Skywest pilot antics in IAH

The Juice said:
This is why I love pilots. People keep saying "it's not my job, I'm not trained to do it, there are people whose job it is to do it." I can understand and respect that position.

However....

What will that same pilot say when he drags his tired butt into the hotel lobby after a long weather day and the person behind the counter says "Sorry, checking in guests isn't my job, I just do phone reservations." My guess is the pilot isn't as understanding with the "oh, I understand"
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Firstly, I'll never bark at a hotel employee, as that's not how I represent my company and those people are likely treated poorly enough by theirs. With that said though... What's the injury potential for a person checking in a guest at a hotel?

What's the injury potential while throwing bags?

I dunno man, I'm a healthy 26 year old, and I just murdered a disc and now I can't feel my left thigh. I was doing some routing auto maintenance. I'm all about being a team player, but at some point you have to do a risk/reward assessment.
 
Seggy said:
If an airline is out on strike and the place you are working at is approached by that airline to cover some of the flying, would you cross a picket line to 'get the job done'?
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"And if that is the case, I need your name, and employee number..."


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Seggy said:
If an airline is out on strike and the place you are working at is approached by that airline to cover some of the flying, would you cross a picket line to 'get the job done'?
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There is a big difference between crossing a picket line and doing some simple little things to help out another employee.

Perhaps I haven't made myself very clear. My motivation for doing any job outside my assigned job duties is to help out my fellow employees and/or customers, NOT to allow management to hire one less ramper. Obviously this does not extend to any task that requires specialized training, or is likely to get someone hurt. I'm not going to fuel the jet myself, or going to put myself at real risk for an injury. In the video, the pilot was an idiot for riding the belt loader. That is dangerous and clearly against the rules. However, many times that I hear "it's not my job" it is used as an excuse for laziness.

Part of this mindset comes from how I was raised, but most of it comes from my time in the military. Particularly in the Marines, there are never enough people to fully staff any operation, so everyone has to work together to get the job done. That means being cross-trained in many jobs that had nothing to do with your primary job. Telling anyone "that's not my job" when asked to help out another Marine will get you a counseling session behind the hangar.

It's just not in my nature to sit on my ass while someone is working their's off. I think Dough described my thinking on this very well. Am I going to hurt myself by climbing out the window to clean the windscreen? No way, there is a rule against that for a good reason. If there are that many bugs, call MX. OTOH, if a customer is waiting for a stroller and needs to make a quick connection, then sure, I would run down to the ramp and grab it for her.
 
USMCmech said:
There is a big difference between crossing a picket line and doing some simple little things to help out another employee.
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No there's not. Stealing someone's job is stealing someone's job. That ramper gave up negotiating capital to secure the scope language that prevents other people from doing his job. He's making less money, getting less time off, or getting less in benefits because he traded it for more job security with his scope provisions. And you come along and blatantly violate his scope language and steal his work. How 'bout I just come over to your house and steal $100 out of your wallet? Same thing, just in a different form. We should all respect each other's contracts.

My motivation for doing any job outside my assigned job duties is to help out my fellow employees and/or customers, NOT to allow management to hire one less ramper.
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If he wants your help, he'll ask. Otherwise, he has a contract that says you do your job, and he does his. Honor his contract.
 
Well it sounds like with this guys superb effort and getting this flight out on time allowed Skywest to order another 100 Ejets. This guy will fly the delivery aircraft. So he's got that going for him, which is nice...
 
USMCmech said:
There is a big difference between crossing a picket line and doing some simple little things to help out another employee.

Perhaps I haven't made myself very clear. My motivation for doing any job outside my assigned job duties is to help out my fellow employees and/or customers, NOT to allow management to hire one less ramper. Obviously this does not extend to any task that requires specialized training, or is likely to get someone hurt. I'm not going to fuel the jet myself, or going to put myself at real risk for an injury.
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Just wanted to point out - we can fuel the jet ourselves - at 9E. There is a procedure in the book for it, and because we are required to be familiar with the CFM cover to cover, it is considered "trained". Would I? I hope not. But if a situation arose where I was the only trained person to fuel at an out station, and I didn't, I might have to meet with the CP.
 
ClarkGriswold said:
Well it sounds like with this guys superb effort and getting this flight out on time allowed Skywest to order another 100 Ejets. This guy will fly the delivery aircraft. So he's got that going for him, which is nice...
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Dude, they didn't hire you, let it go, another upper end regional did.
 
cencal83406 said:
Just wanted to point out - we can fuel the jet ourselves - at 9E. There is a procedure in the book for it, and because we are required to be familiar with the CFM cover to cover, it is considered "trained". Would I? I hope not. But if a situation arose where I was the only trained person to fuel at an out station, and I didn't, I might have to meet with the CP.
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Ditto, and similar logic, although I'm not hugely interested in taxiing to self-serve Jet A and overwinging the Brozilla.
 
ClarkGriswold said:
Well it sounds like with this guys superb effort and getting this flight out on time allowed Skywest to order another 100 Ejets. This guy will fly the delivery aircraft. So he's got that going for him, which is nice...
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I'm just curious how long you've even been flying professionally? To be so bitter so early... Yikes.
 
Interesting thread. My take, I'm not going to knock another person for going the extra mile. It's a risk that each pilot decides whether or not to take.

Personally, it's not worth the risk for me to go outside my duties to help passengers knowing if I budge a disc throwing bags/pushing a wheel chair the company and its insurance will certainly not go outside their duties and pay for an OJI. We've had guys out on OJI left and right from back injuries from placing or removing their flight bag in the flight deck, followed by a company memo with a step by step guide on how to properly place and remove your flight bag. If a flight bag can cause damage to your back, a valet or checked bag certainly can, especially with the bad form of bending your back at the waist that I see many pilots do when tossing bags. If the company comes out and says they will cover OJIs from tossing bags or pushing wheelchairs, I'll happily do it when the time comes.



cencal83406 said:
Just wanted to point out - we can fuel the jet ourselves - at 9E. There is a procedure in the book for it, and because we are required to be familiar with the CFM cover to cover, it is considered "trained". Would I? I hope not. But if a situation arose where I was the only trained person to fuel at an out station, and I didn't, I might have to meet with the CP.
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Does the procedure in your book book cover how to operate the various types of fueling trucks/carts etc along with emergency procedures on how to shut each one down in case of fire or some sort of malfunction?

At XJT our books show us how to operate the refuel/defuel panel on the CRJ which allows us to help out a rookie fueler to fuel the plane, but I'm not touching that fuel truck/cart.
 
cencal83406 said:
Just wanted to point out - we can fuel the jet ourselves - at 9E. There is a procedure in the book for it, and because we are required to be familiar with the CFM cover to cover, it is considered "trained". Would I? I hope not. But if a situation arose where I was the only trained person to fuel at an out station, and I didn't, I might have to meet with the CP.
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It's legal, but is it reasonable and prudent at your experience level with single-point fueling airplanes?

It's legal for me to extend my duty day but is it reasonable and prudent?

If anything happens, and trust me on this as I've been to the "big brown desk" at Southernjets with the feds and the "rectangular black desk" in Oklahoma City during my regional days concerning some former international students, if anything screws up, the feds are going to ask those two questions.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
No there's not.
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C'mon, common sense prevails on this one. Tossing a couple bags on a short-staffed ramp (when you offer and they accept help) is far from crossing a picket line. I've chucked bags, and no, I'm not close to being a scab. Hell, I've also gone into the galley and gotten my own coffee when the FAs were busy ("Hey, I see you're busy, I'll grab it"); should they file a scope grievance because a pilot got his own coffee?

The OJI angle is an important one, and I haven't thrown bags or helped load since I left Cape. Just hasn't been any reason to do it with a team of rampers/loaders doing the work. I'd just get in the way. Anyone who does help should realize that they may not be covered by OJI if they're injured. The risk is on them.

I'll say this: I recall once at XJT, after a 4 hour delay leaving EWR (with a gate return), the bag door wouldn't open in BTV. Completely jammed from the inside. Contract maintenance had gone home for the night, and the rampers had no idea how to get it open. We would have been well within our contractual rights to just walk off and leave it for someone else, but we stuck around and (with the help of a CAL jumpseater) took off the panel on the lav wall and got the bag door open from the inside.

Why didn't we just leave it? We could have just let contract maintenance deal with it in the morning; they'd have gotten paid to do it. We did it because we're people, not a bunch of contract-following automatons. We had 50 customers on the jet who were missing bags, who probably also had very long days. We did what was right.
 
dasleben said:
Why didn't we just leave it? We could have just let contract maintenance deal with it in the morning; they'd have gotten paid to do it. We did it because we're people, not a bunch of contract-following automatons. We had 50 customers on the jet who were missing bags, who probably also had very long days. We did what was right.
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Post of the day. Exceptionally well said.

This is a people business. And: I was not lobotomized upon completion of initial...
 
dasleben said:
I'll say this: I recall once at XJT, after a 4 hour delay leaving EWR (with a gate return), the bag door wouldn't open in BTV. Completely jammed from the inside. Contract maintenance had gone home for the night, and the rampers had no idea how to get it open. We would have been well within our contractual rights to just walk off and leave it for someone else, but we stuck around and (with the help of a CAL jumpseater) took off the panel on the lav wall and got the bag door open from the inside.

Why didn't we just leave it? We could have just let contract maintenance deal with it in the morning; they'd have gotten paid to do it. We did it because we're people, not a bunch of contract-following automatons. We had 50 customers on the jet who were missing bags, who probably also had very long days. We did what was right.
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Before I say more, did maintenance control instruct you to remove the panel? Did you use a tool? Did you have the proper work cards to do so?
 
TUCKnTRUCK said:
To your airline, you are a number. Nothing less, nothing more. You will never be worth more than your number. You will never be rewarded for doing more than your number. You are a cost liability. Every thing you do has a number. If they can make that number smaller, they will.

The smaller your number, the larger their number is. If you are happy, your number is too big. If your number is too big, then their number is not big enough. If their number is not big enough, it is their everlasting goal to fix that. They will not stop until a strike, or the new numbers to replace old numbers become too much. They know that the likely hood of either happening is small,

So, as you sit there, tossing bags, remember, they've got your number, and they are coming for it.
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This is one of the most interesting posts in this thread. But it makes me wonder, if this is true as-written, then who in their right mind would want to be in this business? What is remotely positive in terms of the job itself, assuming this to be true? Who wants to work any job, having a proverbial target on their back 24/7, and with an employer always looking to make the suck, suck more?
 
Well, consider that it applies to about 99% of jobs available to someone who isn't a CEO or independently wealthy. It's not limited to the airlines...
 
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