Oh dear. What has happened to my beloved hometown airline?


https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...or-passengers/

 

I'm surprised it took this long to show up here. Seems like there might be some growing pains related to the merger?

 

Should come as no surprise that there's no leadership at Angle Lake. Just a bunch of accountants who are running this place based on performance metrics and spreadsheets. There seems to be a general lack of empathy towards taking care of the customers (oh, I'm sorry, "guests") when something goes sideways.

It doesn't even have to be a diversion. I witnessed first-hand how our own CSAs in SEA closed the door on a runner 12 minutes prior to push. Then, they proceeded to argue with him. The FO (who was probably a short-call reserve) showed up at 10 minutes prior to push and they let him down the jetway.

They continued to argue with this guy for 15 minutes, while the airplane sat at the gate with the jetway still attached. But, I digress.

It is really embarrassing that this management group doesn't have a process for contingencies like this diversion. But, not at all surprising...

B&B think we are still flying 727's up and down the coast and up into SE Alaska.

 

I have no doubt that management left the crew dangling. Having said that, I read these articles with a grain of salt. I’ve never read a news article about something I have personal knowledge of that even comes close to capturing the truth of the matter. I’m sure the crews did all they could under the circumstances.

 

There's almost nothing the crew can do at an airport not staffed or contacted by their airline. OCC has to make arrangements. The CA can order pizza, that's about it.

 

If I had to guess, TSA went home for the night. No way to screen the pizza and can’t let people leave sterile or else they can’t re board.

 

Funny how the massive cluster that happened this past weekend hasn’t been addressed by anyone in mgmt.

Almost as if to say “if we close our eyes and plug our ears.....it never happened!”

 

Has nothing to do with merger blues, and everything to do with just plain old poor management.

 

Meanwhile, we are parking fully loaded A321's with 185 people on them at the cargo ramp and bussing people to the terminal after they deplane and stand in the rain. This inevitably adds ~45minutes to the time it takes to leave the airport and I would think would also be wreaking havoc on connections. What is our biggest airplane doing on a remote pad on a regular basis?? They could at least deplane from both ends to expedite the process but they don't do that either. I assume this is somewhat of a permanent thing too, given the recent opening of a literal bus terminal in the D gates. What a joke this place is

 

If NYC was kept open as a full size base, there wouldn’t have been any problem getting the diversion covered with 2 new pilots into BUF and operate out right away.