Originally Posted by
Hotel Kilo
Until you find out once you get there there is no fuel on the plane, the lavs and water haven't been serviced and then during the walk around you find an issue that requires maintenance. Now good luck getting that plane off on time. I know, you don't rush and you could care less. I also guess you dont' mind fighting the hoardes down the jet bridge as if you show up 30-40 prior the plane is already boarding. Your "A" is probably already engaged in serving first class or sorting thru the messed up catering. You arriving at "your time" now has them stressed and they are now asking you to get a hold of ops to talk to catering to get it sorted out. Not to mention maintenance, fuelers or below wing to get your lavs and water done. That 20 minutes of time you could have possibly taken care of those issues.
I know you're a 717 CA and probably dont' run into it much but why put yourself in that position? The company doesn't pay you up until block out anyway, however, by being there a bit earlier than 30-40 prior helps to mitigate many of those gate issues. Int'l - myself and the crew show to the plane at least 1 hour prior. That's what I want. I don't want to be rushed and I want to be there if the pursor is having issue with the D1 meals etc. It's important and our customers pay a premium for that. My friends on the domestic side show up around 50-60 or so prior. They have countless FO's that stroll in right at about 30 prior and they are often running behind especially if it's the FO's turn for the walk around and/or their leg to fly. The expectation from these FO's is the CA will do most of the preflight duties prior to their "arrival". That's BS and taking advantage. Most of us do walkarounds for the FO's if it's their leg. In my day that never happened. CA never did the walk around regardless of who's leg it was. Now, it seems our group is moving further in the wrong direction. FO's should be considerate, not abuse the good will and at least make an effort to show up the same time as the CA does. Again, if you're showing up 30 or so prior, I maintain you're kinda screwing the team over on that move. If your CA tells you they are showing up an hour prior, you as the FO should be there as well. I don't get this mentality of showing up 30 or so prior (on your own volition, not an external factor causing you to be late van ride etc etc).
In my experience, showing to the jet at 40 minutes is more than enough time to solve those issues on the 717. In fact, I can't think of a time I wasn't preflight checklist complete and just waiting for the pre-push. Either way, I show at the airport at 60 prior and work my way to the gate which is usually right around 40 prior. Half the time, the FA's aren't even onboard becuase they're coming from another flight. The company plans our hotel pickups to be curbside about 60 prior (often get there with less time), so I fail to see the difference in what I do vs what the company schedules. They also schedule us with turns inside of an hour with plane swaps. My favorite was a 50 min turn and we just swapped planes with the jet parked next door (facepalm). Now in ATL we get the added pleasure of running from from D to T, no way we're getting the new jet before even 30 prior. So tell me again about how much they care about making push time? Taking that a step further, a vast majority of the time that we have pushed late, usually for late bags or push crew, we almost always block in early or are sitting waiting on a park crew at block-in.
As far as walkarounds, I do them every leg I'm the PM and brief the FO's this. Almost all of the have the mindset that it's theirs unless told otherwise. I don't really see a trend of showing up as later than 30 prior, most make it around the same time at 40 prior. Fuelers of often showing between 35 and 15 minutes prior...it takes about 5 minutes to fuel it up. Catering usually shows after I do. If catering is not there, the FA's are pushing it up the chain on flight family and letting me know after the fact, so I don't see what changes there. We don't really have way to tell if our lavs have been serviced, other than a light that comes on on the FA pane when its completely full...something I've hever seen lol. So unless someone happens to see the truck, we really never really know if they've been serviced. I've never found water below half...which is more than enough for any leg we fly lol. Rarely have I seen a situation where the other pilot is doing the duties of the other pilot out of pure need, usually it's becuase they're just bored. If that happens I just reciprocate on the next leg. Plus I buy coffee and beers!