Re: Continental Pilot\'s ad in USA today
Let me tell you some fresh information about how the general public feels about pilots.
ATL got absolutely ROCKED with thunderstorms today so we took a 2 hour delay in Greensboro today until ATC would release our flight after the storm subsided.
CHING! CHING! (sound of the cabin to cockpit interphone chime) The flight attendant calls. "I've got a passenger here that was talking to her husband on the cellphone in Marietta and he says that the skies are clear."
"Well, all of our weather reports show a nasty thunderstorm over the field and besides, ATC has a ground stop on all traffic."
In the background, I could clearly discern the passenger screaming "They're lying! The weather's fine! My husband says it's fine and I want to go!"
The captain says, "Tell her that I don't have the ability to tell ATC to remove the ground stop and issue me clearance to depart for Atlanta".
Oh joy.
Another hour of dealing with upset passengers on the telephone with their loved ones throught the Atlanta metropolitan area who are trying to convince us that the weather is fine. Wonderful.
So the weather clears eventually, we launch, spend 50 minutes circumnavigating thunderstorms, dodge a bunch on arrival and pull into the gate. It's raining pretty good, it's windy and I think I did a pretty good job landing the jet.
Instead of "Hey, thanks for erring on the side of safety", about 15 various passengers scream at me about not being honest about the weather. How the weather is FINE and I need to learn to be more honest.
People forgot about the Delta L1011 in DFW, the Air Tran DC-9 in ATL, the Air South DC-9 with the dual flameout in hail in ATL, etc. Flying has become SO SAFE that Molly McButter in the back of the jet thinks she's got credence trying to instruct a professional flight crew, and an FAA route inspector who was on the jumpseat, about weather... Because her husband's got a cellphone in Marietta and knows better than a captain, a first officer an FAA inspector who was a Vietnam vet, and entire cadre of company meteorologists and an entire ATC system that shut the airport down.
A300Capt and DE727UPS, ya ain't missing JACK!