Originally Posted by Kellwolf

And I agree, to a point. When it comes to things like jumpseats, is this customer going or not and other things where CA used to have "final authority," I agree that a lot of it has been eroded. However, what we're talking about is weeding out the guys that are gonna be jerks once they get on the line. For most of the things FAs deal with, the CA is there to back them up. I have no clue how to evacuate my airplane, so "exercising my command authority" in that situation is only gonna screw things up. The best thing to do is let the FAs do their jobs and ask "How can I help?" A CA that DOESN'T see his FAs as equals (or at least part of the team) is gonna have a difficult time with taking direction from them.

I guess the way I look at it is the CA has the final say so on 99% of the stuff, but the rest of the crew's input has to be valued equally. "Because I'm the CA and I say so" went out with Pan AM. Works great at the Asian airlines, I guess.....