15 or 16 recalls in one class started yesterday, and about the same number of blue suit new hires across the hall.

As for the recalls, 4 DAL and the rest Fnwa guys. Bunch of a320 MSP guys, couple DTW. Random M88 NYC, ATL and DC9 DTW. Not sure what the guys across the hall got, never saw them after the bus ride in.

All the other news was about the same as we have heard here before, I'll just say that things seems to be pretty upbeat around there. Nice to be back.

The new hire class roster listed 30 new hires. I only saw a couple of them, so I am not sure how many were there.

Well I am sure there were 20 Compass guys maybe 9 mesaba guys that did not make the class for hold backs, so that would make sense.

kudos to the folks who had their thinking caps on about using twitter to find and resolve customer issues. Maybe we're not the IT dinosaur we fear we are.

Delta Monitors Twitter to Remedy Customer Complaints - BusinessWeek

FTB excerpt from the 2 page article:
"Delta is out in front, especially for the airline industry," Holtz said. "What people are looking for in a lot of these situations is just acknowledgment, and to have someone try to resolve their problem. It shouldn't matter which way they reach out, whether it's by phone or e-mail or on Twitter."

Delta's Twitter account is run by customer-service employees who use the direct-message function to privately swap information and view passengers' itineraries. The account is watched from 8 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. New York time on business days. Brice fired off his posting to the world's largest airline and headed to a hotel to sleep when he was stranded.

No Waiting
"Instead of waiting in a long line with everyone else, I knew on Twitter they would get to me right away," said Brice, of Ogden, Utah, who has flown 30 times this year.

Delta maintains a main company account as well as one dedicated to service issues, @DeltaAssist. Remedying complaints via Twitter also scrubs the carrier's image, because passengers camped out in airports after late or canceled flights have time on their hands to grumble online.


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Passenges grumble online? What about their pilots!? :D

FtB;
I was impressed with that too! Great thinking on their part.

Reddog,

Just to make sure no one misunderstands what I was saying earlier...

I am not saying you should delay configuring and put meeting the stabilized approach criteria in jeopardy. I'm simply saying that you should configure no earlier than necessary to meet this criteria. Otherwise, you are wasting fuel for no reason. Of course, experience with the aircraft makes a big difference here too. If someone is new on an aircraft, they will need to configure earlier than someone who has more experience. I think it would be really helpful if LCA's would demonstrate this so that a new guy can see exactly where that zone is between configuring too early and too late. Might not be a bad idea to do it in the sim during training as well. A short demo of this probably wouldn't take 10 minutes of sim time.

In my limited experience with the bus, you don't have to necessarily be early, just aggressive. I came into DTW late the other night, around 130K. Did 250KIAS until 8 mi out, then went managed speed, gear down, full boards, and dropped the flaps on speed, and it worked out great. Maybe it worked because we didn't have a Vapp of 123KIAS in a 319 with crummy AT. :o

It was a smooth as glass evening, and that helps a lot. You really have to be careful in turbulent, gusty conditions as to not overspeed the flaps. Truth is, you just have to be aggressive or you won't make it.

I have to say that this is a step in the right direction. As of lately, I try to keep a very low profile and not let anyone know that I am a Delta pilot. I am sick and tired of getting hammered about their bad experience. It has gotten really bad and is to the point of being downright embarrassing. Hopefully things will turn around in the customer service side of things and someday you will not have to cringe when you tell people what you do.:rolleyes:

5 minutes with NewK and everything gonna be alright no worries.:D