dalad

Landed in SNA yesterday, stopped at gate, shut down, and accomplished the shut down checklist. Had the new ACARS onboard. It didn't show us in till five minutes later as that is how long it took for either a cargo door or 2L to open. The person who keeps putting out these memos needs to return to the line.

Flamer

Yup, there goes D+0. But they will be able to reduce block times this way, so there goes your raise, QOL, pilot count....however you want to look at it. I think think memo would cause most gate agents to have an aneurism on the spot.

There is no other reason to release a memo like this other that to reduce employee costs.

firstmob

Off topic, but what happened to our SEA-HND route?

Wasatch Phantom

Flew to SNA about a year ago and landed a couple of minutes early. We got to the gate on time but it took 19 minutes after we blocked in for them to open the 1L door. No exaggeration a full NINETEEN minutes.

Numerous radio calls to ops got no results. After getting off the jet I looked for the Station Manager; not there. I left her a voice mail requesting a return call. Nope, she never called. Filled out an FCR and got no response.

Check Essential

Didn't they dock the pay of some crews at JFK a few years ago for turning on the beacon too early?
Used the ramp surveillance video to show beacon on and no push.

And didn't some ramp controllers get grief for telling guys to push back 3 feet and hold?

They claim this gate latency thing is going to be an ACS program but its always the gate agents asking if they could close the door and show it out or the tug drivers who call up saying "We're closing up any second now. Could you please release the brake and show us on time?"

Check Essential

Wow. This APC ad generator system is fast.
Used the word "theft" in a post. And iaflyer said "law enforcement". And here's what I got --

DeadHead

You weren't blimpstalking Gary Busey were you?

flyallnite

Then I'd say this new policy is a step in the right direction. It's good you were proactive, but the way things worked in the past, your problem would have been swept under the carpet. This new ACARS and policy makes it much harder to do that. Do I have a problem with not getting paid while the door is closed with pax on board? Sure I do. But the time to fix that is in contract negotiations, and that's what I'll focus on next time. In the meantime, I'm going to start logging the times and checking my rotation and calling times monitor to make sure they are correct, something I've been lax at doing in the past.

What's good is that the days of sitting there at the gate with nobody apparently giving a $&9# are coming to an end. Guess who got stuck with a majority of every delay before this program? We did. Not the line pilot per se, but Flt. Ops. And that covered up a lot of problems and covered a lot of A$$es at ACS. Now you can expect ACS to be much more proactive in determining delay causes because they are going to hear about it if they are blamed. And with the new software, they're going to get a lot more of the blame right away. For instance, this situation you mention, I'd expect the station manager will get called on the carpet to explain. If there's a problem with Alaska taking up our gates, it's going to get identified through this program, and DL will finally see how much it is screwing up our operation instead of relying on anecdotes from local ACS people as to why they couldn't get things done on time.

Also, I like the fact that if we block in, and none of the doors are open, nobody in the ramp tower will be fudging our times because the ACARS don't lie. And we'll at least get paid the overage.

My advice to anyone is to make sure you're ready to go, the pushback checklist complete when it's time to go. If the cockpit door isn't closed, and ramp asks why you pushed back late, tell them the FA's weren't ready, not that you weren't ready. That way the delay goes to Inflight and you won't get bothered with a call or email. If you really weren't ready, then just be upfront about it, whatever the problem was. It's better to get good data than not because this program should identify operational problems so that we can take steps to prevent them from happening. And that way we make more money, and run a better airline. Something that I've not seen at Delta until very recently.

A6danimal

Talked to a SEA redcoat last week (who seemed very knowledgeable; knew the rent per square foot we pay the POS -no, that's "Port of Seattle", really), she was certain we're still getting HND, although to my knowledge DOT has not yet approved it. Shanghai apparently begins in March.

CheapTrick

I'm going back to the letter of the law iaw this bulletin. Stuck chock? We can get it out once we are cleared to push. The data the company is reading off my acars will be valid and I'll document every late push. Then DAL can decide what metric really makes them happy.