Philly, I had a ramper do that once at another airline, I bout wanted to explode- and I kept the APU running for spite. :D

You handled it better than most would. I flew with one of JFK's APU sheriff once, I'd say he was proactive and thus maybe JFK is like that now. Which is good, but, don't go rubbing people the wrong way because it'll backfire.

Yep, he walks around with his "APU Sheriff" plaque on the back of the clip board. Funny he does not know this as I told him three times last summer! :rolleyes:

Wouldn't they collide in the middle? What a train wreck :eek:

Nope I think the A personality takes the lead and the B personality falls into the slot. That way they can be sure that both get exactly the same amount of work. If they went front to back / back to front they would have to count rows and divide by 2. Where the 757 jumps from row 4 to row 19, with that little row 18 island results in math so complicated that someone ends up serving 8/15th's of a passenger and no one wants that.

Actually, I like those guys because more often than not I am waiting to shut down the APU. When these "APU Sheriffs" are around the gate air usually is fixed and they get you plugged in faster.

Haha, I understand and know your frustration. I just did a flight to Bozeman, MT. I turned the APU on (MD90) as we entered the ramp and it was online just as the CA hit the brakes. We shut down, packed our stuff. Occasionally, I turnrf off the packs to see if the ground air was on. It wasn't so I kept it running.

Before the last passengers were off, some official looking type in a nice suit walked up and asked me, "why is the APU on?" I said, "because its hot", as I wiped my forehead of sweat. He turned around and says to the next guy also wearing official attire, "He said it's hot". They mumble for a bit and then says, "it's only 69 degrees here, so please turn the APU off." I pointed to the thermostat and said, "its 82 degrees inside here, and I'll shut the APU off when I'm ready to leave the aircraft. Thank you." They both looked frustrated and hastily walked off.

According to a publication there's a tentative deal between Saudi and a low-fare carrier in South Africa, 1Time, to take several of the Saudi M90's.

I'm all for saving fuel - I understand that it's expensive and all. But, I'm also for making the trip (the whole trip) comfortable for the pax. They just flew across the ocean or across the country for hours - I can leave the cool air on for a few minutes while they deplane. If they plug in the external air, sure, I'll shut off the packs and APU if the ext. pwr is hooked up.

Imagine being in the back of a 757 or 767 waiting for a hundred people in front of you to deplane. Then the air conditioning gets turned off. It gets warm quickly.

Definately

Some other positives from the CVG meeting this morning.

Our revenues are up significantly since the low of fourth quarter 09. Management seems commited to paying down our debt. Cash on hand has increased. They want out of the RJ business (their words, not mine). 50 seaters are going bye bye. More MD90s. Trying tying to figure out how or what to do with 717 configured Saudi MD90s. Forget about the 787-8, ain't happening. Merger synergies are 15% greater than expected. Re-gating some of the concourses in Atlanta so that those gates can receive any aircraft -- net result is a total decrease in gates but an increase in gates available that can accept your individual aircraft type. They are going to focus on our (the pilots) customer interaction. Plastic wings are back, we are getting a PA guide, and they want us to speak infront of the public more. "When the CA speaks, people listen." Both the FAA/NTSB and DAL want the pilots to focus on "professionalism" in the cockpits as well as our appearance in public (uniform clean, pressed, shoes shined, grooming, etc.). Shipsets of Jepps as soon as possible -- one step closer to EFBs. No major equipment changing bases except SLC converts to ER on next AE, ATL will switch to ER around August '11 (timeline a guess). Hiring 305 this year. No words were said if they were going to continue (despite the rumor or 60/month in Jan) but did say they expect to hire again later in the fall of '10. Everything is coming out of the desert -- the 744s get dusted off and go to Haienda.

Lastly, this was the first thing discussed. Cross fleeting of management. DAL is sending fNWA down south and fDAL up north. Now that our "baseline" operations has met DOT approval and we are merger complete, now we are going to focus on best practices. Say goodbye to crap like 500 feet checks. Part of that is to cross fleet our management to see whats good and bad on the other side. Working on IT. Youre going to see more IT initiatives like the jump seat booking which allow us to do stuff without calling mom or dad.

Thats all I can remember that hasn't already been said.

Exactly. One of the biggest things we need attention to is 1. prompt ramp service and 2. prompt connection of the airplane to external services.


Item 1 will save huge amounts of gas as we are running the big motors out there waiting.

Item 2 requires further attention on times where management thinks that the outside temperature makes it ok to not run air.

I do have one suggestion- One of the things I used to do in the CRJ (knowing that it had poor air output) was to precool the cabin in descent. I've found this works on the 737 very well, too. I would intentionally run the cabin cooler than it should be to keep the temperature more tolerable as we taxiied in with the reduced airloads of idle engines.

I guess I just gave that idea to some moron justifying their desk job for the next oil spike...