Cujo

ANC is a bad place...stay away...too many long trips and no time to recover...no sunlight...Beware!

FX Bone Guy

According to the MD at IND, here's some of the the main problems they were dealing with last night.

• 11 of 30 de-ice trucks broke last night
• The de-ice people have 100% turnover every year
• There was no plan for refilling the de-ice trucks - they all ran out at nearly the same time, then they were waiting at the re-fill station.

Some fixes in work:

• More trucks on order
• 4 fill points (for the trucks) instead of 2
• They will implement the 4 trucks spraying at each de-ice location/ two on standby to switch out when the first two spraying trucks get 50% empty.
• Get AGE (GOC?) mainenance to service the broken de-ice trucks on the ramp, instead of making the de-ice trucks drive to the maintenance location: Max speed is 4MPH for the trucks.

Some stuff I didn't know:

• The PTOCC vehicles at the end of the runway are not allowed to De-ice/anti-ice planes (with fluid) because of environmental law.

What is being addressed:

• Ordering catering for everyone based on a forecast.
• Implementing a wave launch for nights like that.
• Better communication to the aircrews

Bitme

The 100% turnover argument has been used as long as I've been here. I got an idea; why not use one of those "Special Projects" guys and tie their whole years salary to a successful program that would duplicate year after year. Yeah, that's the ticket. The bottom line is it doesn't get the priority it needs because they have the "Weather" get out of jail free card so there isn't that much money lost........just customer good will.

FlyerJosh

I don't work for FedEx, but if you think that you're the only company with deicing problems, you're crazy...

With the exception of airports that have dedicated central deice facilities or deal with the snow on a day to day basis during the winter (MEM, ANC, YYZ, MSP, etc), it's ALWAYS going to be screwed up.

You can't stop turnover. Anybody that's been in a deice bucket in the winter knows that it sucks. (Been there- done that).

And there's only so much that management is willing to spend (particularly in southern/moderate climates where you don't deice every day or even every week). Deice trucks aren't cheap, and carrying the extra staff to man them when you don't need them for regular ops is a lot more expensive than taking a hit every now and then...

My take? Sit back- grab a cup o joe and a good book and watch the show. Remember that while you're getting ****ed off (for something that ultimately you can't control), there are a dozen poor SOB's doing the best they can in crappy conditions.

Write your letters if you feel it will help, but at the end of the day when things most likely won't change, take it in stride and carry on.

KnightFlyer

Sit out there from 3am to 8am after a 9pm start and we'll see how much of the "show" you'll enjoy.

MaydayMark

FlyerJosh,

It's much more complicated than your "outside" view of our belly-aching. Here's my view on this topic. Thousands of FedEx pilots (and tens of thousands of other FedEx employees) do an extraordinary job getting packages delivered to their destinations on a daily basis. We're REALLY proud of the REALLY good job that we do.

So ... it's REALLY frustrating when we see "kinks" in the system that could have been (and should have been) anticipated in advance. This isn't the first time a new airline ran into bad winter weather. We should be able to expect the folks that support flight operations are qualified and ready to support our customers needs. There really isn't a good excuse for them not to be.

Have fun watching the snow from your airplane. I'd prefer to get to my destination with our customer's packages on time after working all night.

Regards ... Mark

Daniel Larusso

About as much as I enjoyed it after starting the day out at 6am and being still at 16 hours later with a reduced rest coming. Still doesn't change the fact that the guy made some valid points about deicing crews industry wide. You guys really think that the other guys out there don't see the same types of things at their airlines that we do at ours and wish they could get it sorted out properly?

Busboy

No. We just care more about the problems at our airline.

Just because other companies may have the same problem...Doesn't mean it shouldn't get fixed!!

And, I don't care what anyone says. When things like that happen on the night shift...It's much, much more painful.

MAWK90

Folks, here's the reality. A full-out de-ice event MIGHT happen 2 or 3 times per year in either MEM or IND. I am not referring to getting squirted down for frost, I mean a no kidding PTOCC necessary event. It costs FedEx MONEY, and lots of it, to retool the de-icing infrastructure to be prepared as though we were constantly operating out of ice-station zebra. IF there are service failures like the ones resulting from the IND situation - WE PASS IT ON TO THE CUSTOMER. FEDEX doesn't see a need to spend the capital to prevent something that we don't pay for anyway.

I don't agree with that philosophy and ANY time I am in the jet I make it incumbent upon myself to operate an on-schedule or early trip. I try to imagine that there has got to be a bunch of stuff on the aircraft that is super time-sensitive or we wouldn't be hauling it. It's just that the bean-counters don't care that deeply.

IMHO of course which is normally ignored anyway!

Cheers

FDXLAG

And we can't even play with our Scoobie snacks at indie.