PPD Koolaid
 

Heard at a recent PPD course at TK. “Our customers want better PA’s. If we just up our NPS and do some more glad handing, it will get us a new UPA!”

Yes, that’s the crap they’re peddling. Hard to believe spontaneous laughter didn’t break out in the room.

Get the flight attendants to stop treating the passengers like crap. No amount of PAs are going to help the fact that passengers are an inconvenience to our FAs.

Sorry Grumpyguppydriver, but i totally disagree. You are totally missing the point. It's not about better PAs alone. It's about making PAs when you have a delay due to maintenance, wx, etc and doing so at regular intervals. Nothing ticks off customers more, when the CAP says nothing for long stretches of time. Even if there is no new info, you still let folks know, and they actually don't get overly ****ed. In fact, they are actually appreciative of it. Same goes for saying hello when they board. I at least try to say hello to the first/business/global and high mileage flyers since they are footing a large part of our bills. It actually does make a difference. Nothing more annoying as pilots like you that don't want to raise a finger to do the right thing. And don't be one of the few grumpy old farts that's complaining about needing a new contract too. That line is getting old too. Spontaneous laughter didn't break out, because you are one of the few disgruntled ones out there that needs to retire and not soon enough. Do you understand? Of course not, and will be too hardheaded to want to.

Sorry if I’m being dense, but are you saying you don’t think we need a new contract?

That was the impression I got.

I believe s/he does have a good point about PA’s during abnormal operations though. When things aren’t going as planned let the passengers know what’s up. I think most of our pilots do that already though.

They’ve got it backwards. If we had a new contract, then maybe I’d care about things like NPS.

Swing and a miss kiddo. Nothing grumpy about me. Guaranteed my pax and crew are always taken care of. You completely missed the point. If you believe that this company’s multi million dollar Labor Relations team gives a damn about any of that, then you understand ZERO about our business. We’ll get a contract if and when we have the stones to demand it and negotiate it accordingly. They’re NOT going by metrics such as “PA engagement” It’s tiresome to have to continue to try to get newbies to understand this. Perhaps actually learning from people who have been here a while may do you some good. Your enthusiasm and corporate cheerleading are sweet, however naive.

They should def. focus the customer interaction on the FA’s. It’s a footnote in our job description. It’s the meat and potatoes of theirs.

Of course we do. But, some people think they have to define us as *not* doing those things in order for their tired narrative to work. They’ve drank the kookaid big time. The reality is: A knowledge of our history and being skeptical is a good thing. The second that we collectively believe otherwise is a dark day for the profession. Luckily, I think most pilots are smart enough to sift out the BS.

Agreed…and the 2 of us up front have a lot of information the FAs don’t have. We should be the ones relating weather, long taxi lines, gate holds, and maintenance delays. I always try to give updates and tell the truth. I commuted for 6 years and always hated it when we were sitting somewhere for 20 minutes without a peep from the flight deck. It’s not hard.

The two aren’t linked in anyway, IMO.

If you can’t be a decent human being and treat customers with respect, kindness, and dignity under the current CBA, is more money really going to change your character?

Agreed, it’s rare to find a commuter who hasn’t suffered a flight attendant struggling to read during the PAs. I wonder how the suggestion to create remedial reading classes for flight attendants would go over?

The flight attendants had their customer focused remedial training a couple years ago…”Back Stage” Problem is, when they’re forced to read credit card advertisements, they aren’t going to want to spend more time on the PA giving any sort of info. Nor will the passengers listen to them, anyway.

Not what I said. This is not about respect or whether or not to treat customers with dignity, but if the company wants me to hand out business cards to first class or say goodbye to every passenger just to improve some metric, I might be more inclined to do so if the company showed me appreciation in the form a new contract.

It’s really quite simple. Just like Herb Kelleher said years ago. The company takes care of its people. They in turn take care of the customers. Then profits take care of themselves. United trying to reinvent the wheel is a losing battle.

Bingo. And the new guys wonder why the old guys are cranky. Each new management loves to reinvent the wheel and prove the previous team all wrong. They squander millions and employee goodwill while taking bites out of the current contract or delaying the next one because of this or that emergency. Meanwhile, a big chunk of gullible pilots complicates the simplest of things so they can then assume (or direct) some of the blame on their fellow pilots. It appears to me that some of the smartest guys in the room are also some of the most easily bamboozled by the "suits and metrics" crowd. And then they become one of the suit's more powerful tools when they start directing blame at the wrong guys.

​​​​​WTF? Stop saving the airline already. It will survive or thrive irrespective of your best efforts. Just fly the jet and go home already.

Nice post Mr. Dynamite …


It’s like when your wife tells you there will be more sex if you just do more to help around the house… response:“alright, you go first”

Contract is past due… FUPM

I think a lot of the differences in attitudes between the grumpy old guys and the new ones is how many times we’ve seen this show. Just over 20 years ago UAL had very fast upgrades and a huge contractual gain, followed by 9/11, concessions, a recession, and a merger. Right after the merger they announced that we were getting a bunch of new 737-700’s at a price we couldn’t pass on and drawing down the 50 seat flying. We changed our 350 order to the -1000, and then back to the -900 and increased the total. We were going to grow the seniority list to 16,000 pilots and become the premier US airline. Following that sales pitch, the 737’s were changed to delayed max orders, 50 seat flying increased, and the 350 is still just a remote possibility. This is just the latest version of the same old show. I’m all for keeping the pax informed and comfortable, but going the extra mile and being all core4 has left the building.

I’m with ya about the company needing to keep this an attractive career and sorry if my reply sounded like it was pointed at you….I was speaking to the generalized “you”. Just another take on the “title doesn’t dictate behavior” discussion.

The company could do wonders for pilot recruitment by proposing a truly industry leading contract….seeing there’s a pilot shortage and all.

Ya know this quote was attributed to Pat Patterson, a 30-year CEO of United. To paraphrase: “Take care of the employees, they’ll take care of the passengers, the passengers will take care of the shareholders…”

In fact, in the 1930s Core4 was apparently Core5:

Attitude reflect leadership.

Can we start a finishing school for our FAs ran by the LHR flight attendants?

They offer a completely different experience than the majority of our domestic FAs do.

So what is a NPS?!?! (Insert sarcasm here). We have enough to manage without worrying about some BS metric a first year intern came up with. I agree with making appropriate PAs when the situation warrants, as I don’t like being “kept in the dark” anymore than the next guy. But to watch the skipper try and do everyone else’s job rather than just concentrating on their own is, at best frustrating and ultimately erodes teamwork.

THIS!!^^^^^^^^