Originally Posted by
PilotJ3
First off…I rather have an FO that want to clear a wx by 80 miles (that will only consume about 100-200lbs more of gas) vs the one that wants to only deviate 5-10 miles and I have to explain them why we should keep going more to the left/right of the WX.
You’re supposed to be min 25 miles between cells and if you’re going above 5,000 ft. Couple of weeks ago I almost had to use emergency authority, because dispatch gave us a route, ATC changed it for one that goes into the WX and then they didn’t wanted us to deviate the way we wanted.
”there’s arrival traffic”…that’s none of my problem, I can’t deviate right because there’s a line of TStorms. Eventually we got what we wanted. We gotta start thinking that we have pax and FAs in the back walking even if you tell them to stay seated.
If I see blue skies…that’s where I’m going, that’s what I’m getting payed for and fuel is not an issue.
We recently had to let a new Captain go because he flew through weather similar to this. In the investigation it was revealed that he told the FO that “if the company wants us to fly around the weather, they would have filed us that way”. Sadly, some of the quick upgrade, lesser experienced pilots have a different mentality. Perhaps the “we gotta get there” mentality is more prevalent in our industry than it used to be. I know some regionals push guys pretty hard, and perhaps that mentality is hard to change when they get here? As some have stated, it’s not a failure to avoid weather, burn fuel, add time to the trip etc. It’s what we are paid to do, in many cases.