Originally Posted by gettinbumped

BusJock,

You seem to be very passionate about this. Understood. And far be it from me to tell you how to run your jet. That's between you, your FO, and your employer.

Like you, I've been through the misery that has become of United Airlines due to bad leadership following bad leadership. It seems now we have actually gotten WORSE leadership... something I thought was impossible. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a pilot that doesn't agree with you that Jeff and his band of Yessir's has to go. Hopefully Wall Street and more importantly the board will agree soon. The clock is ticking, and one needs to look no further than our Q1 results vs. the rest of the industry.

I must not have done a good job of explaining my philosophy if you think that I am suggesting for one second that the pilot group is to blame for our woes. A chimpanzee can figure out that the financial and operational failures of UAL rest exactly where they should... Willis Tower. It would be funny to list their failures if it wasn't so directly affecting my life and my future. But at the end of the day, the result is that if we fail, you and I are left out in the dirt looking for a new job at the bottom of some other list, and Jeff will walk with his millions. Sucks, but that's a fact. So it's in my best interest to see this company succeed, in spite of Jeff.

Here is where you and I disagree. You understandably see this FE training as a total waste of time. After all, if management is going to squander all our $$ through shares, CMS, FAR117, etc. etc. etc., why should you go out of your way to make ANY effort to save gas? How many times have you gotten to the arrival station and waited 20 minutes for a gate, thus ****ing away all the fuel you would have saved? How many times have you sat there with the APU running waiting for them to plug in ground power so you can shut down? Again, it would be funny how we continue to fail if it weren't so important to our lives that United succeed. Why should you try if all your efforts are thwarted by a management team hell bent on stealing every dollar from you and violating every section of the contract that they agreed to? It's very understandable that you give Jeff the middle finger as you plow across the country at Mach .81, APU on at FL260. I choose to do things differently, and here's why. If you don't care, you certainly don't need to read, as your approval isn't important to me.

1) The A320 fleet was slated to be retired starting in 2015. Then there was a decision to stretch that out to 2020 if they could improve the economics... mainly reliability and efficiency. The reliability has improved with a $40 million some odd investment. The efficiency is really up to us. I'm now hearing that there is talk that the fleet could be stretched to 2025 if the metrics work. Personally, I have no interest in flying the 737 again. So it behooves me to keep the A320 around as LONG as possible. If that means being efficient to sway the case towards making it viable to 2025, I'm on board.

2) We SE taxi around 3% of the time. Delta SE taxi's around 79% of the time. We are last in SE taxi. Why is that? I know on the A320 with the weirdness of the power transfer it can be construed as a safety issue. But Delta flies the A320 and I can't remember a single incident or accident attributable to SE taxi at their airline. Not saying there aren't any.... I just haven't heard of them. Like it or not; for reasons intentional or unintentional, we are at the bottom of fuel efficiency in the industry on our specific fleet, and as an airline in general. That's not something I'm particularly proud of.

3) Environmental issues. Call me a tree-hugger if you will, but it makes no sense to just waste a resource which is finite. Especially when that resource costs $115/barrel.

4) We have a contract. And I will fight to my last breath to defend every word in it against the onslaught of attempts to undermind it. Unfortunately, I'm sure there will be a time to express my displeasure with the fact that we DON'T have a contract through operating EXTREMELY safely, but now is not that time.

5) I've flown with enough FO's who were about to be furloughed, some for the second time, that I know that I hope to God I don't ever have to watch that happen again. If it does happen (and judging by our Q1 results compared to our peers, I'm afraid it will be sooner rather than later as we implode) I want to be able to look them in the eye and say that I have tried hard to do whatever I could to keep them in their seat. ****ing money out the tailpipe for the sake of telling Jeff (who isn't listening) that you're ****ed simply doesn't accomplish that goal.

6) If this airline goes back into Ch11, or worse yet Ch7, I want to be able to look my family in the eye and know that I did my part to make the company successful. See #5.

7) Professional pride. I hate seeing us suck. It's not my fault, and it's not the pilot group's fault by any means, but I still hate it. I'm not proud of being last in the industry in cost effectiveness for things I CAN CONTROL.

I'm sure nothing that I say is going to change your mind. You'll consider me to be a Marvin, and that's fine. You'll accuse me of drinking the KoolAid and that's fine too. I don't answer to you. I don't have my head in the sand. I haven't forgotten the past. And I completely understand why we are where we are. And I still have decided that the best thing for me, my crew, my family, and my fellow pilot group at this point is to operate the airplane efficiently when it makes sense to do so.

I've clearly said more about this subject than anyone cares to read, so I'll sign off of this thread now. Best of luck to us all. And I don't blame you for not taking Fuel Efficiency seriously.