How about who gives a rats [fungal toenail]. Airline flying is extremely boring, who cares, lets keep it that way.

If you were fortunate enough to fly fighters, you know what it was like. Others who haven't can only wonder, but you know...

That said, in my life I have seen that typically the amount of boasting one does about their fighter career is inversely proportional to the amount of chatter they do later about it. The Mig/Mirage killers I know...one a board regular...typically are quite humble and quiet. The guy who barely made 2 ship or maybe 4 ship lead before going back to ATC won't shut up.

Be proud of what you did, but remember the aggressor motto: Be humble.

All I was talking about was the ridiculousness of this comment......I think we can all agree.
Everyone knows that no one gives a damn
He [apple pie] on some dude for saying he has respect for military folk, [carrot ginger soup] on "double breasted admirals" for talking about how awesome they are, and then told us that he has done "a wee bit more exciting flying on 6 continents" then military folk in the same breath.
The jump to disrespect for civilian flying (which I am exclusively a part of now) is your problem, I fail to connect those dots. But then again I am pretty stupid.

Let us not forget that captain crazy pants went on a rant for an event THAT DIDNT [fried okra]ING HAPPEN AND WAS A PRANK ON GUARD!

sweet 8lb baby jesus
at 16 months at big D now I have never heard a captain talk about his past credentials during the welcome PA fwiw.
that is all from me on this

Agreed Albief15.
My father never really talked about his "job" in WWII. I got to puzzle it out later. J.C.!!!
I've always found the loudest a** in the room tends to be the least competent and most insecure.

And dude, [Cobb salad with string cheese] with this crap as you have an f15 in your name and a 4 ship of light grays as your picture....lol. hypocrite

You can call a lot of guys out on here. Albie is one of the classiest guys around. I'd move on.

You dudes take the Internet way too seriously. Wow.

TOTD to Doug Parker for this:


https://skift.com/2016/06/14/america...in-lose-money/

American Airlines CEO Says Industry May Never Again Lose Money

The U.S. airline industry has been so transformed in the past five years that the nation’s largest carriers may never again report annual losses, American Airlines CEO Doug Parker told investors recently.

“My personal view is that you won’t see losses in the industry at all,” said Parker, speaking June 8 at American’s annual meeting. “We have gotten to the point where we like other businesses will have good years and bad years, but the bad years will not be cataclysmic. They will just be less good than the good years.”

Parker has long been optimistic, believing airline consolidation has turned Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and American into formidable, sustainable businesses that can weather economic downturns. He even argues American and its competitors can withstand an increase in fuel prices, something they struggled with in 2008, when oil prices jumped unexpectedly.

To illustrate his point, Parker compared American’s 2005 to 2015. In both years, he said, the price of oil cost roughly $55 per barrel. Also in both years, U.S airlines had just about the same number of seats in the marketplace. But in 2005, the overall U.S. economy was growing more rapidly than today, measured by gross domestic product.

Yet in 2005, in what might be considered slightly more favorable conditions, the industry lost roughly $28 billion, while a decade later, in similar conditions, airlines earned $19 billion.

“That’s the difference between life and death,” Parker said. “This is the difference between a business that was dysfunctional and one the edge of insolvency at all times and one that this vibrant and growing and taking care of its customers and employees.”

Parker presented a straight-forward argument for why the industry has changed. He noted that, after a series of mergers, U.S. airlines went from being “fragmented, inefficient [and] unfocused,” to being rational competitors intent on earning returns for shareholders. In the past, carriers were more likely to engage in costly market share battles, which may have hurt earnings. Now, Parker said, U.S. airlines are interested in growing where they can make money. When routes do not perform, airlines often drop them.

American and its competitors are also working to eradicate other problems, Parker said. One is labor-management tensions, long prevalent at all carriers, but especially at American. Nearly every carrier, including American, is rewarding employees with lucrative contracts and hefty profit-sharing payments, and industry morale has generally improved, though it remains to be seen whether carriers can keep paying hefty wages if business becomes less profitable. Carriers have also started planning for the long term, not just one year at at time as they did in the past, Parker said.

“We need to believe that our company and our industry has been fundamentally changed, that things are now different,” Parker said. “It is permanent and it is structural and it is changed.”

Still, even Parker acknowledged the industry will remain cyclical. If oil spikes or the U.S. faces a major terrorist event, demand and profits will slow. But Parker said airlines will be able to withstand it much better than in the past.

“We aren’t suggesting there won’t be cycles in the future,” he said. “There will be. We are a business that is tied to the economic cycles. We are a cyclical business. But we are starting at such a much higher level, that our view is when the down cycles come, you won’t see losses again.”

From the United Forum:


I don't know but do you think this guy deserves 'Tool of the Day'? Normal decorum should dictate family members are out of bounds.

It's a shady 80 thing, mostly Atlanta.....It absolutely happens.

I've heard it in the back of the plane. Not to the extent of counting cats/traps, but giving branch of service, platform and total hours of flight time.

Actually, much to my surprise, a lot of the customers dug it.

Funny thing is...Ask your ex-military buddies to think of the worst pilots they ever flew with. Then ask them where they work now.

Yes, happens quite frequently. Before I flew myself I spent a lot of time in back, well, still do, probably 5% of flights from there had a "bio" from the captain.

Whoa, you did a full CATIII coupled autoland? IIIa or IIIb? Awesome!

I do appreciate your posts, and the irony and humor appears to be completely lost, or under-appreciated.

Yes, it is seriously entertaining! I fear that the ****ers are absolutely serious though. :rolleyes:

I guess I'll cut back on the PA's regarding my days as Red Leader and my 15 Tie-Fighter kills.

That was then. This is now -- we are paid to transport our passengers safely, not regale our daring exploits during the rebellion.

But still: More than a few of my passengers liked it.

That's a good point. Silly and hokey PA's by the Flight Attendants make me wince too, but I'm not the target audience, nor the arbiter of good taste for nervous and cranky passengers.

Saw the new safety video during a deadhead yesterday..no slapstick humor, just FA's from different countries doing a tasteful, painless brief. Welcome change...:D

Jmho..

Alas, I guess long gone are the days of who could deliver the coolest (not dopiest) PAX briefing; trying to make something out of a zombie scripted monolog in order to get just a bit more attention paid to it, maybe.

Soooooo to another old subject. Yesterday a United guy made his farewell address to the pax on guard. Of course as soon as the squelch clicked about 40 guys chimed in for several minutes of heckling nonsense. I was quite surprised at how fast it became anti-Delta.. Meanwhile the poor idiot over open water in his SE cessna loses an engine and can't get a word in (not really).

The tools are all the guys allowing the idiot next to them to play on the radio.. and me for laughing.

Well, not much a regional FO can say or do when it's the captain engaging in <donkey>hattery.

I'd estimate that maybe 5% of pax pay attention to whatever we're blabbing from the front office.

I strongly prefer those CAs who limit their communication to a quick welcome aboard, and nothing else aside from updates on delays or other irregularities. Most pax ignore announcements, or can't understand them, or just want to be left to watch their iPad or sleep in peace.

And while we're on the topic, if you do choose to give a destination weather announcement, why in the name of all that's holy do some guys include the altimeter setting, visibility, the exact wind speed and direction, and exact altitude of the broken or overcast layer? Aside from pilots and sailors, nobody cares or knows what an altimeter setting is. Nor do they care whether it's a broken layer at 2,200 or an overcast layer at 3,500. What's next? A briefing on the NOTAMs?

Welll, You might have to walk to the terminal with some of these LCC's and knowing which taxiways are closed would be helpful.:D

I think a good, informative and complete PA should include the field NOTAMs.

Some of our passengers might be alarmed at the sudden sight of tractor cutting the grass mere feet from the wingtips after landing and non-standard signage at some destinations.

;)

Why, just the other day I heard a passenger exclaim how there were 213 lights missing from obstruction towers within a 10 mile radius of the airport. Funny story!

The captain who pulls out his iPad to show me his new truck equipped with a vanity license plate that says "FLYBOY." Then proceeds to set the best Econ fuel thrust setting in a CRJ over the Rockies on a day when moderate to severe mountain wave is reported, then goes to sleep. Fun day of correcting negative trend vectors, max powering out of decreasing airspeed, and listening to FLYBOY sawing logs in the left seat.

"stallboy"

Haha that's awesome. We're back in the days of 2500hr upgrades at 23-24 yrs old. Not that everyone is immature at that age but it sure brings some interesting people in that position.

After he included the altimeter setting, wind speed and direction, cloud layer heights and so on, my captain said "Reach over and shake your neighbors hand and introduce yourself. He might save your life one day." I wanted to crawl into the ducting vents. You really can't script this stuff.

Welcome aboard
Flight number
Destination
Flight time
Smooth/bumpy ride (altitude optional)
Current weather at destination
-Calm/light/gusty
-Clear/partly/mostly/overcast/rain/snow
-temperature
(Any delay, operational or maintenance issues)
Thanks again, welcome aboard

I don't feel the need to say my name or my qualifications or where I'm from or what we are flying over or any other stupid fluff the pax really don't give a cr@p about

Well, if you see something people are interested in, it's nice to point it out, i.e. "There's the Grand Canyon on the left." Just keep it simple. Especially when you know you have a lot of vacationers on board like going to Alaska in the summer. Then not so much when it's just business or local folks traveling who probably know the route better than you do...like to/from Alaska in the winter.

I actually heard this happen last year. Guy in a Bonanza lost his engine, did a Mayday on Guard with a position report and asked if anyone knew where the nearest airport was. (This was in a rural area in the Cascades so the location of the nearest airport may not have been immediately obvious to the Bonanza driver).

Instantly an airline guy (you could tell by that medium -pitch hum on the transmission that seems to be a Boeing thing) jumped on the radio and berated the guy for clogging up Guard. I couldn't believe my ears. I knew of a private strip close to where the fork-tail driver had reported his location, so I informed him of its position and told him I'd pass along his Mayday to Center. Guess what happened? Yup, cue the same airline guy...'YER ON GUARD.'

Fortunately the Bo guy got his engine restarted (sounded like it may have been carb ice) and diverted successfully. I wanted to punch the guy from the Guard Police, though...

It's become a Pavlovian reaction in some people I think. Probably had guard all the way down in volume, heard a little transmission broadcast, didn't even listen to what he was saying and switched over and did his thing and switched right back without even thinking twice.

The new question is that in the day of smart phones and wifi airplanes, why are we playing weather man?

True, we also stopped giving out connecting gate info. I keep the weather short. "light winds, partly cloudy skies, temp 82 degrees"
Honestly its the bare minimum of what my FOM tells me to say, and I stick to it as brief as I can. I don't feel the need to flower it up, make myself famous, or sound like a jacka$$

Since when did the pax care about the winds? Party cloudy and 80 degrees is all that's needed. They already know anyways from their phones or TV or usa today.

You'd think but with as many people approach me in the airport to ask me the time or what gate their flight is at, I think there are far more clueless people floating around the airport.

DH or non-revs might care I guess. Even giving wind direction instead of just "light winds" provides info such as runway in use, taxi time blah blah. IF they care..

I give temp and maybe if it's windy and perhaps rain or snow. That's it. I make no early morning PA's though. Half of them are sleeping anyway. So my TOTD goes to my FO awhile back. 5:30 am about to push. He asks if I've made a PA. I explain my policy. So he grabs the paperwork and makes a long winded detailed PA about the weather and wind gusts and how high the clouds were. I'm sure he told them our taxi route too. All I could do was stare, and have some words later.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So.... You're PF, set the thrust to where it needs to be.

So.... He's asleep, set the thrust to where it needs to be.

So.... The current thrust is inadequate, set the--ah, crap, you know where this is going by now....

FLYBOY may not have been the only tool aboard that flight....

First and foremost I was not the pilot
flying. I was the one montioring this guy trying to milk every penny out of a flight ignoring the common knowledge that slow airspeed that is degrading in mountain wave can be impossible to regain. So why not start out with a safe airspeed with a cushion especially if you're planning on sleeping. I don't care if you sleep, but don't make me clean up your messes because you want to make a couple extra dollars while snoozing. You're a tool if you disagree with that you ignoramus.

Before the name calling and mud slinging goes any further, perhaps this could be a learning experience for you, as a, let say a Captain in Training.

Perhaps, next time, you could wake up the PIC and advise him of the wave action, request a lower altitude to get into denser air. The ride may be crappy, but you margin will be greater.

Can you imagine if a jet upset occurred? Who would be held responsible? Yeah, the PIC, and you'd be looking for a new job too.

I agree with you and those are good suggestions.