pretty much exactly like it was supposed to except for the gate staff part.



Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
 
I agree that 2 minutes is a silly thing to escalate all the way to a CP but... airlines are generally ranked by the DOT on four statistics. D:0, A:15, Lost Bags and Passenger complaints (pretty much in that order of importance). Even if you arrive within the A:15 window, if you depart late, you are still killing the DOT metric, and for whatever reason, for a lot of management by spreadsheet types, that's ALL that matters.
 
I agree that 2 minutes is a silly thing to escalate all the way to a CP but... airlines are generally ranked by the DOT on four statistics. D:0, A:15, Lost Bags and Passenger complaints (pretty much in that order of importance). Even if you arrive within the A:15 window, if you depart late, you are still killing the DOT metric, and for whatever reason, for a lot of management by spreadsheet types, that's ALL that matters.
The answer is still "brakes set, your move."

While I understand the relentless focus on performance, especially in the FFD sector as the passengers are not directly the customers, doing the right thing by them, in the long run, does the right thing for the mainline partner, and that, in turn, does the right thing for the regional partner.
 
The answer is still "brakes set, your move."

While I understand the relentless focus on performance, especially in the FFD sector as the passengers are not directly the customers, doing the right thing by them, in the long run, does the right thing for the mainline partner, and that, in turn, does the right thing for the regional partner.

Says you. The company pays me to fly planes the way they want me to, which I will do (as long as it's safe of course). They also pay me to operate per their specifications, which, sadly, say that getting a plane out on time is more important than getting everybody on board. So I operate with that in mind. Of course I do everything I can to get all of our passengers and non revs on board, but at the end of the day, they made a decision that D:0 is more important than happy customers, and there isn't a whole lot I can do about that.
 
This relates to non rev travel and jump-seating.

I was operating a flight from DCA to FLL a few days ago. As we were getting ready to close out, I could see two stranded pax desperately waving to get the agents and my attention. The agent was backing the jetway away from the Aircraft. These were revenue passengers not "jump-seaters" or non revs.

I asked the agent to reattach the jet bridge and told the lead FA to open the door and we got both the Pax on board. They were very pleased and thanked us profusely. We pushed 2 minutes behind schedule. Next day I get a nice call from the Chief Pilots office to discuss my delay. I was reminded of the policy on not accommodating late passengers after the jet bridge is pulled. It is up to the agents to deal with these issues.

I am not a trouble maker, and this is the first time I have been called on an issue like this in my 29 years at this company. I don't make policy and it looks like anyone who deviates from policy will get a call, friendly at first and not so friendly if it happens again. Repeated delays will lead to discipline.

I post this here to let you know that the company is becoming fanatical about on time performance and if I am going to get a call about revenue passengers what will they do if I take a delay for jump-seaters? I encourage those of you who have ALPA jump-seat committees to contact the APA jump-seat committee and let them know that they should be advocating that the company place more emphasis on agent training. The agents are all trying to adapt to a new boarding system and software (particularly the former US agents) and the people it is going to hurt most are standbys, non-revs and jump-seat riders. Our boarding process is in chaos and the agents are being held accountable. Now flight crews are also.

I was perfectly willing to exercise captains authority to make sure non revs and jump-seaters get on but now it seems that the company will target anyone who takes a delay, no matter how small. I am sorry to report this but that's the way it is shaping up as this merger progresses.

I'll throw a little more fuel on the fire. Bonuses are handed out for our station managers if they meet a certain metric for on time flights.

Combine that with RI speaking out of both sides of his mouth last year. In one statement he is talking about the importance of getting the jet bridge door closed at D: -10 and the aircraft door closed at D: -5 to ensure on time departures, yet in a statement not a week later he is spouting about how important it is to make sure everyone (non-revs included) and that if we are leaving any passengers in the gate area and we have open seats, we are doing a disservice to our employees.

Furthermore, APA isn't going to do jack about gate agent training. AA was on the verge of losing jumpseat privileges on DAL and UAL because of less than accommodating gate agents. Rather than fix the root of the problem, APA sent out strongly worded letters plus emails telling Captains to check the priority list for the flight to make sure everyone gets on the aircraft. All they did was kick the can down the road.
 
Says you. The company pays me to fly planes the way they want me to, which I will do (as long as it's safe of course). They also pay me to operate per their specifications, which, sadly, say that getting a plane out on time is more important than getting everybody on board. So I operate with that in mind. Of course I do everything I can to get all of our passengers and non revs on board, but at the end of the day, they made a decision that D:0 is more important than happy customers, and there isn't a whole lot I can do about that.
I definitely understand that.

Meanwhile, at LUV...
 
2 minutes is ridiculous. In many cases you'll just get there early anyway. Or rush to the next delay. Or, get to FLL and wait somewhere for a gate.

I agree that 2 minutes is a silly thing to escalate all the way to a CP but... airlines are generally ranked by the DOT on four statistics. D:0, A:15, Lost Bags and Passenger complaints (pretty much in that order of importance). Even if you arrive within the A:15 window, if you depart late, you are still killing the DOT metric, and for whatever reason, for a lot of management by spreadsheet types, that's ALL that matters.

Listened to a great presentation a couple of months ago down at the schoolhouse where the subject of taking a few minutes delay was discussed in detail. One of the big points that was stressed is that D:0 is worthless without meeting A:0. The discussion revolved around just how important A:0 is, even more so than D:0 because without meeting one of the two, the other is missed as well.

I wish it was something that had been recorded because it was really down to earth and to the point.
 
To be honest, I've never understood the whole on time departure thing. To me, it's about what time you get people to their destination. Often times (like today out of Columbus, OH) we push almost 10 minutes early and end up getting to the gate over 10 minutes late. Other times we push late and usually show up on time or even early at times. It just seems like such an arbitrary and ultimately harmful thing to focus on. To be honest, the whole extreme bean-counting going on throughout the entire American system is frustrating to the max.
 
I agree that 2 minutes is a silly thing to escalate all the way to a CP but... airlines are generally ranked by the DOT on four statistics. D:0, A:15, Lost Bags and Passenger complaints (pretty much in that order of importance). Even if you arrive within the A:15 window, if you depart late, you are still killing the DOT metric, and for whatever reason, for a lot of management by spreadsheet types, that's ALL that matters.

I thought the metric was D+10 and A+14, as far as the DOT was concerned. The D0 A0 stuff was all internal.
 
This relates to non rev travel and jump-seating.

I was operating a flight from DCA to FLL a few days ago. As we were getting ready to close out, I could see two stranded pax desperately waving to get the agents and my attention. The agent was backing the jetway away from the Aircraft. These were revenue passengers not "jump-seaters" or non revs.

I asked the agent to reattach the jet bridge and told the lead FA to open the door and we got both the Pax on board. They were very pleased and thanked us profusely. We pushed 2 minutes behind schedule. Next day I get a nice call from the Chief Pilots office to discuss my delay. I was reminded of the policy on not accommodating late passengers after the jet bridge is pulled. It is up to the agents to deal with these issues.

I am not a trouble maker, and this is the first time I have been called on an issue like this in my 29 years at this company. I don't make policy and it looks like anyone who deviates from policy will get a call, friendly at first and not so friendly if it happens again. Repeated delays will lead to discipline.

I post this here to let you know that the company is becoming fanatical about on time performance and if I am going to get a call about revenue passengers what will they do if I take a delay for jump-seaters? I encourage those of you who have ALPA jump-seat committees to contact the APA jump-seat committee and let them know that they should be advocating that the company place more emphasis on agent training. The agents are all trying to adapt to a new boarding system and software (particularly the former US agents) and the people it is going to hurt most are standbys, non-revs and jump-seat riders. Our boarding process is in chaos and the agents are being held accountable. Now flight crews are also.

I was perfectly willing to exercise captains authority to make sure non revs and jump-seaters get on but now it seems that the company will target anyone who takes a delay, no matter how small. I am sorry to report this but that's the way it is shaping up as this merger progresses.

On the Bus, clock... set from GPS to INT. Set your actual scheduled departure time. Leave it. Get pax on, get door close. Start clock. Release brake, capture out time. When done, move clock switch from INT back to GPS. Actual time is now displayed and you captured your original out time.

On Delta, I showed up to the gate (running) at 430pm for a 450pm departure. Delta 717 EWR-DTW. Agent said sorry! they're already boarded up and "closed" the flight. jetbridge was still hooked up. The plane actually pushed back at 443pm, 7 minutes early. They could have easily processed me. Looking at Deltanet though, there were no nonrevs listed on the flight and it had 3 open seats. I think the fact that all revenue got on meant they had the okay / go ahead to close up 20 early. No weather, no EDCTs, no gate issues that required this plane to close early. It is what it is.
 
On the Bus, clock... set from GPS to INT. Set your actual scheduled departure time. Leave it. Get pax on, get door close. Start clock. Release brake, capture out time. When done, move clock switch from INT back to GPS. Actual time is now displayed and you captured your original out time.

On Delta, I showed up to the gate (running) at 430pm for a 450pm departure. Delta 717 EWR-DTW. Agent said sorry! they're already boarded up and "closed" the flight. jetbridge was still hooked up. The plane actually pushed back at 443pm, 7 minutes early. They could have easily processed me. Looking at Deltanet though, there were no nonrevs listed on the flight and it had 3 open seats. I think the fact that all revenue got on meant they had the okay / go ahead to close up 20 early. No weather, no EDCTs, no gate issues that required this plane to close early. It is what it is.

Your consternation about not being honest makes this hilarious. Falsifying out times?

And how do you still have DeltaNet access? Did Delta buy Virgin America?
 
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