Let me tell you how to do your job...........
In the market economy there is almost always pressure to lower cost. In your airline many divisions and individuals look upon flight crews as an expense center needing to be cut down to size. Accusatory statements such as your company being “the only US Major Airline where a Captain can still refuse an airplane with a legal deferral” infer that such decisions (by flight crews) are unnecessarily wasteful and must be curtailed. Tracking/monitoring increase in cleared fuel is another subtle method to apply pressure.
My point is this: there are plenty of people who will attempt to force you, the line pilots, into compliance with their “idea” of how things ought to be done. These individuals include hard charging management types out to make a name and empire for themselves, CPAs and accountants who see numbers, Chief Pilots and Base Managers eager to please their superiors and even some maintenance people. This mind set extends to gate agents and flight attendants who will sometimes try and tell you how to operate. There seems to be no shortage of people trying to “force” you into conformity with their will using subtle and not so subtle pressures.
However, if and when something goes wrong (accident, incident or a potential violation) and you find yourself in a tight spot (worried for your safety and trying desperately to keep the airplane from harm or standing in front of a regulatory body fighting to keep your license and livelihood) not one of those people, who earlier were telling you how to do your job, are going to step up and claim any responsibility for the negative outcome. You will be alone. To the man/woman/department, every one of them is going to argue that the flight crew is tasked with the responsibility, and given the resources, to make whatever decisions necessary to ensure the safety of the flight. And that’s the bottom line.
If you bear the responsibility you must be also given the authority; the two are indissoluble. In the past this was recognized and granted.
Several years ago our company lost an airliner. That accident killed everyone on board. I still remember the dazed look of unbelief and complete bewilderment that was on the face of our company’s chief executive as he faced the television cameras, the grieving family members and the onslaught of the various investigators. He couldn’t believe this was happening. There were many warning sighs leading up to that loss, including a constant assault on the authority of the flight crews. In the final analysis you ride in the front end of the jet and it's your safety in the balance.
As a Captain usually I take the fuel given to me. However, if I don’t like that fuel load, for whatever reason, I get on the phone and come to an agreement. I do not go out of my way to be belligerent, after all most of my colleagues are only trying to do the best job they are capable of-no different from me. Sometimes they are correct and I am wrong, when that happens I learn something new.
As a flight crew you have to know what you are talking about, what you are doing and must be willing to hold your ground when somebody else is trying to get you to do something that isn’t a good idea.
“I would rather not”, I like that.