Just Venting
 

After seeing the Video of the guy who approached the Flight Deck door on the Comair 5637 I was thinking what I would do if I was in a similar situation if I was operating the flight... I came to one conclusion, Tell him to take his seat and we are dealing with it and if he dont leave the flight deck area I would have him removed for obstructing the duties of a flight crew..

Its amazing how people will pay $100 for a Ticket and expect first class service..

Have to agree with you there...where was that CA's balls?? Out to Lunch? Allowing a pax to grill you like that completely degrades any authority he has...a lesson for the rest of us - becuse you never know when you're gonna be on TV these days LoL

As a soon-to-be FO I can agree with that, not cool at all. On the other hand though, could you imagine being stuck in a cabin with no air for endless hours and people throwing up? I understand the flight crew can't do much about it, but I think that was a fairly extreme situation. I sure don't have a solution, but something should have been done IMO. As a flight crew member however I would have probably taken similar action as you proposed in addition to trying to figure something out with the company.

Having a deferred APU in JFK just plain sucks. You know you will be taxing for endless hours.

This is from USA Today earlier this week...

As some jets waited for hours to move, the frustration increased. An unidentified pilot on Comair Flight 5233, which had arrived from Burlington, Vt., about 90 minutes earlier, asked the tower for help getting to his gate because his jet's air conditioner was broken. "Our cabin temperature is getting up into the 90s right now," the pilot said.

"Call your company and tell them to find gates for all those guys in front of you," a controller replied, according to a recording of the conversation provided by LiveATC.net, a website for aviation professionals that monitors air-traffic communications. "I can't move anyone out."

A real captain knows better than to take an airplane (especially the crj200) without an APU in the summer! Refuse the AC. God forbid maintenance would actually fix it. I have been quoted on more than one occasion as saying "if you're not going to fix this than you're left with two choices, find me another airplane or this airplane another Captain." things seem to magically get fixed.

In all seriousness, there was a well-circulated story that mesa killed an older gentleman a few years back due to heat stroke. Same story, 200 w/ no apu stuck in the lineup in PHX...in the summer.

The pilots got named in the lawsuit too.

I would refuse the airplane if it had no APU as well. Seems like too many flights make the news out of JFK lately. I don't want to be one of them!

I also wouldn't have a conversation with a Pax on camera. Anyone have a link to that video?

Give it a couple years of these pains in the a$$ and you won't give a frog's fat a$$ either way.

Haha, you know after I wrote that I kinda thought the same thing. Guess I'll have to learn the hard way. At least I have block or better going for me.

we actually ran into this situation the other day. granted it was only a 20 min wait for the gate. we ended up going to an isolated part of the airport, turning on the parking brake and spoling up the engines enough to get the duct pressure up.


however, you cannot just go in and not have a plan for customer service. We are getting paid to give our passengers the best service possible, and we need to do it.

I think that if the CA had known that he was being video taped it would've been a much different conversation. One thing for sure the CA was lacking some major cajones dealing with that situation.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Refuse the aircraft. This would be the seasoned CA response.

Same goes for having no APU in Canada during the middle of winter . . . . NO THANKS!

JFK Delays...
 

I have spent alot of time sitting on taxiways in kennedy, with the door closed thank you very much! The APU is a MEL'able item and not very strong arguement for refusing airplane, regardless of how hot it is outside. There is a more diplomatic solution to the problem. You accept the airplane ask for extra gas (since you will have to run a motor the entire time) and you go out and taxi. If you just so happen to go below min T/O becuase your delay was too long.... OH WELL!!!!! You will then return to the gate, hopefully sometime the same day:D

Beagle

Its a good thing the quality of service isn't directly proportional to my pay. haha

I'm with everyone on this. Tell the passenger to take his seat but more importantly...refuse the aircraft!!!

quick question....

Several folks have mentioned the horrors of being aboard an airplane in the summer time w/o an operating APU.

Is this to say that the aircrafts air conditioning system cannot/is not run by the engines while the plane is on the ground?

I always thought that once the engines were running, power for the a/c systems came from that, and not necessarily the APU.

Obviously Im missing something here, guys. Heh.

I would say it has more to do with his judgment than anything else. Sorry, but I'm siding with the PAX on this one.

As many have commented, the captain could have refused to take the airplane. Sure, the APU is deferable, but this is where judgment and thinking outside the box come in. In extreme weather, whether it be hot or cold, this borders on a safety issue as well as a comfort issue.

There is one option that I would have exercised: I would have run an engine on the ground until it flamed out from fuel starvation. Now the aircraft has to be towed to the gate.

I have never flown any type of regional jet, but if they are like any other jet (and I would have to think they are), then yes, you can run the a/c on the ground solely on engine power.

However, so many companies are feeling the pinch of high fuel prices that the crews feel pressured/intimidated to save fuel at just about any cost.

was it only the APU deffered or was there more? The door to the airplane seemed open in the video, they were talking to some ground crew, seemed to be lightning outside, and you could see other RJ's in the background, which looked an awful lot like they were @ the gate already, and weren't being allowed off the plane because of lightning.

But as said earlier, once an engine is started, airconditioning can be run off of it as opposed to the APU, if the plane didn't have an APU they should have/could have started an engine, if the plane wasn't at the gate, and there was no apu, then an engine would have already been running, cause these things aren't like cessnas....the engines don't start off the batteries.

I think they are complaining because the engines don't provide enough bleed air pressure to cool the cabin unless the power is brought up above idle. It is the same in the MD. One guy mentioned that he moved over to a run up area and spooled up the engines to provide more bleed air pressure. I do this regularly on the MD. I don't go to a run up area but when I have to stop in line for take off, I will spool from about 50% N2 (idle) to about 63% N2. That translates to about 1.05 EPR. This makes a very noticeable difference in the temperature of the air from the gaspers. It is above idle but not so much as to create a hazard to aircraft behind me. I don't know why the RJ guys don't do the same thing. Maybe too much power is needed on the RJ.

Also on the EMB-120. running the bleeds in auto on the ground is WAAAAAY better to cool the cabin. If you forget to change them back to low for TO they should "automatically" switch back. If you get a hot smelly pack on the ground with the bleed in Auto, your pack cooling fan is F'd up. Write it up.

Thanks in advance from all your suffering passengers. :D

Auto/Norm is my friend. Although sometimes we just switch to the apu during taxi and get better results. Unfortunately a fancy new paint job doesn't quite do a good job of distracting you from the fact that the packs suuuuck. :p

You CRJ guys need the EMB APU. I have sat out there for hours blowing and snow ice pellets in the cockpit. HAHE Its great:D

Since my company insisted on operating the AC on the ground with packs low/bleeds low (norm?). I used to reach over to switch the left bleed to auto and the xbleed open. That way we got nice cooling on the gnd. The APU was good but too often you get the exhaust smell.

true enough. the exhaust isn't so fun.

"The APU is a MEL'able item and not very strong arguement for refusing airplane, regardless of how hot it is outside."[/quote]

That's precisely my point a real PIC knows that there is no argument. What he says goes or he doesn't. Some of this is type specific. Some aircraft have full duct pressure on one engine at idle. The one's that don't usually require a strong captain to protect his passengers from a sweaty and sometimes dangerous hell. I don't give a rat's a** what the mel says. If an elderly person has an episode on your airplane due to the heat, your judgment will be seriously called into question by the FAA, your company (yes the same company that would have tried to make you take the A/C had you tried to refuse it), and the plaintiff's attorney. Before you upgrade grow a pair and learn to use them.