Originally Posted by
Hotel Kilo
It's not vague at all. There's bullet point in there that is pretty straightforward and has specificity.
The fact you have no situational awareness "I have no idea what the cabin crew are doing back there" about the pacing of their service is pretty enlightening and says much about you. First service (domestic or int'l) will usually take around an hour to a little over an hour and half depending on the aircraft. If the flight is 2+ hours or longer, they'll do a couple of water/tea/coffee walkthrus, about an hour or so out they'll do the last service. Int'l will be a bit different as they will serve the arrival meal. Domestic they will do one last service there (water/tea/coffee etc). They start initial service once they can get up and move around on the climbout. Sometimes that's right after you chime them at 10k. Sometimes later depending on what you briefed them on rides.
Having awareness of what they are doing back helps you to know if they're up doing service so you can warn them about approaching rough air. Also, you can let them know when it's ok to get back to it as the ride improves, or not. There's plenty you can do to assist and facilitate them conducting their service in the cabin.
No one here said you order them to do service, although that may change here in the near future depending on the findings from the IFS secret riders and their observations. You can help facilitate the service by educating them and being a Captain about the conditions and how you control the seat belts.
You’re being disingenuous if you claim to believe I meant that I don’t know the job of the cabin crew and how/when they do it. Otherwise just sanctimonious.
Not a single one of us knows exactly what they’re doing every minute of the flight. What, are you peering through the peephole to try and piece together a map of their movements? Calling and asking, “hey, it’s HK. What are you doing? Okay, what are you doing now? How about now?”
Come on, man. The only specific things it says that we are responsible for is promoting safety and efficiency followed by a business school term that no pilot should be expected to know how to define. Should we offer a guidance when somebody calls up front, obviously asking if it’s too bumpy to bust out the carts? Yes, and like I said, I give that opinion every time. And when I do my brief, I tell them what kind of ride to expect and that I will keep them in the loop. If I think it’s going to be anything they need to know about.
Perhaps more importantly, though. Is that the OBM that the flight attendant abide by clearly states that the purser/flight leader is responsible for ensuring the in-flight service policies are followed.
There is no place in our manuals that even relates to in-flight service policies. Just broad statements about the scope of our authority, only being specific as to promoting safety (which, again, is not terribly specific, but it is an important umbrella).
And to be honest, I don’t care for the underlying CRM issues that will be created when we start stepping into each other‘s worlds like we’re big swinging d1*ks