Originally Posted by ayecarumba

TINS...years ago FLT OPS put out an article about how an ER CA flying out of Cairo delayed a "payload optimized" flight to put non-revs on. He had been approached by non-revs who were stranded for days and found he had a 1000# tolerance (more on this later) on his WDR. He asked dispatch and load planning to nix the tolerance so he could put a few non-revs on (you know, "family" members in mgt parlance). As the OCC was scratching their heads with what to do, the CA put a few non-revs on his empty airplane and departed.

I wouldn't have minded the article if somewhere in there MGT/FLTOPS had said "We know the CA was trying to do the right thing and take care of our people..." Instead, it was a one-way diatribe about the CA had cost the company money and there were misconnects for other passengers since the CA "assembled the team" and tried to get the OCC to help, incurring a delay.

This sounds eerily similar to the above and would not surprise me one bit.

PS: the OCC/Load Planning got rid of the standard 1000# tolerance as a result of this incident in case you were ever wondering where it went.

Originally Posted by sailingfun

He said it was a MD90. Quite easy on that aircraft.