"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?"

Snow

Snow

'Not a new member'
\"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

"Two pilots, both men, at Southwest Airlines may have the answer to this question after they were fired for apparently taking off their uniforms in the cockpit and flying a plane virtually naked. "We did conduct a thorough investigation and terminated the two pilots for inappropriate conduct," said Southwest spokeswoman Ginger Hardage, who said she could not comment on any of the details of the incident. According to sources at the company, a flight attendant saw the pilots in their almost completely undressed state when summoned into the cockpit on a flight several months ago. The pilots, who were terminated earlier this month, have appealed, saying they had spilled coffee on their uniforms. The airline did not buy the excuse and sees this as a prank gone awry that cannot be tolerated, the source said."
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

This has been posted before. I personally do not think it is that big of a deal. Tell them not to do it again, and get back to more important things. Aslong as they did not put any of the passengers at risk, I really see no need for such action. I will tell you that getting rid of the person who told on them would be top priority, people like that just cause problems. I saw a guy at the swapmeet the other day with a shirt that read: Part time UPS employee; full time teamster, he also would be on the top of my list of people to get rid off. Trouble makers they are!

Snow FYI I am coming down to skippy-land later this summer. Doesn't every Britian have to make the Neighbours piligramage!
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Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

What's wrong with the teamsters?
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

Just their lack of comittment to the company.

Just an additional note about employer/employee relationships. When I start my own company, it will be open book; all employees can see all the numbers. Also every employee will be able to decide their own salary, then they just have to proove to the company they are worth it.
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

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Just their lack of comittment to the company.

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Precipitated by the company's lack of commitment to the employee.

Enron, Global Crossing, MCI, AA, UAL, DAL ...

It's a two way street!

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Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

IS there such a thing as "company loyalty to it's employees" anymore?
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

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IS there such a thing as "company loyalty to it's employees" anymore?

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Was there ever such a thing?

Seriously, look at the railroads, look at miners, look at our histroy - hell the history of the world - and you'll find a tendancy among the management to exploit the labor.

Take a look at any society during the (or their) "Industrial Revolution" and you'll see labor exploitation - and if anyone thinks those days are over, think again. It's just done in a different way and controlled a little more but it still happens.
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

My take on the situation is: If you do not like your job, quit and find one you like, do not use unions to make the job the way you want it.

There are problems at the top end, however managers are in a similar situation with the shareholders.
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

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Enron, Global Crossing, MCI, AA, UAL, DAL ...

[/ QUOTE ]

FYI, it was Worldcom that went TU, not MCI. Technicality, I know.
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

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My take on the situation is: If you do not like your job, quit and find one you like, do not use unions to make the job the way you want it.

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Why should I have to leave a job that is otherwise acceptable to me? Why should I have to go through the expense of finding a new job when the managers are the ones (if that is the case, obviously) exploiting the workforce? Why don't the managers leave if they don't like the unions?

I absoloutely hate this argument - it is the most defeatist and pessimistic ideal I've ever heard.
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

Iain I totally disagree. Unions are what keep the balance in check. It's not all blind alligience to a company, taking whatever they want to give you. Hell look at aviation, practically everything's unionized.

Basically you shouldn't have to get reamed to keep your job. Management represents one group with lots of power, workers alone have very little power. However, when the workers unite that's when things happen for the better.
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

I think a lot needs to be done in the area of employee/employer relations, however the thing I dislike about unions is the inflated wages and benefits. Shouldn't the market set your pay and the perks you get?
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

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If you do not like your job, quit and find one you like, do not use unions to make the job the way you want it.


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"Lisa, you don't strike. If you don't like your job you just do it really half assed. That's the American way!"
Homer Simpson
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

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IS there such a thing as "company loyalty to it's employees" anymore?

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There never has been, and there never will be. There's one place where I used to work where they laid off five people, who combined made less than 25 percent of what the CEO made. The CEO flapped his overpaid, underworked gums about people needing to sacrifice but then he went ahead and accepted a ten percent raise.

My advice to anyone is to go ahead and get every dime you can from your employer, because when it comes down to it, the management is going to shaft you no matter how much they talk about employees being their most important asset.

And make them pay you NOW, don't let them promise you something in a pension, because as we saw from AMR, they'll screw you on that, too.
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

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however the thing I dislike about unions is the inflated wages and benefits.

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Unions don't inflate pay - they keep pay/benes from being artifically lowered. The job of a CEO/manager is to pay as little as possible for labor, materials, services, etc while selling his or her product or service at the highest cost all in the name of maximizing profit. Why should I trust my financial well being to someone whose job it is to pay me as little for my services as possible?

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Shouldn't the market set your pay and the perks you get?

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Ahh like the "market forces" at work setting the compensation for CEOs? Sure, if employees were paid under the same market "rules" as CEOs I'd jump all over it - but there is a double standard. The median income of CEOs rose 14% to 13.2 Million in 2002 while the total return ofthe S&P 500 (the companies these guys are RESPONSIBLE for) fell 22.1%! Execs are being paid more for doing less and in some cases simply for showing up! Seriously, go check out series of Fortune articles. It's absoloutely ridiculous what's going on.
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

Iain, if the market determined pay conditions, we'd basically all be working for squat. People love to fly and if you look around the bend and down the road, the idea that this could end up a minimum wage job isn't all that crazy.

Lets use this for example. Air Tran, for a period of time, did not pay pilots for cancelled flights. Seems like a good idea because if the company isn't going to generate revenue, they don't incur a loss on paying a crew for non-performance of duty.

However, herein lies the rub. You're a captain with a mortgage, a wife and three kids. Your radar isn't testing correctly and there are forecast thunderstorms along your route of flight. They seem fairly scattered so you feel comfortable visually maintaining separation from the weather and that you can write up the radar once you hit Atlanta, which is your airline's maintenance base.

The FARs, your Operations Manual and good common sense say that you're not supposed to operate without a operative radar in an area of forecast convective activity.

But if you cancel the flight, you don't get paid, get home late and run the risk of getting 'called on the carpet' by your chief pilot for cancelling a flight at an 'outstation' without maintenance.

So you decide to blast off and attempt to glean weather information from ATC enroute and try to shadow other aircraft, with an operative radar, around the thunderstorms.

Low and behold, you run right into a level 4 or 5 cell, get the aircraft damned near destroyed and almost kill an entire DC-9's worth of passengers and crew because of fear of not getting paid for a cancelled (or delayed) flight, or getting fired.

This actually happened.

It's extraordinarily easy to look in from the outside and judge the usefulness of organized labor in the airline business, but from my experience of working for a period of time at a non-union airline, I'd chose an organized carrier over a non-organized carrier any day.

Besides, the media's number one darling Southwest is a pro-labor, highly unionized company -- I think they have a higher percentage of union members than any other airline.
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

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Unions don't inflate pay - they keep pay/benes from being artifically lowered.

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Yup.

Labor is a cost, just like fuel.

Airlines could care less is "Company A" provides better fuel and service than "Company B" because "Company B" sells fuel for $.03 cheaper.

Labor is seen the same way. If airlines had the ability to hire a temp firm to provide crewmembers and then had the ability to put an annual contract up for bid from several competing temp firms, they'd be on that like flies on a rib roast.

Pilots, like fuel, are a cost and not seen as a commodity.

Believe me, as long as you don't crash a jet or hurt corporate's reputation, they couldn't care less about the ability to feed your family, your happiness, or vacation time.

There is a company, who shall remain nameless, that after the terrorist strike in 2001, the very next month put out an angry memo about sick leave usage. Nevermind that a large percentage of the group was suffering severe post traumatic stress, others were scared •less, emotional strife and tremendous anxiety. All of that degrades you bodies immune system and you do get sick more often.

But sick leave spiked in September 2001 and the "bean counters" were absolutely livid and quite frankly wanted blood and some 'make an example' firings.
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

As I mentioned before, labour relations are not where they need to be by any standards. Unions and the traditional though of management are not making this better.

>>Airlines could care less is "Company A" provides better fuel and service than "Company B" because "Company B" sells fuel for $.03 cheaper<<

Doug you are missing the point, it is not a matter of the fuel being better, but the better managed operation will be able to sell the fuel cheaper due to better effiency!
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

Which I think is the problem.

Today's MBA's and Harvard grads are too entirely focused on "managing" employees, instead of "leading" employees.

For example, there is an airline (not the one I work for) that was seeing a lot of delays between flights. The pilots would hop out of the aircraft, grab a sandwich and run back to the aircraft when they got hungry.

Instead of using "leadership" to determine what the problem was, they decided to "manage" the problem and form a policy that prohibited the pilots from leaving the aircraft between flights (other than walk arounds) to improve operational performance.

As a "manager", that was a pretty smooth move because his numbers looked great and delay diminished. There's a big fat bonus next quarter waiting for him. But in the process he transformed a few employees that didn't give a crap into several hundred that don't give a f--k.

But a true "leader" would have recognized that pilots need proper nutrition and at least a meal opportunity during a long, multi-legged day and would have pressured marketing to build at least a small break for the pilots. Or determined that you can fix your on time performance by having a couple of simple sandwiches available for your flight crew. $6 to $8 and voila, your flights are running on time again.

"Managers" deal with numbers, coefficients and attempt to "lead by memo".

"Leaders" motivate people to perform at their best, as part of a team.

Compare Herb Kelleher to Don Carty. Herb's a true leader and the people would darned near commit murder for him. Don Carty's a manager and probably spends a lot on personal security and body guards.
 
Re: \"Where does a pilot pin his wings if he is flying in the nude?\"

Doug, I respect your opinion especially knowing all your experience with employer/employee relations at both a unionized and non-unionized airline. I was raised in an ultra conservative family my god-father was the leader of conservative party in the UK (while they were in power), I attended a very conservative boarding school which is attended by Iain Duncan Smiths (representative of the conservative party to Parliment) children, and the University I went to the old chancellor was non other then Margret Thatcher, so it is quite easy to tell where my view point comes from. I class you as a friend, and will happily stop discussing these things that really go nowhere with you, and get onto more important subjects like beer, playmates, and ofcourse airplanes! Take Care Man!
 
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