SWA/AirTran Pax Incident In The News....
06-04-2013, 06:14 PM
#13
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2007
Position: B737/FO
Posts: 227
Originally Posted by gloopy
One element of this is a great example of a growing pain as SWA becomes more legacy by the second.
Their quick turn mentality is ingrained into the fabric of their existance and part of that is giving massive authority to their FA's to be Drill Instructor-esque rulers of the cabin when it comes to pax compliance so they can get on their way. They're friendly and fun and tell jokes and do stand up comedy PA's and all that but you do not want to cost them an extra second on a turn or you will pay. They crack heads and the company backs them and the plan pushed out on time and they save a minute of block times a million flights a day every day = competitive productivity advantage.
Which is also why they taxi at takeoff power, beg for shortcuts in those rare instances when they don't get them anyway and bribe ATC to give them flagrant and highly illegal Most Favored Airline status as they're cleared out of sequence first out of a hold or someone else has to do a 270 so they can cut in from behind them to be number one for the numbers so they're 23 minutes early instead of only 22 minutes early.
But now they're growing up and becoming a big boy airline with big boy realities. Their secondary airport core business model is quietly being killed off because its outdated and ineffective. Their planes are getting bigger, their ops more complex, their turn times longer, their costs much, much higher and their competition far more dangerous.
But culture dies hard. Big group...non compliant for 2 minutes...kick em all off...power turn complete. Yeah, that dog don't hunt here no more. Welcome to the bigs.
Their quick turn mentality is ingrained into the fabric of their existance and part of that is giving massive authority to their FA's to be Drill Instructor-esque rulers of the cabin when it comes to pax compliance so they can get on their way. They're friendly and fun and tell jokes and do stand up comedy PA's and all that but you do not want to cost them an extra second on a turn or you will pay. They crack heads and the company backs them and the plan pushed out on time and they save a minute of block times a million flights a day every day = competitive productivity advantage.
Which is also why they taxi at takeoff power, beg for shortcuts in those rare instances when they don't get them anyway and bribe ATC to give them flagrant and highly illegal Most Favored Airline status as they're cleared out of sequence first out of a hold or someone else has to do a 270 so they can cut in from behind them to be number one for the numbers so they're 23 minutes early instead of only 22 minutes early.
But now they're growing up and becoming a big boy airline with big boy realities. Their secondary airport core business model is quietly being killed off because its outdated and ineffective. Their planes are getting bigger, their ops more complex, their turn times longer, their costs much, much higher and their competition far more dangerous.
But culture dies hard. Big group...non compliant for 2 minutes...kick em all off...power turn complete. Yeah, that dog don't hunt here no more. Welcome to the bigs.
06-04-2013, 08:30 PM
#14
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Joined APC: Jul 2010
Position: window seat
Posts: 12,522
Originally Posted by LNL76
How long, in your expert opinion, should they wait for customer to comply with BASIC instructions? If they all speak English there shouldn't be a need to repeat SIMPLE instructions more than twice.
The SWA FA cabin ruler compliance machine has crested the top of the coaster and run out of chain. Welcome to the legacies.
06-04-2013, 08:33 PM
#15
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Joined APC: Jul 2010
Position: window seat
Posts: 12,522
Originally Posted by SamFoxpilot
Sounds like gloop is more interested in ranting about how much he hates SWA, than actually reading the article. The incident was on an AirTran aircraft operating with AirTran crew and procedures. With that said, I don't know the facts of the incident, so I will let those with more knowledge comment.
06-04-2013, 08:42 PM
#16
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Joined APC: Dec 2012
Posts: 389
This story is laughable. I am sure crew overreacted. Some FA's thing they are jailers instead of customer service oriented personnel to facilate the passengers travel. Use some common sense and be flexible with a large group of students. Patience and courtesy not threats and animosity.
06-04-2013, 08:57 PM
#17
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Joined APC: Jun 2007
Position: CA
Posts: 1,207
Originally Posted by gloopy
Same company for 2.5 years now. Oh yeah, "operated by" and all that.
06-04-2013, 09:03 PM
#18
Line Holder
Joined APC: Feb 2007
Position: 172M
Posts: 32
I've seen FA's tell passangers to turn off and put away there're phones, then sit in threre seats, break out threre phones and begin texting while the plane is taxing to the runway. After awhile passsangers dont take to the double standards and don't take the FA'S seriously anymore.
In this case maybe this was the crews last trip and they wanted an easy leg, kick off 100 plus passangers, easy leg for the cabin crew.
In this case maybe this was the crews last trip and they wanted an easy leg, kick off 100 plus passangers, easy leg for the cabin crew.
06-04-2013, 09:08 PM
#19
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Joined APC: Jul 2010
Position: window seat
Posts: 12,522
Originally Posted by shoelu
Sorry Gloop, you are completely wrong! A wholly owned subsidiary is just that and nothing more. Was Delta responsible for the extremely unfortunate accident in Lexington? That wholly owned subsidiary had been "operated by" Delta for a lot o longer than 2.5 years. This is a non event and the AirTran employees were operating according to AirTran procedures not those of SWA. At this point they are completely different operations. I can only assume that if this group had been on a SWA flight and decided not to comply with crew member instructions it would have been handled similarly.
If this were a DL story and our FA's were still separate, would it be credible to point to a "north" versus "south" difference? It wouldn't matter to anyone and DL would still be in the hot seat about it.
And my point still stands. SWA FA's dominate the cabin the likes of which I've never seen anywhere else. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but I am saying that those days are numbered and it will be an interesting culture shift to watch.
06-04-2013, 09:13 PM
#20
Da Hudge
Joined APC: Oct 2006
Position: Poodle Whisperer
Posts: 17,473
gloopy- shoelu has a valid point.
FL FAs who have not "converted" are not WN FAs. They still utilize FL operation manuals and techniques.
Similar to right after DL consummated our merger, but we were still completely separate. It's just taken WN years longer to do what took us a matter of months...
FL FAs who have not "converted" are not WN FAs. They still utilize FL operation manuals and techniques.
Similar to right after DL consummated our merger, but we were still completely separate. It's just taken WN years longer to do what took us a matter of months...
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