Originally Posted by
gettinbumped
It has been a LONG and painful 5 years, that's for sure. But I caught a glimmer of hope last night. Arrived at the airplane to a small maintenance issue which turned into a much larger maintenance issue after discovering it was not deferrable. Up against a curfew restriction, there were a LOT of moving parts that needed to work seemlessly in order to have a chance to make it, and I honestly figured we had no chance. The mechanic was simply awesome. My FO proved himself to be a truly great hire. Awesome suggestions, stepped in to help whenever he could in whatever capacity was needed. The flight attendants despite a LONG day were really upbeat and exceptional. The CSR's were fantastic, as it involved deplaning the entire jet and reboarding in a ridiculously short time. Everyone from dispatch to LP to customer service to ramp and especially maintenance was hustling and doing what they needed to do to get the plane out in time: and it worked. Landed with 8 minutes to spare.
Honestly, I don't know if it's the start of an improvement in our operational performance or just a one off, but we had some really great folks doing some really great work. And the response from our customers was overwhelming.
I know, I know. I'll be labeled a Marvin by some. But after watching us fail for so long it was nice to have a win for a change.
Not label here. I had something similar happen this past Summer after a midnight divert due to weather had us arriving at IAD for an unscheduled fuel stop so we could continue on to PHL (line of weather stalled and resulted in our holding for 45 minutes and just flat out running out of hold fuel). Everyone came together and we were able to let those who wanted to stretch their legs walk around the terminal while fuel/catering/dispatch/ramp quickly turned us so we could meet our CCO time (with like 3 minutes to spare....). It was a nice turn of events..