Originally Posted by
Scoop
Keenster,
You are correct - we have been lucky and for the most part have not to change our procedures. A lot of the South guys are looking forward to some positive changes as a result of this merger. I was led to believe that we pretty much went with what was easiest/fastest and the quickest way to SOC as far as procedures go.
Hopefully when the dust settles we will go back and start looking for "best practices" from both sides. While it is true we only know one side of the coin I would venture to say that "some" of the North procedures, policies, and publications were probably better - the same can be said about the South procedures - "some" were probably better. Neither operation on the whole was better than the other and anyone who says so is being foolish. I do not think that I am alone in looking forward to bringing these polices onboard - the commuter policy, jumpseating, etc.
I also realize that there is probably a lot of frustration dealing with these new procedures but what good does "slamming" them on this forum do ( I am not saying you did that - just responding to your post in a general way).
If any North guys have any suggestions on improving the operation, I for one would like to hear them. For example someone mentioned a "runway change checklist" instead of hunting for boxed items - great idea, hopefully we will incorporate it.
With all that being said, it does get old hearing a few guys repeatedly saying how great the Northwest way was and how jacked up the DAL way is. Notice I said "a few guys" as I refuse to paint the whole North group with a broad brush and I am sure most North guys realize that we are not all southern Deltoids, but individuals.
Besides, section 6 negotiations will soon unite us against our true "Evil Overloads" Delta management !!
Scoop
Scoop,
Great post and I agree with you on most all of your points. Our fustration comes from your flight ops side in trying to deal with procedures in flying the 747-400. We seem to run into a brick wall in every aspect of things we try to talk to flt ops about. We are getting used to the phrase "no carve out". It is as if everything we want to discuss is not even open for discussion. One example was the charter ops we talked about. We had a great charter operation and show the numbers of around 40K yearly to take care of datbase updates vs 2.5 mil for the dal way. Again we were told not open for discussion. This bothers me because I care about the success of this comapny and do not want to see waste just because "that's the way we have always done it and no changes" seems to rule on things that could be improved. I know that it will take time but the door policy here seems to be somewhat closed vs at NWA it was a very open door policy when it came to ideas about saving money. We used to have a special system to submit employee ideas about how to save money which resulted in savings of millions of dollars to the company. So I do not whish to slam the south guys or your- now my way of doing things. It is just a litle frustrating when you hear that the fleet captain is getting shut down on most all of the things he is batteling for especially when all the pilots are just shaking thier heads. We do have 30 plus years of flying the 747 to draw experience from. There may be a few good reasons not to start landing on the short runway in NRT but I hear that we are going to do it because a flt ops VP says that is the way it is and no discussion. Applying your break system to the airplane is causing huge problems with our crews as well as the musical chair of rotating out of the cockpit 2 more times dealing with the lavs and flt attendants a real pain in the bu--t also telegraphing every move to the terrorist. JUst crazy!!!!
Again no discussion and "NO CARVE OUT" If every single aircraft were configured the same I would have no valid argument. These are just a few examples.
I want nothing more than to improve every facet of the operation and take the good from both sides. Maybe we just want things to happen to fast, but we keep hearing the same names from instructors and fleet captains that seem to squelch most of our attempts to make things better. Hopefully this will change in the future??????
Sorry for slamming things but gotta call them like I see them and the IT side of DAL is horrible. I have heard the former NWA IT people came over and hopefully that will make things better. I am sure it will take time. So enough about that.
Good luck to us all!!!