To Hell and Back on a Turboprop

Yeah here's a good turbo prop story...

we were riding the shuttle into the Erie, PA airport...quite possibly one of the nastiest Mesa destinations weather wise, and we were riding with this Piedmont crew, which was probably the same one that tried to make me go around by blocking a runway intersection in Philly, but the flight attendant was throwing a fit. She was complaining that Piedmont was going to make her deadhead on a Beech 1900 from like Roanoke or Richmond, VA to Charlotte, NC. She was so terrified of the 1900 that she had refused the dead head and been reprimanded by the company and the pilots were like, "oh geez...that...that's horrible we should be able to deny whatever we want to and...oh wow". Just because your badge looks like a mainline US Airways badge does not give you priviledge to deny company required rides to work on an airplane that has propellers...what makes the situation even funnier is they took off in a battered looking DHC-8 that probably wasn't any safer. She even included that she was more scared to get on a Beech 1900 after she'd gotten thrown out of her jumpseat in turbulence and gotten smoke in the cockpit on the -8.

Oh well...what people don't know can't hurt them. It can only make them look stupid to us. Viva pilot fans!
bandit.gif
 
Big and Small

Here's the funny thing, though: "big" and "small" are relative terms for some passengers. I offer you my mother, for example (just return her by 10:00 P.M., please): she LOVES flying in the Cessna 172s and 182s I fly, and when we go up in a Saratoga, she calls it the "big" plane--"luxurious" and "fast."

BUT, if she's riding the airlines, she absolutely dreads getting on Dash 8s or even ERJs. In fact, she has me make travel arrangements for her so as to ensure her she is on nothing smaller than an MD80! Why? She hates flying in those "small" planes!

Go figure!
confused.gif
 
Re: Big and Small

Although I loved flying the Saab, I can't say I was very fond of riding in the back of it. It was loud, uncomfortable, never quite at the right temperature, had a tiny-ass lavatory, and smelled all kinds of funky. I hold the same opinion of other turboprops (and some jets) in service today.

It isn't the airplane itself. It's the degradation of the industry in terms of cleanliness, comfort, and customer service. I actually thought this piece was quite funny to describe one persons opinion of a modern-day airline trip.

God forbid that someone expects a decent travel experience for their dollar. Let us not forget it is our own companies setting these low ticket prices, which are forcing such horrible cutbacks in service. Don't blame the consumer... they are paying our paychecks. Rhetorical question: Are you saying you wouldn't like a clean, quiet, comfortable ride on your ski vacation? Are you also saying you wouldn't want to look for the best bargain available?
 
Re: Big and Small

[ QUOTE ]
God forbid that someone expects a decent travel experience for their dollar.

[/ QUOTE ]

Great post. When service is less than optimal the tendency is to say "how much did you pay for your ticket?" The problem is, if that attitude isn't dropped in favor of making every customer contact as positive as possible, there is no rationale for ticket prices to come up. One of the ways you convince customers to pay more for a service or become a return customer is to give them more than they paid for. It doesn't work the other way around.
 
Re: Big and Small

[ QUOTE ]
One of the ways you convince customers to pay more for a service or become a return customer is to give them more than they paid for. It doesn't work the other way around.

[/ QUOTE ]

Absolutely. Until we, employees of the airline industry, realize that customer service and an increase in the quality of the product we produce is needed before ticket prices will rise, nothing will change. Delta, United... all these airlines want to be Southwest or an LCC. Face the facts: They cannot. You cannot run an airline with an extensive international and domestic route structure like these airlines do for the same operating cost. The only way to step above is to offer a better product, which in turn will make your company more desirable for a travel experience.

If you downsize your product to the level of service at Southwest, AirTran, JetBlue, you are removing the advantage that the legacy carriers have.

Of course you have people that will always go for price. But you have a similiar sized group that will also go for quality.
 
Re: Big and Small

Here is what author post today.

http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20041209/COLUMN/112090014


And now, a word from your pilot

By Andy Stone
December 9, 2004

Last week I wrote a column that was critical of the United Express flights operated by Mesa Air that serve Aspen (and Vail) with the propeller-driven DeHavilland Dash-8.

In that column, I compared Mesa's Gate B 61 at the Denver airport with the gates of hell and suggested that the rough flights on those prop planes were the kind of experience one might expect after passing through those gates of hell.

My cheerful comments have triggered an avalanche of e-mail expressing - by a 10-to-1 margin - the opinion that I am an "idiot." (Some writers preferred the term "ignorant." Others chose "stunningly uninformed." At least one felt that the proper word was "retard.")

A lot of those messages came, not surprisingly, from Mesa Air employees - although I had been careful to limit my criticism to the gate setup at DIA and the planes themselves.

But most of the messages came from Dash-8 pilots all over the country. One pointed out, "Pilots, like myself, get a little too personal when people write negative towards the equipment we fly."

And it's true, I did refer to the Dash-8 as a "dinky little prop plane" and I did comment that it "may be safe, but it flies lower and slower than the jets and it gets blown all over the sky."

And - ignorant, uninformed retard though I may be - I think I'll stick with those comments. (Although I certainly need to apologize for referring to a flight attendant as a "stewardess." Damn me for being so careless and politically incorrect.)

And I suppose the Dash-8 pilots will gladly stick with their low opinion of me. But never mind that. I figure that dishing out a certain amount of abuse and getting a certain amount in return is part of my job description.

What's interesting is the fact that the letters from those pilots - those Dash-8 pilots - revealed something else.

Those guys don't just hate me. They hate you - they hate the flying public in general and they really, really hate people who fly to Aspen.

Here, I'll let them speak for themselves. Following are some direct quotes from e-mails I received this week:

• "Stop your whining!!! You get what you pay for. When you pay 1970s ticket prices, what do you expect. ... Your ignorance is typical."

• "I suppose you feel you deserve hourly service to Aspen in a 747-400, first class, champagne service with a full meal and movie for $39 each way."

• "It would be great if the airlines raised the prices on tickets as to weed out the people that should be riding the bus anyway."

• "I hate to be the one to tell you sniveling fuss-budgets (read: the flying public) that YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. I'm sure that United Airlines would be happy to fly a Boeing 737 to Aspen or Telluride if the general public was willing to pay what it truly costs to fly. The fact is, they ain't."

• "Aspen passengers verbally harass our flight attendants the most, demand special treatment from our gate agents the most, and have the least respect for our equipment by leaving trash and food on board when they deplane. On more than one occasion after a flight to Aspen had been delayed or canceled, angry passengers have approached me, the captain (in uniform no less) in the terminal (and in full view of other passengers) and questioned my judgment using profanity and extreme disrespect. ... I had a woman uncage her lap dog in-flight so it could urinate on the floor of my aircraft."

• "Aspen passengers are in the top 3 most obnoxious passengers I have ever flown. ... You are a dumb ass. You simply reiterated all the stupidity that streams from passengers' mouths all day long."

So, that's how the people who fly Dash-8s feel about their customers.

And finally, here's a pilot's heartfelt advice for all of us in the back of the plane: "Passengers like you make this job miserable. The smartest thing you can do on an airplane is sit down, buckle your seat belt and be silent at least until the engines are running and I can't hear your stupidity any more."

So maybe I can sum it up for all of them this way - and, no, no one sent this to me in an e-mail, but it seems to be the general message I got from the men who fly Dash-8s:

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. From the flight deck, this is your pilot speaking. I hate you."

Andy Stone is former editor of The Aspen Times. His e-mail is andy@aspentimes.com
 
Re: Big and Small

Who cares what this guy says? The smart ones know that he is full of sh*t. Look at the following quote:

"Aspen passengers verbally harass our flight attendants the most, demand special treatment from our gate agents the most, and have the least respect for our equipment by leaving trash and food on board when they deplane. On more than one occasion after a flight to Aspen had been delayed or canceled, angry passengers have approached me, the captain (in uniform no less) in the terminal (and in full view of other passengers) and questioned my judgment using profanity and extreme disrespect. ... I had a woman uncage her lap dog in-flight so it could urinate on the floor of my aircraft."

The pilot has all the rights to say this. I've heard complaints from some pilots here too about passengers leaving garbage on the aircraft. As for the dog, I didn't even know they were allowed to be with the passengers.

I wish news stations were forbidden to say anything about aviation. Let one news station that actually knows what their talking about, publish aviation articles.

*Edited for spelling*
 
Re: Big and Small

You guys are missing the bigger picture.

Like I said in my first post in this thread..........I took his column to be a slam on the company providing the service at the DEN gates, and the general feeling towards that (with an obvious personal dislike towards props....so be it); not a slam on the aircrews themselves or those providing the service.

Many of the Dash pilots took offense to his story as if he was slamming them, which he never did. Some of the responses he received, from professional flightcrewmembes no less, aren't very professional in their format, unfortunately. Bad thing is, these comments (true or not) have further made the public feel that "those arrogant overpaid pilots......" are biting the hand that feeds them. If MAG had ever hoped, through their now-cancelled informational picketing at CLT and PHX or any other picketing, to get public support for their fight against low pay and QOL.....they very well may have burned that bridge.
 
must be a slow news day in Aspen again.......kinda funny how this guy just burned all those pilots with their own e-mails though
blush.gif
.

You have to admit, the guy is pretty good at what he does.
 
I think I'll write to him.

Watch me do something fun with him.

I won't be rude, won't be combative, I'll just say this.

[/i]You know, Andy, you could have saved yourself all those angry emails if you had just added one little line in your column:

Now, this is not the fault of the employees, who do the best they can.

That wouldn't have been so hard, would it?

They felt -- and with all the media coverage that's so negative these days, can you blame them -- that you were personally insulting them.

So of course they're going to be angry and negative.

Something to think about, Andy.[/i]

There will be other stuff in there, but that's going to be how I open it.
 
Of course if you are a professional in an industry, any industry but especially aviation, you need to not take critcism too personally. The correct response is to see if it is valid (some of this was) and try to correct it. But going to war with a critical customer is not cool.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I think I'll write to him.

Watch me do something fun with him.

I won't be rude, won't be combative, I'll just say this.

[/i]You know, Andy, you could have saved yourself all those angry emails if you had just added one little line in your column:

Now, this is not the fault of the employees, who do the best they can.

That wouldn't have been so hard, would it?

They felt -- and with all the media coverage that's so negative these days, can you blame them -- that you were personally insulting them.

So of course they're going to be angry and negative.

Something to think about, Andy.[/i]

There will be other stuff in there, but that's going to be how I open it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tony,

I don't think he necessarily needed to put that in his article, for if you read it, he never once does slam the aircrews. What he writes is a damning piece on Mesa's management and corporate culture......something they should be getting worried about if they really care about customer service.

The pilots screwed up in two ways: 1. Taking his letter personally, and 2. Writing back in such an unprofessional style that simply reinforced the "elitest" and "overpaid" attitude much of the public has of airline pilots.

THIS is exactly why ALPA has public affairs folks for; just to respond to this kind of media stuff. He's a professional writer and the pilots tried to take him on his own turf using terrible tactics. He simply used what they wrote......they wrote it, and their true feelings about the pax they fly (their customers.....remember?) came out in print for all to see. That was the STUPIDEST thing the pilots could've done, IMO. Hell, the article wasn't even about them, but THEY chose to read into it......read into a meaning that wasn't even there.....and their TRUE colors came out for all to see in print.

The pilots screwed themselves here. Forget anymore public support for these guys if they wish to picket pay and QOL, for they'll get no public support from a public that "they hate" (in the public's mind). Jon Ornstein couldn't have asked for a better coup here.

Everyone: Put your biases away for a moment and look at something objectively for once. This guy was simply a messenger writing his opinion on service that had nothing to do with pilots. Don't kill the messenger.....slam the pilots that screwed themselves, and possibly their future.
 
Re: Big and Small

[ QUOTE ]
Until we, employees of the airline industry, realize that customer service and an increase in the quality of the product we produce is needed...The only way to step above is to offer a better product, which in turn will make your company more desirable for a travel experience.

[/ QUOTE ]
Precisely.
Enter NetJets, and the other fractionals.
I find it kind of comical when I ride in (airline) First Class and listen to people talk about how terrible it is to ride coach. Our owners talk about what poor service is in First Class.
 
Re: Big and Small

...meaning...?

I bet some of the people who own there own jets talk about how bad it would be if you were sharing a jet and someone else was using "their" plane last week.
 
Hey, I agree with you 100 percent. The pilots shafted themselves because they blew up and wrote when they were pissed off.

Never a good idea.

I think I'm going to forward this thread on to my buddy who works in ALPA's PR department so that hopefully, the professionals who deal with the media can smooth this one over.
 
Re: Big and Small

[ QUOTE ]
...meaning...?

I bet some of the people who own there own jets talk about how bad it would be if you were sharing a jet and someone else was using "their" plane last week.

[/ QUOTE ]
I am quite sure they do. We do, thankfully, have over 3000 owners who think it is great.

It was United Airlines who said we put such dent in their first class passengers that they attempted to compete by forming Avolar. A failed attempt at a major airline run fractional.
 
Re: Big and Small

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
...meaning...?

I bet some of the people who own there own jets talk about how bad it would be if you were sharing a jet and someone else was using "their" plane last week.

[/ QUOTE ]
I am quite sure they do. We do, thankfully, have over 3000 owners who think it is great.

It was United Airlines who said we put such dent in their first class passengers that they attempted to compete by forming Avolar. A failed attempt at a major airline run fractional.

[/ QUOTE ]

Beleve it or not there are thosands of people fly the airlines each day who actually do like the service the get.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top