A Formal Apology

Scandinavian13

Scandinavian13

New Member
To all of the UAX Flight Crews who have flown through IAD in the last few weeks:

I formally apologise for the horrible ground handling received from Air Wisconsin. I, and certain other co-workers, have tried all I could to make sure you were at least informed that we only had one pushback for over 6 gates, or that someone stole my headsets for another push, or that the GPU wasn't working. I've also tried to make sure I could at least have equipment that is in working order servicing your aircraft, but that has not always been the case.
I also apologise to the flight crew of a CRJ700 who had their push interrupted by a ramp lead in the interest of "company policy and safety", despite the pushback operator's adherance to both company and company safety policies. Apparently the management of AirWis doesn't follow its own policy pertaining to no headset pushes. According to him, no pushes are to be made, ever, without headsets - crew briefing or not. Sorry you had to wait 5 minutes while he forced the operator to search for headsets. He was later informed of company policy.

If you fly into IAD on UAX, here's what to expect:
GPU: Most work, but for ERJs and SAABs, converters are sparse.
PCA: Most work, because they're all new, but I know at least two don't.
Pushback: Might take a while. There is generally only one person per 6 gates with experience, and the equipment. Most of the equipment has dead batteries, and the cargers are broken, for the most part. Further still, there are very few headsets to accompany the pushes. Look for briefings from me, at least.
Paperwork: Might take a reminder to the ramp guys.
Baggage Downloading: Most belt loaders are dead (chargers broken), so it might take a minute to get one:
Baggage Uploading: Generally quicker because we have the working belt loader there, but expect delays in getting the bags to the gate.
Commissary: Call in your order before you get there. Otherwise, politely ask a ramper, because you're not going to get Comm to come if you didn't call it in.
Start Cart: They work. If we can find one...

Basically, AirWis is having some major troubles taking over this contract. Some say it'll get better eventually, but I think it'll take a while. If a company prided itself on being the most inefficient operation ever, it would be AirWis on IAD handling.

Please take this more as an actual apology than a mindless rant. I meant it to be more informational/explanatory than just an AirWis bashing post. If any of you come through and notice something not working right, please let someone other than a ramper or CS person know. Bring it to the attention of a higher-up.

If you need something. Look for me. I'm generally on the pushback ops or in a plane briefing crews on the situations. I'm also wearing an old Independence Air uniform I still have, since my United uniform is backordered...

Happy Flying,
 
Me personally could care less if I had to wait 20 minutes to get into a gate because there are no rampers or 30 minutes to pushback because nobody can find a headset much less which airplane they're supposed to push. We get paid by the minute. In general airline operations are an organized chaos but I get the feeling that in IAD UAX nobody knows what they're doing. My favorite are the supervisor by the gate who have no idea where airplane gates are, maybe questions are lost in translations... Just about 99% of the time they send you to an empty gate after about 3 minutes of trying to tell them that you are the pilot of the flight and would like to know where the airplane is. And can anybody tell me why you need 8 people to unload the cargo of an ERJ, they could probably use the guys to say... push back or bring in another airplane..
 
I wouldn't care if I never ever had to fly into IAD again for the rest of my life for UAX. That place is the equivalent to he** on earth. Kudos to the few of you working there that actually do your job properly.
 
fly8slep said:
And can anybody tell me why you need 8 people to unload the cargo of an ERJ, they could probably use the guys to say... push back or bring in another airplane..
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Yeah, all the new guys don't know that they can, actually, do something on their own. I guess it might be a little bit of fright, since I doubt any of them have been around something this expensive before.
Anyway, it's all like youth football (soccer) to all of them. A plane comes in and they all flock. Once they get experience, they generally tend to even it out and only send a couple. That's what happened at DH anyway.

I caught flak from the new guys the other day since I don't bother unloading bags when there are more than 3 people over there. One guy called me lazy. I just told him I was staying out of the way. There's no need to have more than two. Three, maybe...

SIUAv8r said:
I wouldn't care if I never ever had to fly into IAD again for the rest of my life for UAX. That place is the equivalent to he** on earth. Kudos to the few of you working there that actually do your job properly.
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Cheers. I've been getting compliments from the various crews about the ramp on which I work, recently. The crew I work with has been gelling a lot more recently. Cheers to the crews who have patience with our crew, as well.
I can't say specifically which gate I work in the A Terminal, since they move us around day to day, but I always stop by the flight deck right before push to make sure everything is in order. If any of you are coming through Dulles, it would be cool to meet up.



Cheers again for all of your patience. I'll be the first one to say when things are well below desirable. That is surely the case, at the moment.
 
From what I've seen this week, big change... it has improved. What brought a smile to my face was pulling into my A4F gate and seeing a fimiliar Delta Global Serv crew flagging me in.

Last week was the hell flight:

1) Boarding 30 minutes early due to an insane gate agent... 34 passengers shoved into a hot airplane, with an air cart thank god, but it didn't do much!

2) Waiting one hour to find rampers to load bags... ugh. Storms approaching.

3) Finally bags are on 20 minutes later, start an engine, try to get out.

4) First fix of flight shuts down. Lets push anyway and get away from this place!

5) Scrounge up a push crew, and after we get the clearance and push 2 feet, rampers scamper inside due to lightning.

6) Wait another 40 minutes while storm passes, meanwhile colgan cancels my flight. The only way my crew is notified by the cancellation is by the passengers' blackberries getting alerts.

7) I refuse to deboard, and cancellation or not, I'm getting my people to BGM. They paid the price by sitting 2 hours in the hot aircraft. (they would reboard another load of pax to the same destination, and screw the captive ones over since it was a WX cancellation... no hotels, next flight overbooked!)

8) Get the flight reinstated, and get out of there. Arrive in BGM 4 hours late! But, passengers are thankful to be home!
 
Forgot to mention though, that with the exeption of one flight 5 minutes late off the gate yesterday (unfortunately company procedure prohibits me from fudging the times anymore to give benefit-of-doubt), everything else got out of there at least 10 early. Very admirable, and the pax had smiles on their faces to be home quickly.
 
I was there last night (and am about to head back there again) and our flight was late because:

1) The flight I was deadheading on was delayed and got in pretty late. For some reason, scheduling had pushed my next flight back about an hour and a half on my schedule so I wasn't rushing or anything once I got to IAD on the deadhead. Problem is, I was the only one who showed that the flight was now scheduled for a later departure.

2) APU was deferred and when I got there, we were looking for the 4th GPU, as the 3 they'd tried earlier were all broken. Finally, whoever the ramper was (he was cool) found a working one and an air start cart (since it got stolen while he was off looking for the 4th GPU) and got us on our way.

IAD is a cluster but I won't be dealing with it anymore effective July 1st. Thanks Hulas.
 
Copperhed51 said:
2) APU was deferred and when I got there, we were looking for the 4th GPU, as the 3 they'd tried earlier were all broken. Finally, whoever the ramper was (he was cool) found a working one and an air start cart (since it got stolen while he was off looking for the 4th GPU) and got us on our way.
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What gate were you on? That sounds like something I dealt with...
 
I honestly don't remember. I think it was probably A4C or A4D but I don't have my Jepps in front of me and am too lazy to grab them. The ramper came in and explained that he was going to grab another GPU and brought a gas-powered one that worked and while that happened somebody stole the air start cart he'd put at the rear of the airplane. Maybe that was you, I dunno.

Back in Dulles today and all the GPU inverter or converter boxes or whatever at the A4 gates were broken again.

Deadeading home on the enemy (GoJet) and the captain went ape #### on the rampers for trying to put some more bags on the plane after the paperwork was done. Was kinda funny to watch the captain nearly crap his pants over it.
 
Copperhed51 said:
I honestly don't remember. I think it was probably A4C or A4D but I don't have my Jepps in front of me and am too lazy to grab them. The ramper came in and explained that he was going to grab another GPU and brought a gas-powered one that worked and while that happened somebody stole the air start cart he'd put at the rear of the airplane. Maybe that was you, I dunno.

Back in Dulles today and all the GPU inverter or converter boxes or whatever at the A4 gates were broken again.

Deadeading home on the enemy (GoJet) and the captain went ape #### on the rampers for trying to put some more bags on the plane after the paperwork was done. Was kinda funny to watch the captain nearly crap his pants over it.
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1) I thought those GPU-converters were all brand new about 6 months ago, and were about $20,000 each? How do they get broken so quickly, they seem quite sturdy... Well, how does anything get broken.

2) I don't understand people who go nuts about extra bags/people... The ramper last night was yelling at another ramper for attempting to put more bags on our aircraft. He seemed to really berate him! Hell, I've added bags after being pushed almost onto the taxiway. Correct the paperwork and go, with one more happy passenger at the destination...


3) Yesterday, all of my flights were out early. Very good work on the ramp! The only problem I had was with the last flight when the push-lead was telling me about the dog we were carrying, and when I walked over to see it he then started poking his lighted wand right into the cage, frightening the pooch while muttering some disturbing phrases. Taking care of that situation was a little strange...
 
It's not the converters. The ground power at gates a4, and I believe a2 and a5 does not work for the entire fingers. So just pray you do not get parked at those gates.
 
I've noticed that the ramp isn't all that bad except around 4-5 pm and when we're the only ones there (which seems strange to me). I thought that it was getting better but then last week it went downhill again. Lately I've just taken it upon myself to hook up the air if the rampers don't get to it. The Saab heats up really quickly in the summer.

Kudo's to Kyle, he's probably one of 3 or 4 rampers that knows whats going on at the A gates. Gook luck at Pan Am and don't forget to call in favors when you're ready for an Airline job.

Oh and hi to Brendan (I probably spelled your name wrong), did you guys get out the other night? We ended up timing out and then waiting two hours for the company to find us a Hotel room. Ahhh "Doin' the Colgan."
 
:hiya: Hi there! They cancelled our middle round trip since the storms were continuously pounding Allentown... Somehow we ended up getting home early that night. They had an angry bunch of passengers though, because the delays kept extending 20 minutes at a time until finally... cancelled. I think they would have "appreciated" an earlier cancellation, or just running the flight really late. We wouldn't have timed out until 5:30am the next morning. But that would have been a bit much...

I've also taken to hooking up the air cart myself. Gives me something to do, plus the thing is light enough/easy enough to operate. Thats why I like the GPU converters too.
 
Update:
I just got lectured the other night for running on the ramp. Apparently, that's dangerous and the Safety Coordinator would rather have 70 angry passengers because of a late departure or missed bags, than me tripping an scuffing up my knees a bit. How about appreciating some actual devotion and hard work that seems to be so lacking on the ramp? Oh well...

This lecture came from the Safety Coordinator, who doesn't have pushback certification, who took my place on a pushback because she wanted to do it. This happened just before my lecture. I'm going to have to go with she just lost all of my attention and credibility with that move...

I'll end my rant at that.

Copperhed51 said:
I honestly don't remember. I think it was probably A4C or A4D but I don't have my Jepps in front of me and am too lazy to grab them. The ramper came in and explained that he was going to grab another GPU and brought a gas-powered one that worked and while that happened somebody stole the air start cart he'd put at the rear of the airplane. Maybe that was you, I dunno.

Back in Dulles today and all the GPU inverter or converter boxes or whatever at the A4 gates were broken again.

Deadeading home on the enemy (GoJet) and the captain went ape #### on the rampers for trying to put some more bags on the plane after the paperwork was done. Was kinda funny to watch the captain nearly crap his pants over it.
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Might've been me, but I'm not entirely sure. I don't recall working any other gate than 2 on the even side, though.

sorrygottarunway said:
2) I don't understand people who go nuts about extra bags/people... The ramper last night was yelling at another ramper for attempting to put more bags on our aircraft. He seemed to really berate him! Hell, I've added bags after being pushed almost onto the taxiway. Correct the paperwork and go, with one more happy passenger at the destination...
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When I worked DH, bags were life. Never leave without a bag if at all possible. Then again, MWAA gave us a hard time for allowing bag runners to add bags when the plane had pushed back into the taxilane, which is understandable. To me, if the push is just about to start and hasn't reached the taxilane, go right ahead, as long as it's not in someone else's way.
I've also gotten several rolled eyes lately when telling the crew someone added bags. I think that might have a little bit to do with peoples' hardcore, no extra bags mentality. I don't like dealing with irritated crew. Thus, why I tend to be up in the cockpit a lot giving briefings/updates, in hopes of keeping the crew from getting too irritated.

greaper007 said:
I've noticed that the ramp isn't all that bad except around 4-5 pm and when we're the only ones there (which seems strange to me). I thought that it was getting better but then last week it went downhill again. Lately I've just taken it upon myself to hook up the air if the rampers don't get to it. The Saab heats up really quickly in the summer.

Kudos to Kyle, he's probably one of 3 or 4 rampers that knows whats going on at the A gates. Gook luck at Pan Am and don't forget to call in favors when you're ready for an Airline job.
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Thanks!
Are you the pilot from Ari Ben? I apologise for forgetting your name. I'm absolutely horrible with names...
I start in September. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm dragging Matt out there, too, so one of the other rampers who has a clue is leaving in August.

I'm surprised some of the crews I've talked to at any length recognise me. That never happened at DH.
 
Scandinavian13 said:
Update:
I just got lectured the other night for running on the ramp. Apparently, that's dangerous and the Safety Coordinator would rather have 70 angry passengers because of a late departure or missed bags, than me tripping an scuffing up my knees a bit. How about appreciating some actual devotion and hard work that seems to be so lacking on the ramp? Oh well...

This lecture came from the Safety Coordinator, who doesn't have pushback certification, who took my place on a pushback because she wanted to do it. This happened just before my lecture. I'm going to have to go with she just lost all of my attention and credibility with that move...

I'll end my rant at that.
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Did you mention that to her? I certainly would have. Something along the lines of "If safety is such a huge focus here, why do we have unqualified people pushing back airplanes?" Hypocrites get no slack in my book.
 
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