Originally Posted by
PinnacleFO
The whole system is flawed, why should pilots have to inconveniece passengers to get a pay raise? If the plane is broke or if you are tired, you don't fly it period. But you don't make stuff up and taxi slow and make people miss their connections just to try to get a contract.
You don't have to make stuff up. The dirty truth is, there's a small percentage of aircraft operating every day that don't have some issue that legally should be written up and fixed. You and I both know this. As professionals, we often make judgment calls on things that "can wait" until a more appropriate time or that can simply be fixed with "cntrl-alt-delete." There are also things that simply go overlooked. Worn out placards, burned out flight deck light bulbs, spoiler fault messages; the list goes on. There's a story of one of our Captains, who, upon being extended, grounded 12 airplanes before they finally sent him home. It may not be right, but neither is negotiating a contract for 5 years. Sometimes the end justifies the means.