Originally Posted by
Always_broken_in_wilts
Chug,
If we travel anywhere in the world where we have movements support, although why anyone would choose support as the correct adjective to describe movements, once the pax are disembarked we, as crew, are now reliant on said chisselers to carry out their duties as laid down. Pax are extremely rarely accomodated alondside crew for a whole variety of reasons, mainly pax want to party all night while the crew need to get their sleep...............yeah right
but thems the rules. With that in mind how are we supposed to know when our pax are being fecked about when you are not even in the same post code as us
On the occasion when we have no movers to hand we, the ALM's take charge and normally produce the goods. Example of that is we used to move folks from the "Staan" via Bucharest and the pax came to the same hotel as us for the night stop. We booked everyone a room, most had to double up but that is a bean counter issue and there is nothing we can do about it, we ensured that everyone got a 3 course evening meal and breakfast, paid room bills, advised on best methods of currency exchange, which taxi's to use and where the good bars were and did our best the following day to provide as good an inflight meal service as Bucharest can provide.
I have gone to McD's in Muscat and ordered 75 Big Mac meaks during a protracted flag stop, served 40 odd pissed up fast jet support crew with pizza on the ramp sat outside the RAFLO's office in Gander, handed out icecreams to Chinook crews and GC's in 29 Palms yadda yadda yadda and I know I am one of many who provide that very basic service.........the upshot is that most AT crews are fighting your cause but at some stage we have to hand you over to "the system" and if that lets us both down you have my sincere apologies
all spelling mistakes are "df" alcohol induced
ABIW, I only wish I was one of your pax, if for no other reason than I would have shed a few years! It seems from what you say that your pax are a damn sight better off when they are reliant on the crew than on RAF Movements on a stopover!
Your little story above reminds me of being a very young copilot and, as the imprest holder, responsible for accompanying the pax to their hotel, seeing them all accommodated and fed for the night stop, and the bill paid in cash. Only then could I rejoin the crew in our hotel, by which time they were several beers ahead of me! Next morning as soon as the wheels were up, I was off down the back like a Clippie saying "any more fares please" to joining pax. PFC on R&R who can only pay in US dollars? No problem, I'll just start a new sub imprest in that currency! Happy days, and to be fair they were, because we had fun! I'm not so sure that is true today, and I'm not sure why!
Sorry I seem to have drifted, comes with advanced years, now where were we? Oh yes, long walks to terminal, etc. Well the rule is you do what you can. No one can do much more, so if you do what you can for your pax, without it becoming counter productive do it. Try to avoid macho stand offs with ground staffs. You may feel good making some wretched DAMO look small, but he's only going to take it out on the next one in the food chain, who's going to take it out on the pax. Bingo! So let's all lighten up and see if we can simply keep the pax in the loop, and treat them as we would like to be treated ourselves! Simple!
PS the "Cheap Changi Watch" takes me back, haven't heard that one in ages!