Originally Posted by
oldmako
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.
James;
I did not mean that refusing an airplane amounts to buffoonery. I meant when a small number of individuals do it over and over for 25 years, buffoonery is a much nicer term than I would really like to write here without getting booted off the forum.
I had a Dispatcher on my jumpseat for a couple of legs a year or so ago. The Dispatchers know them by name. Unfortunately a lot of them are on our wide body fleets, and have been for a long time. And yes they are predominantly LUAL.
I also had the displeasure to fly with a much more recent hire (late 90's) who bid 756 left seat about a year ago. I am sure he is legendary by now in his new base. He was at our base, as an FO. First FO I actually considered throwing out of the cockpit. He was personally responsible for numerous cancellations in only a couple of years.
There are lots of reasons to refuse an airplane. I think I have done it twice in 13 years in the left seat. I think only 1 air return. I would bet 90+ percent of us have similar stats. But a small number have much more. They are not worth it to our customers, fellow employees, or the company. Their total "cost" is a tragedy.