Originally Posted by
starcheckdriver
You're the FO, plane has mx issue at the gate, Capt. asks you to announce to the pax we have a delay due to weather. What do you do? I asked the reason for the Capt wanting to say weather and they replied he doesn't want to scare pax with mx issue. I said I respect the Capt. and his authority, but think we should tell pax it is mx, unless we were assured by mx it would be fixed quickly then we could use the wx excuse. We just need to be careful if we use the wx excuse so we don't look foolish later if the mx issue forces us to cancel.
Looking back, I am wondering if they were testing to see if I would stand up to the Capt. in defense of being totally honest with the pax. Maybe that hosed me? I dunno. Could be that or something else, but that is the only thing that stands out in my mind. Fortunately, I was offered a second interview for next May.
Starcheckdriver, Congrats on the job offer from AA/USAir. My personal take on your answer to that question: Just even considering the WX excuse when it wasn't the reason for the delay wasprobably what they didn't like about that answer...it sounds to me like it could have come across as a way of convincing oneself that the less than honest answer was a consideration. I don't think you meant it to come across that way, but it may have been heard that way. I would suggest some consideration of reasoning with the captain in such a scenario in a future interview, e.g. "But they have smart phones with all the up to date wx themselves so I really don't think that's a good way to go." i.e. give the captain in the scenario an out (I know, you did) before going to (but go if he persists) the, "Well, I don't think I can pull that off--to me it's an integrity issue, captain." Just my $0.02. Best of luck in May--glad they gave you that exception to try again. Stay positive!