I was PS home from CQ the very early stages of COVID - March 20 maybe. Trying to DH from CLT on an earlier flight. At the gate trying to list. Waited about :10 for the two agents to finish their personal convo and even acknowledge I was standing there. I was gonna request an empty row/area - plane wasn’t even 1/4 full - but got the vibe to just be quiet and not to push my luck. I mean it’s almost empty, it’s COVID, we’ll be spread out right? Freaking in the middle seat of a full row of 3; almost empty plane. Both passengers looked at me like WTF!?! I was a regional guy at the time, but come on. You really have to try to provide such $hitty customer service.

 

Shutting down a motor and saving 600 lbs/45 mins/$2.50/gal is around $170 saved in fuel alone. Probably over $200 when you involve maintenance.

Plus APU runs the packs better. No excuse, just pure laziness.

 

Well I hope he meant the fact that they burned probably close to 1500 lb of fuel just waiting to be parked than holding the companies water by shutting down the APU on a 45 minute turn......

 

I was PS about 6 round trips between DFW and PHX during my upgrade this spring and flew in first class the majority of the time and always exit row seats the rest. No issues with gate agents or flight attendants. Perhaps your RBF was the issue from your experience 5 years ago?

 

No previous airline I worked at had any trouble single-engine taxiing and massive debates of APU usage like this place does. And one of them was a 737 operator based somewhere with snow and slick ramps... I don't get it.

Just my opinion, but I don't really see United/Delta pilots complaining about single-engine taxi or APUs/hot airplanes at the gate either. But this argument goes back to the common thought process that "this management is inept and our fuel savings won't mean anything anyway" which I understand that frustration too.

 

The Delter boys are over on their forum every day bullying each other over using or not using the APU. And wearing their hats.

But the money saved from that is spit in the ocean. We aren't losing money because knuckleheads think they'll stick it to the man by running 3 on a parking delay. It's because our incompetent management team has no plan and our product sucks so we can't charge a premium. And we don't have a lucrative credit card despite their exhausting PA announcements. It's a well known fact that Delta and United make more off the credit card than they do from selling tickets.

 

I understand being frustrated with management, but burning this place to the ground will hurt us, not management. Their subpar leadership and inability to focus on morale is abundantly clear to everyone.

Our culture sucks. Half of our pilots don't care about saving gas or helping customers. The guy sitting 10 feet from the gate probably did not bother calling operations. I can hear it now "Not worth calling ops, they should know we're here. It's not our job to tell them we're here". Or the other common one "I'm not going to single engine taxi if we're just going to be waiting for a gate anyway."

How does that make any sense? Things aren't perfect so let's make them worse? Absolute morons. Don't complain if you're going to be a part of the problem. We are adults, management isn't going to hand us every fix to every little problem on a silver platter.

We need new leadership for new STRATEGY. But to fix the culture, it's going to take frontline people giving a damn.

 

Yeah we love our regional flying here. If we could take E175s to Europe/Asia, we'd be doing it.. but I actually just heard some small Midwest ville needs 4 new daily flights so, we should do that instead.

 

are you lga based by chance??

 

Used to be. CLT now. Driving to work > profit sharing.