UAL MEC Response to UAX letter
07-05-2008, 09:59 PM
#51
Banned
Joined APC: Jun 2008
Position: A320 Cap
Posts: 2,282
There's not a way to put this well, and it's not an attack on you. But this doesn't surprise me.
Remember the pre CASS days? When if you worked for the express/connection/airlink partner you could ride in the front of the aircraft because your status could be electronically verified via the reservations system? Pending the CA's permission, of course. I can't tell you how many times I would walk up to cockpit, ID in hand (like always), medical and certificate out (like always) and stick out my hand to shake theirs (like always) and introduce myself, ask how the guys are doing, and ask if I can get permission to ride the JS to get home/to work.
First thing out of the guys mouth, "you're offline, can't take any offline guys, sorry" I'd always politely say that I'm UAX, have a K on my pass. "sorry, I don't know anything about that".
After contacting my JS guy, it got to the point where I had the SPECIFIC FOM page reference where it said "K" JS priority riders (UAX) were allowed to ride in the front. With the CA's permission, of course.
To tell you the truth, it got flat out annoying. I would have to politely ask if he could look in his FOM, please. Which is an uncomfortable position to be in, asking a guy to pull out his book. Guys would get out the book, go to the page where it CLEARLY spells out the JS priority, as well as who can ride in the front. Sure enough, go down to "K" and it lists the specific carriers. Some guys would stare at the page, ask me who I worked for again, ask to see my ID again. Then say, "well, thats news to me". I would always follow up with the "thanks for looking, I appreciate it. You guys can ride on our seats anytime". I WAS always appreciative of the ride, just didn't like how much work it could be. And no, other guys at my company as well as OTHER UAX carriers I knew were running into the same problem.
Like I said, I'm NOT being critical of you, or OTHER UAL pilots. Lots of guys at (insert airline here) tend to not fully know their carriers policies. I believed you referenced you were a commuter, so again, doesn't specifically apply to you. Not always the case, but usually a commuter is more savvy than a non commuter.
Remember the pre CASS days? When if you worked for the express/connection/airlink partner you could ride in the front of the aircraft because your status could be electronically verified via the reservations system? Pending the CA's permission, of course. I can't tell you how many times I would walk up to cockpit, ID in hand (like always), medical and certificate out (like always) and stick out my hand to shake theirs (like always) and introduce myself, ask how the guys are doing, and ask if I can get permission to ride the JS to get home/to work.
First thing out of the guys mouth, "you're offline, can't take any offline guys, sorry" I'd always politely say that I'm UAX, have a K on my pass. "sorry, I don't know anything about that".
After contacting my JS guy, it got to the point where I had the SPECIFIC FOM page reference where it said "K" JS priority riders (UAX) were allowed to ride in the front. With the CA's permission, of course.
To tell you the truth, it got flat out annoying. I would have to politely ask if he could look in his FOM, please. Which is an uncomfortable position to be in, asking a guy to pull out his book. Guys would get out the book, go to the page where it CLEARLY spells out the JS priority, as well as who can ride in the front. Sure enough, go down to "K" and it lists the specific carriers. Some guys would stare at the page, ask me who I worked for again, ask to see my ID again. Then say, "well, thats news to me". I would always follow up with the "thanks for looking, I appreciate it. You guys can ride on our seats anytime". I WAS always appreciative of the ride, just didn't like how much work it could be. And no, other guys at my company as well as OTHER UAX carriers I knew were running into the same problem.
Like I said, I'm NOT being critical of you, or OTHER UAL pilots. Lots of guys at (insert airline here) tend to not fully know their carriers policies. I believed you referenced you were a commuter, so again, doesn't specifically apply to you. Not always the case, but usually a commuter is more savvy than a non commuter.
I'm well aware of the UAL jumpseat history as it pertains to the regional carriers. Quite frankly, we have had some boneheaded policies out there from time to time. It's embarrassing to ask for the jumpseat as a UAL pilot during those moments, so I understand your angst over asking guys to pull out the FOM and check stuff out. They SHOULD know the policy. There is nothing in our FOM about the jumpseat that I'm not familiar with. I keep up to date on recent changes, such as the decision to allow GoJets and TSA pilots to ride ahead of SKYW, MESA, etc. because they give our pilots preferential treatment over other UAX carriers on their jumpseats. Respectfully, this is not an issue that I would have any idea about as it has never been printed in our FOM, jumpseat update, or a UAX flyer that has been distributed. I have ridden in the cockpit of countless UAX flights the last couple of years and this issue has NEVER been brought up or discussed. I don't usually go on forums like this because, frankly, the 1% of good info on here is not worth the poo that gets flung around. I only came on this board over this issue because I was sent the link by a friend and asked what was going on.
The point of my response, which I might have failed to explain clearly, is that we (average Joe Line Pilot) had NO idea this was a problem until this letter was written, regardless of how diligently we worked to know our J/S procedures. If you want to see this as a failure of the UAL J/S committee, I can appreciate that. But the letter asks for support from the UAL line pilots to direct that committee to fix the issue. We can't ask to fix what we haven't been told about. If the letter had been circulated at this point WITHOUT the threat of denied jumpseats, I think you would have found that most of the UAL pilots would have been quite receptive to the message. With this approach? Not so sure how its going to go. No one likes to be bullied, and I'm sure you can appreciate that there are some pilots at UAL that are annoyed by the fact that UAX is expanding while another 1450 UAL pilots are headed to the streets. This isn't the UAX pilots fault, but anger causes irrational behavior as I'm sure we have all seen in this industry.
Believe me, I know we have our fair share of guys that are difficult to deal with - forget the jumpseat....try flying with them!! As a commuter myself, you won't ever see me deny a legitimate jumpseater his/her request. You will find yourself in first class if available, and I WILL delay any flight over a jumpseat or non-rev issue. Just did it this week to make sure we left LIH full instead of with the 4 open seats the agent tried to close the door with. In this case, we just didn't know. To you guys this has been a slow burn. To us, it's gone from 0-1,000,000 in 1 day.
In the end, I still see us as all on the same team. It makes me sad to see things come to this, regardless of who is right or wrong.
07-05-2008, 10:14 PM
#52
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2006
Position: DD->DH->RU/XE soon to be EV
Posts: 3,732
Agree on your points.
Good for you for being knowledgeable. Seriously, there are boneheads at my company that don't know the JS policies either. It's embarrassing. Like I said, wasn't attacking you.
The point of my response, which I might have failed to explain clearly, is that we (average Joe Line Pilot) had NO idea this was a problem until this letter was written, regardless of how diligently we worked to know our J/S procedures. If you want to see this as a failure of the UAL J/S committee, I can appreciate that. But the letter asks for support from the UAL line pilots to direct that committee to fix the issue. We can't ask to fix what we haven't been told about. If the letter had been circulated at this point WITHOUT the threat of denied jumpseats, I think you would have found that most of the UAL pilots would have been quite receptive to the message. With this approach? Not so sure how its going to go. No one likes to be bullied, and I'm sure you can appreciate that there are some pilots at UAL that are annoyed by the fact that UAX is expanding while another 1450 UAL pilots are headed to the streets. This isn't the UAX pilots fault, but anger causes irrational behavior as I'm sure we have all seen in this industry.
I got your points, don't worry. I was only relating some of my experiences. Possibly you never heard anything about it, but maybe UAX guys have brought it up riding on mainline aircraft, or while a mainline guy was on a UAX JS. Maybe the guy said "yeah, that is messed up, I'll check into it". But simply forgets the issue. Like I said, not attacking UAL guys. And you're right, average joe line pilot probably doesn't know about it. But I'll bet the guys bumping UAX guys off their OWN JS's know about it.
Again, good for you. We need more guys like you with a bigger picture view in this industry that see the "forest through the trees" so to speak.
The point of my response, which I might have failed to explain clearly, is that we (average Joe Line Pilot) had NO idea this was a problem until this letter was written, regardless of how diligently we worked to know our J/S procedures. If you want to see this as a failure of the UAL J/S committee, I can appreciate that. But the letter asks for support from the UAL line pilots to direct that committee to fix the issue. We can't ask to fix what we haven't been told about. If the letter had been circulated at this point WITHOUT the threat of denied jumpseats, I think you would have found that most of the UAL pilots would have been quite receptive to the message. With this approach? Not so sure how its going to go. No one likes to be bullied, and I'm sure you can appreciate that there are some pilots at UAL that are annoyed by the fact that UAX is expanding while another 1450 UAL pilots are headed to the streets. This isn't the UAX pilots fault, but anger causes irrational behavior as I'm sure we have all seen in this industry.
Believe me, I know we have our fair share of guys that are difficult to deal with - forget the jumpseat....try flying with them!! As a commuter myself, you won't ever see me deny a legitimate jumpseater his/her request. You will find yourself in first class if available, and I WILL delay any flight over a jumpseat or non-rev issue. Just did it this week to make sure we left LIH full instead of with the 4 open seats the agent tried to close the door with. In this case, we just didn't know. To you guys this has been a slow burn. To us, it's gone from 0-1,000,000 in 1 day.
In the end, I still see us as all on the same team. It makes me sad to see things come to this, regardless of who is right or wrong.
In the end, I still see us as all on the same team. It makes me sad to see things come to this, regardless of who is right or wrong.
07-05-2008, 11:40 PM
#53
Banned
Joined APC: Dec 2007
Position: EMB 145 CPT
Posts: 2,934
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