Originally Posted by
Probe
I believe the answer to their refusal problems is there to diagnose, and it should have been done years ago. A small number of pilots are responsible for a large amount of our "buffoonery". They should have either paid them to go away years ago, or fire them, and let them sue United.
The problem is flight ops leadership has no balls, and hasn't had in a long time. A simple cost benefit analysis would have shown this was the cheaper option. The amount of money these guys have cost not just the airline, but our passengers, in missed meetings, holidays, missed daughters weddings, etc, is staggering.
Nobody wants to make the hard decisions.
Probe,
The hard decisions are being made by Captains who are paid to make them. You seem to insinuate that some Captains are buffoons and need to be disciplined, or worse, for taking their responsibility seriously when they refuse an airplane. I find your finger pointing a tad unseemly.
Do you know the facts under which such "buffoonery" occurred? Unless you work in the Flight Office I don't expect that you do. And neither do I. I've only seen a Captain refuse a plane one time which I would have taken. And after he explained his reasoning, I agreed with him.
I've had to make my opinion very clear on an occasion when I would not accompany a Captain on a flight should he decide to sign for the jet. I guess that was buffoonery on my part and I should be disciplined.
I don't second-guess Captains decisions publically and I would appreciate it if they didn't second guess mine on this forum, if I were a Captain.
Individuals are what they are. Managements job is to minimize the opportunities for refusals by keeping the parts required to keep the planes MEL free.
Years ago during a PC we were presented with a half a dozen or so hypothetical situations and asked, "refuse or take?" We probably came down with a 50 50 split. The Std Capt then gave us one little additional piece of information for each event and our decisions flip-flopped on over half of them. It was an excellent exercise.