Originally Posted by
Scrappy
Why would you not take it if it meets the guidelines in the MEL? I'm confused sorry.
It's over land with lots of alternates if a bigger issue occurs. Why would said pilots not take the jet? I've flown an APU inop jet multiple times domestically (and within MEL guidelines of course) with no issues and on time arrivals.
Some pilots simply find leaving a maintenance base with an APU inop (even with no other special circumstances) to be unacceptable: shut an engine down, they want the APU that could have been fixed back at the maintenance base to be available. Ask Sully (an extreme case, I know) if he was glad his APU wasn't MEL'd that day. My point in the previous post was that if a pilot looks at the issue this way, then they need to be consistent in the application of that point of view day in and day out.
You can disagree with this point of view. However, it is hard to deny that had the APU issue not been pushed at L-UAL over the years, we would be seeing far more than an average of 3 APU deferrals on a daily basis. The fact that maintenance makes it a priority is good for everybody.