Originally Posted by
stinsonjr
From what I have heard, AA Captains have a lot of stuff to do prior to take off - more than other pilots. I think the checklists and procedures are different for them, but not sure how. Anyway, to have to deal with all the stuff they have to do, operate the tiller, stay off active runways, etc...no wonder they taxi slow.
I hope the guy gets busted for using the cell phone to call and report the guy.
Flew AA a couple weeks ago. Forgot I had to pay to check bags, so I made a snarky comment to the agent (not AT her, TO her) about keeping Arpey in multi-million dollar paychecks so that he could run the airline into the dirt. she laughed and dug my comment.
I fly for AA. We have a taxi checklist that is short. Then a mechanical checklist which is relatively long compared to other airlines. One of the reasons we taxi slowly is we never know when we'll receive our load closeout over the acars printer. We cannot take-off until we have this. Sometimes we get it before pushback. Sometimes we have to wait in the penalty box for closeout numbers.
We never know. Lots of ATC controller ask, "Hey American do you have your numbers?"
For the whole time i've flown for American pilots have asked for SWA's closeout system of Laptop atog's and agent closeout sheet at main cabin door departure. The answer is always "our system is fine"
I don't think so, we waste tons of fuel waiting on numbers.
On taxi in, many times we do not know if our gate is avail. Most often it is occupied. This may account for most of our slow taxi on arrival.
The last few years some of us call ahead to see if our gate is available on arrival. But most of the time we never know. In fact we are not supposed to call our ramp control until AFTER crossing all active runways and then contacting ground control, then call ramp.
As far as the ex TWA pilots response above, it is interesting how people only remember the good things about their previous employer. They remember none of the bad stuff.