bintynogin

I was jumpseating today on a NWA flight and had the worst experience ever. I approach the captain and told him my name, what airline i was with, and that I would like to jumpseat on this flight. The guy cut me off and said "first of all you address me as "'Captain." Then he continued on by telling me how p!ssed off he is when guys approach his jumpseat and dont address him as captain. Then he went on to tell me that his jumpseat is the one the thing the government can't regulate, and he has the right to say who sits up there. He told me if i wanted to use his jumpseat i pretty much have to beg, because it's not my right. All this came from "my name is _____, im with _______airlines and would like to jumpseat on this flight. WOW... I pretty much stood there in disbelief because when guys use the jumpseat on my flights I could care less. So about 5 minutes later he said lets try this again. So i sucked up my pride and said what he wanted me to say. I shook his hand then extended my hand to the FO. This guys folded his hand like a child and would not shake my hand. I couldnt belive it.. Maybe these guys were just having and bad day or something.

So my question is for all you captain out there, how do you prefer for jumpseaters to approach you? I'm trying to avoid moments like these.

To top it off, i wouldnt even need to sit in the jumpseat.. They had a seat for me in the back! At the end of the flight I told him thanks for the ride and was very curtious before i left.

I dont think this is and NWA thing because the next flight I went on the captain was awesome!

wannabepilot

what an @$$...that is bizarre. address him as captain??? did you ask him if he wanted you to salute him and then stand at attention??? FO would not shake your hand??? wow...it doesn't really surprise me though as every passenger experience i've had on northwest has sucked. i just think they were @$$e$. period. no excuses. end of story.

Bri85

just curious, did he did this at the gate, in front of the passengers?

bintynogin

The plane was already loaded. I was almost the last one to get one. This was inside the cockpit. It was on a DC9 so i was pretty much half inside the cockpit and half inside first class. I sure the people in first class heard it!

At the end of the flight when everyone left and the crew was switching planes, this guys didnt walk with his crew. I dont know what kind of person he is but that didnt look right to me..I should have just went on Skywest, those guys are always happy

cactusmike

That guy was a d@@k. I had the same experience years ago when I was a commuter dog trying to get the exalted jumpseat on a UsAir F 28. The guy was a jerk and it put me off from even trying on UsAir for quite a while. Luckily I was able to use Piedmont for most of my flights. When they merged UsAir and Piedmont later on I knew it was going to be a goatf##k. And it hasn't changed 19 years later.

Whaledriver101

This lousy captain simply "mirrors" a lousy company. Cant even imagine having to be his FO for any period of time.
You probably wanted to tell the captain to "stick is jumpseat in his @ss". He probably takes the jumpseat to the hotel with him and sleeps with it between his nuts.
Anyway,,, at least you got on. The way Northwest has been cancelling flights. You may not have gotten home until next week.

mike734

Wow! Never heard of someone that bad. You really need to get the name and let your jumpseat guy handle it with their jumpseat guy. Chances are they already know him though. If you could take another flight you could tell him where to stick his jumpseat but you took the high road. Good job. I don't think I could have held my tongue.

Just another reason to live in your base.

de727ups

Man, I think if a guy cut me off and said I need to address him as "Captain", I'd turn around and walk off the plane. There's a guy with a major ego problem. I've never had anything close to this happen in all my years of jumpseating.

Anyhow, when I jumpseat, I just say "Hi, I'm a UPS guy looking for a ride" as I give them my ID and then introduce myself as I reach to shake the Capts hand. After that, you just kinda play it by ear.

bintynogin

Thats pretty much what I do all the time too. I always acknowlege the FO too because I know how it is to have someone come on your flight and act like you are not even there. But I dont make bid deal out of it if they dont say anything to me, 70% of the time they dont..

I wanted to walk off and I was pretty much going to do that on my way out to see the gate agent, but my wife and daughter already got on so i said screw it...

Spanky189

I'll summarize what could be a long response:
-The guy was an A##
-You should have reported him to your jumpseat coordinator
-You should get his name out to everyone so the next time he tries to jumpseat we can have him kiss our %^&*(that FO too)
-We need a list of guys like this so we can teach these 'pompus/a##h0le captains' that we're all in this game together
-I agree to the formallity of introducing yourself, etc (play the game,...)