Originally Posted by
Carl Spackler
Just non-rev'd from PHL to ATL on an MD. Before pushback, the Capt introduced himself and the F/O using the boarding door's PA phone. He then gave all of us his background of flying F-14, then F-18's. He said it again just in case nobody heard it the first time. Then as he thanked us all for being here, he said: "neither me or my copilot have our laptops in the cockpit, so we'll just be landing in Atlanta, not over-flying it by 100 miles." There was a little nervous laughter, but mostly just puzzled looks.
Am I the only one that thinks that was a stupid thing to say?
Carl
Carl... this person is famous. You are 100% correct. FOs who've experienced these PAs, which happen every leg from what I know, say it goes over very poorly and say they cringe when they hear the 1 passenger out of 142 who says "that was funny!" They say you can just feel the chest expand from the cockpit. But obviously FOs just have to live with it and then vent to each other after the trip. I've gotten 3 phone calls about this in recent months and I'm sending a copy of your post to them.
There are others who make a "we don't have our laptops out" joke and even one who added "we know the difference between a taxiway and a runway" joke but I think its safe to say there are 10,400 pilots in this airline currently flying the line who know how absolutely stupid these jokes are.