Nobody says he's a supervisor and of course we work together as a team....until one of the team members need some guidance when it comes to getting non-revs and jumpseat riders on. You want to leave them behind because an agent wants to shut the door 10 minutes early, that's on you. Just remember, karma's a *****.

cool. none of that establishes a rank. the flight crew doesn’t “out rank” a gate agent, because we aren’t in the military anymore.

This is true. However, the CA has the ability not to leave early. If the gate agent refuses to let a Non-rev of JS on, it becomes hard for them to explain that as we sit there with the door open until the scheduled push time.

this is where working *with* your coworkers comes into play. the results will be way better than pretending they’re your subordinate

If that's the hill you want to die on, have at it. You must remember that it's the Captain who has to do the carpet dance.

BTW....what is a " team member"?

Nobody's doing a carpet dance or gonna die on a hill, over a delayed pushback to get non-revs or a JS on!

Your kind scare me! Please, put me on your no-fly list!

Aren't you and sailing on everyones nofly list now? Sarcasm aside, the captain should make the walk. If they don't grab thier hat and MARCH up to the podium!

Our uppper management in flight operations would disagree in totality with this statement. Captains are very much at the forefront and are indeed, "front line leaders", in all aspects of the operation. Sometimes being a leader means your make decisions that some people don't like. Take the gate agent example here. The person in command is the Captain, solely without question. that extends to beyond the foot print of the aircraft.

Mostly agree with you here. It's really not that hard and doesn't require you to be a richard about it either. My "technique"... When I get to the gate, and introduce myself to the gate agent for the trip and check in with them, I start with usual pleasantires "how's it going this evening, have you been busy? Fine day we're having today, at least we don't have to de-ice, etc. etc.". After they give me the litany on the load and pax counts, specials, pay load opt info (if applicable) my next question is always; "How many non-revs and how does it look getting them on the flight". By asking this simple question, it let's the GA know I am looking at it, and it's something I care about. I would do the same for JSers too, but I fly int'l so mostly we are just dealing with non-revs.

I've found this works out pretty well. Many times the GA when they come down to ask us if we've signed off etc like to add "Hey Cap, I got all the on-revs on for you". I smile and say "thank you very much for helping us out".

As you say OOfff, it's not hard, you just have to find a way that works without being a richard.

there are many ways that management asks us to lead. there are even more ways to actually lead. one of those ways is to be someone’s commanding officer. we are not the gate agents’ commanding officer nor do we “out rank” them, because—again—this isn’t the military anymore.


yep. treat your coworkers like humans and not subordinates. works better in almost every situation.

Exactly. Who is getting calls about a delay for passenger/non-rev/jump seat issues? No one. Even if they were calling, yep - we delayed due to issues getting a jump seater on. End of call. Geez.