Originally Posted by
Aquaticus
I have under a year on the line and I usually switch the bleeds during my parking flow but most captains will see ground power and the APU will get shut down in the same thought. It is almost muscle memory now for every captain I fly with. I might say something and the response is usually "they are usually pretty good about ground air here." I am afraid if we continue to leave people on hot airplanes with bad or no ground air they will start requiring us to stay until the last passenger is off.
Unless it's really hot out, the problem is usually not so much after parking but during boarding. I ride on a LOT of Guppies on the commute and it's rare to swelter during de-planing in my experience. But in the hour it sits on the ground, the thing heats up like a ***** in church. The same ground air that cools the A320 so well is absolutely lame on the Guppy for some reason.
If you're concerned about having to stay with the jet until the last passenger leaves, you need to also remember that it takes a couple of minutes after you shut off the APU bleed air for the APU to shut down, so don't go killing the battery switch on termination until it's completely finished it's shut down cycle. Therefore, if you're running the APU bleed after parking just be aware you're going to need to sit with the plane for awhile before you bail on a termination flight. If it's hot, it's hot and you need to do what you need to do to keep things comfortable back there. Just requires a little more time.