Freight Dawg Question
 

Hey guys, sometimes I will think of an oddball question. There is some discussion at the Kalitta crash thread regarding bad fuel, FARC, and speculation regarding politcal events in Columbia. My question is this; you guys, particularly the on-demand ACMI guys, get sent all over the world, sometimes to places that are "new" (as opposed to set hubs/destinations like the pax carriers). Does the company you work for brief you at all on your destination? Can they give you a small whitepaper detailing the political climate/uncertainty of a given country, places in the destination to avoid, things to be careful of, etc?

Just wondering - many companies outside of aviation will do this, just wondering if you guys are prepared in a similiar way.

The quick answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no. If it's a particularly sensitive spot or moment, they might. Most of the time the time pressure precludes getting any information out to us. Some of the time the company's getting a premium and just won't tell you so you don't have a chance to realize this might be a bad idea.

I've never been to South America with KA, so I couldn't tell what information was sent to this crew.

FD

At FedEx, we have a link on the front page of our website that takes us to a daily security briefing on Global Issues (politics, travel dangers, etc) and Weather Issues (significant wx, typhoons, etc). There is also a search function to search individual countries.

From several prior lives in aviation and even at UPS , no and not much usefull

Oh man that's funny! Not only "NO" but a "Hell No!". We would normally have a hotel set up, but that's about it. It'd be up to the crew (ultimately, Capt's responsibility) to figure out how to get there, and the harder part is normally trying to get back to the plane if you were operating out. Plus, normally none of the required paperwork was on board (Jepps, runway analysis, OEI procedures) and you needed to figure out how to get the company to get that to you. Some quality comedy:

- spend over an hour trying to get from the front door of the airport to the plane in Addis Abbaba, at 0300L - even though the company had been operating there for 2 months nobody had spread the gouge. Not just Addis though, this was a regular occurance.

- After flying through a region for months, the company found out during an FAA inspection we were flying through a region with a "no (American) fly zone"..that had been there since 1984.

- Flying Africa and S. America, every service (ATC, CFR, Security) seems to have a "fee" and wants hard US$ but we were never given a cash stash. Got good at talking my way out..."Our agent paid in the capital city!" "but this isn't the capital city my friend!"....Doh!

- Since there are no vans set up, a local taxi shat it's tranny...the crew ended up pushing it for a mile to the hotel! Fairly common for the taxi drivers to try to get extra $ from you and if you didn't pay to call the cops and tell them you wouldn't pay the fee.

- A week after operating into a 3rd world country (optimistic evaluation), the company forwarded a state department warning from a month prior advising Americans to avoid the region due to widespread violence and kidnapping against foreigners!

It was always an adventure..and I got good at doing my own research before going to a new place. Knowledge is power and the company wasn't sharing, if they had it.

Spongebob

Do you fly int'l? We get security/political info at the bottom of the flight plans. As best as I can tell it is often a day or two behind CNN though

Ok...well, it seems there is a need for this kind of info. FedEx and the bigger lines seem to do something at least, but even that seems a little inadequate. Perhaps there could be a dedicated section of this forum, or something on APC in which pilots that are flying all over the world could give gouge about things. Similar to the "layover" section, but focused more on risks, things and places to avoid, and up to date info. Even security briefings will not say "...if you go to this part of (insert city here) you will be killed and eaten by cannibals..." There is gouge here at APC for getting hired, or where to find a good restaurant, maybe we should put a list for relevant threats?

No was for prior lives, not much usefull was for the day or two late at UPS

A previous company I flew at used CIA.gov; the World FactBook. It sounds kinda sketchy but provides a great overview of any country in the World. Even if you're not going to sub-Saharan Africa, it's incredibly interesting to read up on some of the places we fly.

link below:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...ook/index.html

You beat me to the mention of the CIA factbook. It's a good resource but no substitute for local knowledge.