Well framer, I think you might be of the belief that the fuel uplift is none of our business. What are you afraid of? Don't skimp, don't have anything to fear.
I think you are wrong. It is every bit our business. The passenger pays for proper delivery of service. And when the contracted provider is found wanting surely the customer has the right to observe and decide.
Lets say you are a mining company and you charter a contractor to provide FIFO in say a small jet or King Air as is done around the country a lot more these days. Do you the customer not take an active role in selecting the contractor? Do you not do audits and verify that the supplier is meeting its obligations? And if found wanting in certain areas, lets just say fuel policy for example,would you the customer not insist on further scrutiny on a regular basis until it felt that trust had been restored? That is exactly how contract management works.
So now who says it is none of the customers business? As a paying customer I expect that myself and my staff, family or friends are not subject to situations like this. If you skimp this much, what next, how far will it go? I can assure you as a customer it is my right to know anything I ask, or otherwise I am not your customer. If I don't have a need or concern....I don't need to ask. Simple.
Now I understand that if you ask 170 pax to critique the fuel uplift, about 169 of them would not have the understanding to determine if it was a conservative or bare bones load. So if you are a B737 operator and you want to avoid that kind of stupidity, (and I confess it is kind of ridiculous) the answer is simple. STOP doing things that would otherwise make us want to know in the first place.
Framer, I understand your concern, but please do not blow me off with a disrespectful one liner like that. This is serious stuff here, and if you are one of the folk on "min fuel" side of the fence, well you should be expecting people to critique your work. My customers critique our work all the time, most of the time they have huge amounts of faith, built on trust and good track record. But if we stuff up, I am sure to have them looking over our shoulder, and I do not see why anyone else should be different. This has always been the public perception of QF group and VA conservative and safe. Don't muck with it and there is no problem. Trust and respect from a customer is earned, it is not a right. And the paying public hold all the rights.
Problem is the jeanie is out of the bottle now.
My displeasure here is not just at the crew who think this way, it is company culture from the flight ops folk, and let's not have the BOM get away unchallenged either. As usual there is more to this than one node of failure.
Last edited by Jabawocky; 20th Jul 2013 at 00:09.