Originally Posted by
Sunvox
I didn't say anything about "CAL sucks". I said there is a cultural difference. To my knowledge I am the only person on this forum who has ever publicly apologized and reversed their opinion based on others arguments. If you think I am putting down CAL culture and that the culture I described is not accurate then explain to me how I am wrong, but so far all the evidence I have seen says CAL has a common culture of trying not to "rock the boat" in day to day operations.
How's this for a 4th anecdote demonstrating cultural differences.
Maintenance: "We won't be able to fix that right now."
L-CAL pilot: "Forget it then. We'll write it up on the way."
Spoken over the radio, and I was listening personally. Very, very few UAL pilots would ever say something like that on the radio. Is that a-typical for CAL? I don't know, but it is one more anecdote I see telling me there are cultural differences. Is the UAL culture better? I have no idea. You tell me, if you're so worried about whose better because I'm not. I'm worried about protecting my contract as it is and my own butt, and at the same time moving this whole integration process as quickly forward as possible so I can get on with my career.
And we can go back and forth about good stories and bad stories. I think this one will just about top any of the "we don't rock the boat" BS you can continue to spew here.
ORD-SFO and the FA's in the back call to cockpit and say the galley lighting will not work. CA writes up said galley lighting and call MX to investigate and fix. MX arrives and proceeds to reference the MEL that as long as it's daylight, they should be able to see and the flight can continue. FA's say they can't see and CA tells MX to fix, he's not taking the aircraft. TOMC gets involved as well as FODM and both are basically pushing the CA to take the MEL and go.
The reason for the big push, Smiseck is in the back on the way to SFO. CA wants to know if there is a different standard of safety based on who is on the airplane. CA talks with CPO and get his back covered and MX begins fix but lo and behold, the parts are not available. After 2 1/2 hours, MX gets parts and begins to finish work. CA notices both aft galley door light are now lit and calls to the back galley to ask what's going on as catering has already serviced the aircraft. FA hands phone to MX who tells CA they had to open the door to get light in the aft galley as they could not see what they were doing. Yes, they actually said that. CA points this obvious fact out and the only reply he can get is we are working and they are just cooking. Flight arrives at SFO almost 3 hours late.
I see you and most other UAL pilots so worried about protecting the contract while the CAL pilots were interested in getting the contract right in the first place instead of trying to fix it after the fact, which is what we seem to be doing quite often lately.