LivingInMEM

FDXLAG:

The problem seems to be the ramp derived numbers - if they are using both, there is always the chance that the wrong ones will be transcribed. If the cargo is listed in kg locally, and the fuel is listed in pounds on the aircraft, etc - then the confusion level would still go up.

If you are taking about having only the cargo be displayed in both on the FP/R, but everything else be in pounds; that would probably be a good solution as long as you looked at the manifest (or whatever they call the source loading document) and confirmed that the KG listed on the manifest matches the KG (not the lbs) on the FP/R (i.e. that they didn't convert first and enter lbs instead of KG into the KG entry field).

FDXFLYR

SZX once loaded us overweight. The captain told them to download until we got under weight and the ramp agent returned not 2 minutes later saying the download was complete and presented us with a new WB document. What are the chances they actually took something off and completed the documents in just 2 minutes? But we couldn't prove them wrong since we didn't actually see the action going on outside. The more I operate in China and hear of the issues others have had to deal with, the more I am amazed we have done so well so far. No thanks to a system that withholds critical data from the operating crews.

We just trust they did something as error-prone as math in their native system and converted it correctly into our system. Trust I believe is unearned. I like FDXLAG's suggestion that international ramps list their data in both units of measurement when it's other than pounds, and give me the data necessary to double-check their work.

LivinginMEM is correct: they owe us specific data not simple eye wash, which is what I expect we will receive. How does EL in Safety keep his job?

Sideshow Bob

This kind of crap seems a common Asian thing unfortunately, which brings in the whole "loss of face" bugaboo complicating matters. Years ago at the old HKG airport when we (UPS) were operating 747-100's (mega-pig) the loading supervisor would attack the engineer even before making it up the stairs saying "what max pay load, what max payload" before we even got near the paperwork. Often when hot, or the wind necessitated a takeoff toward Kowloon, or there was an MEL performance hit we'd give them numbers they didn't like well into or after the loading process. When I was a plumber, and in charge of computing MTOW I was the bearer of bad news, often enduring the inevitable circumnavigation to the captain, who would shrug his shoulders sending them back to me, which if in sight of his subordinates would result in loss of face and much breathing through teeth. I would give him the amended number and he would disappear and return soon thereafter with a "new" weight and balance. At that old airport, it wasn't uncommon to dust off the departure end of the runway at max EGT with the knowledge by all on board that V1 was indeed a fairy tail at best even when loaded accurately. More than one crew (and perhaps even mine unknowingly) were the victim of the Cantonese bait and switch over the years, where as you guys allude they only lighten the weight and balance. One day when they tried the routine I wasn't up to my ears in other duties, I surreptitiously followed the load sup and observed that indeed nothing had been removed, and that he was trying to send us over the bay over 20,000 over the max computed TOW. I called him on it, and the captain ordered the whole plane unloaded and each can weighed in front of us, uncovering the deception. Likely worse than his firing (and perhaps new job at a shoe factory) the biggest humiliation for him was the disgrace (loss of face) in front of his subordinates by the heathen gweilo. It was all I could do to keep my skipper from mopping the ramp with his face. Oddly enough they remembered me from then on and didn't try that trick again.

FDXFLYR

Sideshow Bob,

As I was writing my last post I was thinking that it would take a captain refusing the flight until the freight was downloaded and re-weighed before procedures would change. I think what you guys did was great yet unfortunate that so much time and energy had to be wasted in order to just get the support folks to simply do their job.

K4FE

Unfortunately the practice is not just common to Asia. Been to South America lately?