Pilot in Command
I received an interesting announcement from the flight deck whilst sitting in economy patiently waiting to taxi on an internal flight in the US recently (as interesting as announcements get in such circumstances).
It went along the lines of...
"Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking, I have been asked by the other Captain to make this announcement. This aircraft has just returned from a period of extensive maintenance, we're suffering a short delay as we don't have the paper copies of some of the charts we need for our flight today. The other Captain in in Operations right now printing off the required charts and we expect to be underway shortly, thank you for your patience."
Other captain? Is it usual to use this terminology? I am private pilot (with commercial aspirations) and my experience to date is that there is always a clear distinction between the Pilot in Command (i.e. the 'Captain') and any other member of the flight crew (first officer, co-pilot, whatever the terminology). But I have never heard the term Captain used in the plural.
Can anyone, particularly anyone who has worked as flight crew and possibly in the USA, enlighten me?