You guys have to read the union response:
Dear Fellow Council 12 pilots,
By now you have seen letters from both Senior Vice President of Flight Operations Howard Attarian and ORD Chief Pilot Cal Janacek stating their concerns and suggesting that we, as pilots need to be safer and avoid the types of situations that are unfortunately becoming more prevalent at this company. Of course, we have all also seen recent media reports highlighting United’s safety problems.
Management stated that they want to be “brutally honest” with us. We also feel it is important to be brutally honest with you.
Safety starts with a strong positive safety culture, characterized by learning from mistakes, investigating facts, and addressing reporting and prevention in a non-punitive manner. This culture is currently lacking at United Airlines. This is the hard truth that we all face every day when we come to work.
The hard truth is that management is destroying the type of positive safety culture, which was once alive at this company. Management is embracing a culture in which economics and schedule is placed above safety, the science of flight, and the law.
Safety has one definition. Contributing factors to safety such as training level, a pilot’s personal level of experience, recent experiences in similar situations, proficiency, crew level of experience, and fatigue level are but a few.
A good safety culture embraces and supports the professionalism and experience of our pilots. It supports our pilots by providing them with robust training and a system that promotes the highest safety standard. It supports our pilots by “trusting them implicitly” just like VP Safety Mike Quiello has stated. What we actually experience on the line belies management’s public statements.
We once had a culture that empowered crews to confidently use these personal and subjective tools combined with robust training and positive support to make operational decisions, absent of impunity. In today’s culture, management uses safety as a weapon against us. We are threatened and intimidated when we make good sound judgments but strongly reminded in blunt communications to be safer.
We have seen a pattern of behavior from the ORD Chief Pilot Office. This pattern of behavior includes threats, intimidation, and outright bullying. We are also seeing an alarming increase of punishment (real and perceived) using the threat of re-training to “get a pilot’s mind right.”
Management brags about the safety culture and reminds us all of this in the recent communications. Unfortunately, management’s recent message is duplicitous and even offensive in nature based on their behavior.
Here is a list of some recent events and quotes, corroborated from individuals (pilots and others) involved in these events:
·Recently, after showing up on the flight deck to insert himself into an operational issue involving crew rest seats, the ORD Chief Pilot told a Captain, “don’t throw that safety **** at me” as the pilot sat in the cockpit and tried to explain the issue at hand.
·Recently, after a Captain determined that they were unable to safely operate an aircraft with a deferred APU (on an international flight covering hostile terrain with multiple and compounding deferrals). The pilot asked for the deferred APU to be repaired for the flight. The ORD Chief Pilot called this pilot at their hotel and aggressively counseled them for not operating the flight after they had raised safety concerns. After the pilot explained that the whole crew was in agreement on the decision to not operate the aircraft unless the APU was repaired, the Chief Pilot was quoted as saying, “You should have used CLR to get the other pilots to change their position.”
·Recently, a crew had a maintenance issue with an aircraft shortly after departure. The crew ran the appropriate checklist and spoke to TOMC and dispatch but they were unable to get the aircraft into the state that the checklist was supposed to get to. After confirming the checklist multiple times and determining that the problem was of an unknown and unsolvable nature, the crew elected to divert to a closer airport and subsequently continued the flight in another aircraft. They all agreed that a diversion was necessary. After the crew landed a mechanic and a management representative met the pilots and supported and complimented them on their decision to divert. The ORD Chief Pilot, despite objections from our safety committee, training committee, and MEC and LEC officers, sent this crew to remedial training. They were sent to training despite the fact that the FAR’s required them to terminate the flight early based on a malfunction of an unknown nature of a critical system. Even though the crew was dealt a bleed problem, the training curriculum that the Chief Pilot sent to the training center was a full LOFT, with many different scenarios that were not related in any way to the crew’s problem. The “training” curriculum, which was several pages in length, was reminiscent of an “appendix H” type rating check-ride. Fortunately, the instructors figured out that this was a witch-hunt, designed to intimidate and coerce this crew to succumb to economic and management pressure to complete the mission without interruption in the future. When the instructors learned of the nature of the crew’s problem on that particular flight, they produced the actual bleed line from that aircraft! The bleed line was split, wide open, which of course allowed super-heated air to escape, presenting a fire hazard. The crew’s decision to divert avoided what could have been a very bad situation for the safety of the flight. In the end, the instructors and the FAA were complimentary of the crew’s performance and solid decision-making.
·Recently, a Captain, who had less than 100 hours on the aircraft, objected to being ordered to fly as a relief First Officer, claiming that he didn’t feel safe flying in a seat that he wasn’t specifically trained for. The responses from the CPO were “your safety concern is not legitimate and I reject it,” and “you are putting your head in a noose if you don’t take the flight.”
·Recently, an Assistant Chief Pilot bullied a crew off of a flight during a pre-departure event that involved a passenger who was being deported. The passenger had been held in isolation the previous evening in the Kenosha County jail as a precaution as there was concern about exposure to the Ebola virus. The Captain was in the process of obtaining all possible information, as there was tremendous (and understandable) concern and angst from the flight attendants. Some of the flight attendants, who would have had direct contact with the passenger, were actually in tears as management was telling them that if they didn’t take the flight they would lose their jobs. The Captain was in the process of getting all available information to make a decision that would be in the best interest of the passengers and crew when the Assistant Chief Pilot, who was on the aircraft, gave them an ultimatum. The ultimatum was “go now, or get your belongings and leave the aircraft.” The crew was presented with the decision to rush and fly the flight with the situation unresolved or to leave the aircraft. They choose to leave the aircraft. The crew subsequently offered multiple times to take the flight after the issue was resolved and all crew members were comfortable with the situation, but were rejected by management. Absent interference from the CPO, this proactive Captain would have likely resolved the issue successfully.
·Recently a crew had an issue with crew rest seats (which was resolved prior to the cabin door being closed). Unbeknownst to the pilot or flight attendant crew, an Assistant Chief Pilot ordered the jetway pulled back up to the aircraft, burst into the cabin with no coordination, (or even making sure the emergency slide was disarmed as it wasn’t) and inserted themselves into this issue. Ultimately, the event distracted the crew to the point where a critical checklist was not properly run.
What do all of these events have in common?
·Pilot pushing, intimidation, and a lack of regard by management for a positive safety culture.
The ORD Chief Pilot, and other managers will argue that they support “genuine” safety concerns. The key word in this sentence is “genuine.” This is the cop-out that they use when they (the managers who fly hand picked trips and fly less in a year than most of us fly in a month) decide to insert themselves into YOUR decision-making processes. Your safety issues are only legitimate to them if it doesn’t interfere with economics. In the bathroom stalls at our training center, there used to be safety posters and propaganda. One that sticks out in our minds stated, “If you think safety is expensive, try an accident!”
How do you think the passengers would react if they heard a Chief Pilot use the words “don’t throw that safety **** at me” while in the cockpit counseling a crew?
The recent safety deviations that management has based their communications to us are real. They are a warning sign. Hopefully management will see it as a warning that the culture is broken. We need to see it as a warning to not succumb to threats and intimidation.
While we, as pilots, are always responsible for what happens on the aircraft, we are only one link in a chain. That chain should be anchored to a culture that supports safety, air science, and law over economic pressures. That chain should also be solidly anchored by robust training. This is something that is also lacking as the curriculums are being shortened with more (less expensive) computer-based training and less and less (expensive) instructor based training. There is also less and less CLR training and general safety training.
Remember the training, which was at least a full day, if not more, covering evacuation and human factors during emergencies? Remember when we used to study, as a learning tool, past accidents and incidents? Remember when we used to train, side by side, with the flight attendants as part of our safety training? This training is now condensed into a couple of hours and a few short, sterile videos. We are no longer trained on evacuation commands and such, but briefly taught how to open and close the doors. We are expected to teach ourselves how to operate and fly the airplanes - economics once again trumping safety.
As pilots, we ask for only one thing from our management; the positive support and tools we need to do our jobs. We used to be told that our decisions, no matter how conservative, would be supported if we acted in good faith. This is no longer the case. We look forward to the day where a safety culture returns to this property where once again management takes a positive approach to safety. Hopefully, it doesn’t take an accident to get us there.
Please continue to report safety issues and pilot pushing via the FSAP program and to us. We will continue to hold the line on your behalf!
Fraternally,
Eric, Carlos, and John