Originally Posted by
ACEssXfer
Please tell me how on earth you get a feel for the culture of an airline by having their name painted on your acft and parking at their gates. Do you receive emails from a mainline? Do you talk to their pilots? Their FAs? Do you interact with their mgmt? Like I said you may interact with their agents now and again but I bet just as much you are dealing with contract agents/rampers. Since I'm so clueless please inform me.
I work for an AA WO and I still barely understand their culture. When I see friends that have flowed in the terminal they literally say "you have no idea, it's a night and day difference." This is with me working at an airline that AA has a vested interest in.
There is no way you get any idea of a culture of a mainline by working at like republic. I bet a good 50% of mainline pilots don't even know which companies fly their regional lift. It's absurd.
When you operate different code shares you see how they route their aircraft, the priorities they give to certain flights, and yes interactions with gate agents and how some work with the flight crews and others try to be hardasses (could certainly be station specific). Not every interaction with a gate agent or ramper is that of someone that is outsourced. You pay attention to the interactions of those that aren't outsourced.
All of this and more let's you glean how their operation runs from a day to day basis and from that you can generate an opinion on what you like from different code shares and what you don't like. This is strictly day to day operation. You're right though, you don't get the management emails and all that but that isn't the daily grind you get flying the line. All of this comes from the top down. A culture is set from the top down. You notice that some groups are more disgruntled than others.
I hope this makes sense and helps, otherwise I think we may have to agree to disagree.
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