Geez. Self-help.
Have your FO wait on hold with the hotel desk while you look at local hotels that are available. Find one, and book it.
And don't forget the FAs.

I talked to the head shed last night. This is not a rumor, it’s a fact, we are buying Alaska, JetBlue and Kalitta. The Alaska guys will be stapled below the JetBlue guys who will all be assigned to Aviate as flight instructors and Kalitta will be placed on the top of the seniority list.

You just read it on APC so it’s true.

I always thought the head shed was the top gurus. Guess I am going to have to call them the guys who are getting the head high on pot. Call for a drug test. Rotfl

Waiting on the hotel desk: 1 hour

Pulling out credit card and then expensing room: 5 minutes.

You decide….🤷🏻‍♂️

What makes United so special compared to the other majors?

1) Self help is the excuse management used for closing up shop and refusing to answer the phones. Pilots can help themselves, so we don’t have to.

2) You guys are assuming there are rooms available.

Remember the 100 pilots who had to sleep in IAH ops a few years back? Don’t you think THEY tried self help? The company fooked those guys by not buying enough hotel rooms for an anticipated/forecast weather event.

Management saves $10,000 in hotel rooms. Pilots sleep in ops. Money goes towards bonuses and stock buybacks.

That’s self help.

1) Why are you waiting one hour in the phone? Because management fooked it up and put the money in their pockets. And this has been going on for over eight years, not just during the pandemic.


2) So you get to your layover hotel. The Patriots are in town. No rooms available anywhere. The hotel desk has just stolen your hotel room and given it to the crew who walked in five minutes after you got there. Hotel booked to capacity.

Pull out your credit card. How does that work out for you now?

Go.

- OR -

You get reassigned. You are now going to MIA. Spring break. You are still in EWR. Do you depart to MIA in the hopes of pulling out your card? Or do you have to make phone calls before threatening not to push?

You’re doing their job because they only have 5 hotel desk clerks for 13,000 pilots. Where did the money go?

Bonuses and buybacks. They help themselves by screwing you.

Self help isn’t always applicable. But the sycophants will always make it work, even if it means spending the night in ops.

You decide…

There is almost ALWAYS rooms available, just not ones in the hotels the company prefers to use. At that point I will start at the top of the food chain and work my way down....Ritz Carlton, Four Seasons, and Mandarin Oriental very rarely are completely sold out.

or get a cab or rent a car to take you where there is a hotel available. 2 hours away? Companies problem. People sleep in crew lounges because they are too lazy to do what is needed to get a room.

Or they are afraid of the reimbursement process, anyone who sleeps in a crew room is a fool.