It's hot and my noggin hurts. Why?
 

I recently rode on a Mesa E175 and was one of the first to board the aircraft. The cabin was already warm. Nearing the end of boarding the cabin was a sweat box and multiple passengers were complaining. Ten minutes before departure the captain reached up, starts the apu, turns on the packs and walla, the cabin cools off.

So here are my questions to regional pilots across the board. Can you tell when YOUR cabin is uncomfortably warm? Do you brief your flight attendants to inform you if it's warm? If it is warm why do you wait to start the apu?

Summer is at our doorstep and our passengers deserve better.

Who doesn't turn the a few on the moment they walk onto the aircraft. I never understand when a guy just leaves It Off,

This isn't a regional thing. Had it happen multiple times on mainline too. Only excuse I can think of...lack of communication, taking APU usage policy overboard, poor situational awareness.

It's cool in the cockpit, if nobody tells me it's getting hot in the back I won't know.

I find it more often on mainline myself. Seems like most wait until exactly 10 minutes prior to turn on the APU.

Is it that hard to look at your cabin temp gauge? that apu should be burning all the time

Worse problem at mainline. Try being at the back of a mad dog in July with a "by the book Capt" that won't turn it on even though it's about 105 in the back 1/3 of that long skinny tube... While they sit up front with their windows open! Geesh!

Expressjet CRJ-2/7/9 pilots are the absolute worst with this. In the heat of summer or whatnot, they'll single-engine taxi with no APU and just stand parked at the gate with an engine running which slows down the ground handling and adds many bad molecules for them to breath. Oh yea, and the passengers melt in the aisle whilst begging to get off.

United is cracking down on APU usage, theres actually teams with trucks in ORD dedicated to that task, furthermore the data from the 175 is very accessible and shows the usage time. I can't tell you how many emails we've all received regarding this matter. 10 minutes prior to departure or "environmental conditions requiring it sooner"

Thank goodness 9E management gives us the green light to use it as we please for comfort. In the case of the 200, we crank it up around 10 minutes before we land. Of course we too have people that think their saving money and sacrifice comfort to run the engines longer.