Thedude

I guess you missed the day the Railway Labor Act and collective bargaining were taught.

About 10 years ago, during a staff meeting, I proposed the idea of adding a surcharge to the pax ticket. It was $1 per hour of flight time per pax per flight crewmember. Meaning if you were on a 2 hour flight with 2 pilots in the cockpit it would cost each pax an extra $4. I think most pax would be more than happy to pay a mear $4 to get a "quality crew". It would basically cost the company nothing and give the crews a much needed raise. I was greeted with blank stares


Its a little of topic but I think its humors and a little educational.
About 5 yrs ago I was working for a "prestigious" 121 Supp company that flew pax. We had to divert into XXX airfield becase the weather at the destination was socked in due to a thunderstorm on top of the airfiled. When we reach out alternate airport, we of course needed gas. The fuelers refused to put gas in the airplane until it was payed for. We had contract fuel at this destination but the locals decided they would try to scam us (the crew) and make us pay in cash. Well, we don't carry that kinda cash and we no longer have Captain's checks or credit cards. So some of the pax came up with the idea that they (all 170 of 'em) would take up a collection to get to their destination. This was a great idea until I informed them that it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000. Of course they promptly recognized their error. After a couple hours of waiting, a few phone calls and faxes, the fuelers realized they were not going to win and finally gave us the necessary gas.

Moral of the story. Pax have NO IDEA how much money it takes to operate an aircraft nor the logistics involved. Most equate it to the simplicity of driving a car.