13 hours ago, HighBypass said:

I've not flown on them either Jude,I just watched the documentary, but then again it's been many years since I was in an airliner; family holidays are invariably in England, not to mention a limited budget. 

I always get a kick out of watching "come fly with me". The have it down to a "T".

 

17 hours ago, busdriver said:

I remember my share of cranky, nasty captains, and thankfully they have all retired. There are still some around, and back when I was an FO, I would go to great lengths to avoid them. Thankfully hiring and training has evolved.

You could have fooled me lol. Whilst it is generally true that most of the flight deck personnel are pleasant, there are still quite a few around who are thoroughly obnoxious when you're on the headset or chatting to them about the load plan or whatever. Last night I had both ends of the spectrum - a private B737-300 which was flying the Manchester United team into Manchester had a first officer who was so obnoxious that one of our guys told him to 'shut the f up, shut your window and stop bothering us mate, because even though you are obviously keen to get towed off the stand, we find that's not a good idea when half of your cargo is still being unloaded' and another guy on the ramp apparently asked him if he 'wanted a slap' lol. But, later on in the morning, there was an A321 crew who despite obviously being quite busy, were thoroughly pleasant and professional in the comms when we were pushing them out and monitoring their engine start.

We are always pleasant on the headset regardless of how they are with us, and personally, even if they are rude and unprofessional, I always make a point of saying 'have a nice flight' just before I go off the headset, and I always give them a cheery wave off too. But I've found that with obnoxious crews, it is possible to say 'have a nice flight' in such a way as to convey it as meaning 'I hope you get stuck in the hold for 45 minutes at your destination, and when you do eventually land, I hope they make you taxi to a remote stand where it takes almost an hour to get some steps onto your aeroplane, and then I hope it is raining and you've forgotten your car keys, you miserable git'.

Of course nearly all crews are mad keen to crank their engines the moment they start rolling two inches backwards off the stand, and we do have to be firm with them and point out that we've actually got a better view of what is behind them and so we will tell them when it is okay to crank the rubber bands in order not to kill anyone in the vicinity, not least because we're only supposed to let them do it when they've reached the TRP, but other than that, thankfully most of them are okay being both professional and pleasant. Some of them even know what all the various antennas, hatches and other bits and bobs etc are, which stick out of their aeroplane, when they do a walkaround lol.

I suppose it is no different with any other job people do; you get some who are pleasant and some who you want to slap, as for me, I firmly believe that good manners don't cost anything, but are often rewarded. 🙂

Edited July 31, 20196 yr by Chock

sadly,most of the type's are all still around everywhere.Over 40 years as an engineer i dealt with the lot and unfortunately still have too.

Reading these  i thought i would mention a couple of stories that happened to me regarding captains. A few years ago on a really bad snowy night everything was running late because of de icing and snow clearance. I had a captain that did nothing but moan about time taken and blamed me about the weather!! Of course just at that point the snow stopped and he said right i'm going now! To which my polite reply was "no your not you have not been de iced". Now technically he makes the final decision on deicing but in 40 years i've never had a crew go against my advise when it comes to that sort of thing. His reply was"see those big whirly things on the wings that will blow the snow off" (it was a j41 aircraft) after another short curt discussion the result was me walking off to have a chat with my boss at the time and a phonecall to the captains chief pilot. By that point he had been deiced and we were all ready to go,and he went merily on his way about 45mins late.

I thought that was the end of it,but the following day i had another phonecall from his chief pilot asking me if i could put in writing what had happened the previous night,which i did,it turns out that there had been several reports of this captain pushing his weight around and this had been the final straw

. Due to the safety issues he was demoted back to the right hand seat. As a side note on that a cargo aircraft crashed that night because of incorrect de icing and both crew were killed.

I also had a captain once swear at me because, i hadn't spoken to him first !

Which would have been fine(not the swearing)except the aircraft was still under my authority and the crew had not even arrived, which ended with an appology from him when the aircraft was about to be blacked.

I've had passengers demand that i tell them what i'm doing to THEIR aircraft.

What i do miss though these days is crews that fully know the aircraft they are flying! Too many times now, things go in the book that are put in as defects and are not defects at all. You just have to smile and say "yea we will take a look" 

For the most part though flight crews are great, and will always defer to us if they are not sure on something technical or safety related.

Cabin crews on the other hand ..... Well lets just leave that there.

 

11 hours ago, mazelda said:

... Too many times now, things go in the book that are put in as defects and are not defects at all. ..

That sounds a little dangerous - the crew not fully knowing their aeroplane, not the entry in the book I mean... 

 

Alan - love the antennas comment! 

8 hours ago, HighBypass said:

That sounds a little dangerous - the crew not fully knowing their aeroplane, not the entry in the book I mean... 

Unfortunatly it does happen, although you get to know the  Captains and FO's that are liable put something in the book. They get better over time and thankfully there are not that many of them. 

 

On 7/30/2019 at 10:38 AM, F737NG said:

Best check-in baggage item?




 

Hmm....now you're giving me ideas for my next trip....

Saw a rolling pin checked in last night. Presumably it'll go with the wooden spoon, or possibly be used to assault the person who checked that beer in lol.

In my time being in this career field, I have noticed one thing....

Passengers' IQ drops by 50% when they step foot on airport property and then it drops another 50% when they step on the airplane. Sadly, for some crew members, this is true as well. 

 

Some of you have mentioned that FOs these days are getting a bit "interesting" or "pushy."

I have noticed the same thing lately at my airline. I had an FO literally come close to tears because I wouldn't allow her to tell the fueler to add 1000 lbs. We didn't need anywhere near that amount of fuel for the weather up ahead....maybe an extra 400 lbs max. This is on a crj-200....

I have had other FOs try to delegate things to me and my other crew members. I don't get it....oh well though...you roll with the punches I suppose.

5 hours ago, ahsmatt7 said:

In my time being in this career field, I have noticed one thing....

Passengers' IQ drops by 50% when they step foot on airport property and then it drops another 50% when they step on the airplane. Sadly, for some crew members, this is true as well. 

 

Some of you have mentioned that FOs these days are getting a bit "interesting" or "pushy."

I have noticed the same thing lately at my airline. I had an FO literally come close to tears because I wouldn't allow her to tell the fueler to add 1000 lbs. We didn't need anywhere near that amount of fuel for the weather up ahead....maybe an extra 400 lbs max. This is on a crj-200....

I have had other FOs try to delegate things to me and my other crew members. I don't get it....oh well though...you roll with the punches I suppose.

CR200!? Air Whiskey?

On 8/1/2019 at 4:51 PM, busdriver said:

CR200!? Air Whiskey?

No....OO the other crj based outta ORD lol

6 minutes ago, ahsmatt7 said:

No....OO the other crj based outta ORD lol

 

Know you guys well. I got an RA once because of them! 😥

11 hours ago, busdriver said:

 

Know you guys well. I got an RA once because of them! 😥

Wasn't me. An actual RA though? Wow....doesn't surprise me though. We could chat more in private about such things lol.

I have LCA class in September....I'll try to help out to fix said issues.