Flight deck - CRM ?

[Young Paul]

I heard a rumour ... about a captain on a European airline flying a longhaul route who grumbled to the cabin crew because they brought the starter for his meal at the same time as the main course.

If this is true, then I would like to make two points. Firstly, maintaining the "professionalism" of the job is nothing to do with having a first class service in the flight deck: pilots who behave like this make us a laughing stock and worse amongst normal people, who conclude that somewhere around 1960 they lost contact with the real world. Secondly, the role of the cabin crew is fundamentally safety within a team that includes the pilots. Some passengers pay for a premium level of service, and the airline trains the crew in accordance with this. The cabin crew are not there to wait on the flight deck. The fact that they don't shouldn't be seen as a threat to your command authority: the fact that you expect them to betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of the airline operation.

However, I seriously doubt that a pilot with this attitude to his cabin crew would bother reading a thread on here under a CRM heading.

[scotbill]

One assumes from the tone of your message that you work for that part of Big Airlines where there seems to be simmering undercurrent of resentment among some cabin crew that they should have any communication with those crew members who are actually charged with flying the big hotel and are, therefore, primarily responsible for the safety of all on board.
The problem rarely arises in companies/flights where the crew is integrated and consider themselves one team. Any good captain is only too well aware of the pressures on his cabin crew.
Although this is a rumour site I would suggest the rumour you quote (even if genuine) seems intended merely to stir up a bit of aggro.
It is surely better to be looking to mend bridges than adding fuel to dying embers.

[parabellum]

Well said Scotbill:D.

[wiggy]

Young Paul

I heard a rumour ... about a captain on a European airline flying a longhaul route who grumbled to the cabin crew because they brought the starter for his meal at the same time as the main course.

If this is true, then I would like to make two points. Firstly, maintaining the "professionalism" of the job is nothing to do with having a first class service in the flight deck: pilots who behave like this make us a laughing stock


So since you've used the "P" word can I ask: In your professional opinion do you think it's the action of a professional to serve the starter and the main at the same time?


scotbill

I would suggest the rumour you quote (even if genuine) seems intended merely to stir up a bit of aggro.

Sadly I'm inclined to agree.

[Young Paul]

Actually, I'm a pilot who doesn't fly for that airline, or any airline where the pilots feel they have a right to say what order food is brought into them, and who is severely embarrassed to feel he needs to justify this sort of behaviour from other pilots.

[Young Paul]

Do you think it's the action of a professional to serve the starter and the main at the same time?To whom?? The cabin crew aren't paid to wait on the pilots!!! It is not the job of the cabin crew to be professional waiters to the pilots. It is not the job of the pilots to expect to receive a professional waiter/waitress service. Or is it? What does the ops manual say? And "the starter and the main"?? In what other walk of life do people expect to be served a three course (or more) meal whilst at work??

Why do I raise it? Because I'm ashamed that people amongst the community that I am part of behave in this way, and would like maybe to embarrass some of them into behaving like they live in the 21st Century.

[mona lot]

Young Paul,

You neglected to mention whether or not the Captain was having a warm starter or just a salad?

[blueplatinum]

Er. There's a reason its called a "starter" :confused:

[parabellum]

I suspect Young Paul is heavily involved with a disenchanted member of cabin crew!:)

(Oh yes, nearly forgot, it definitely is the job of CC to provide food and drink to the flight deck - ever tried going back and helping yourself?).

[PilotsOfTheCaribbean]

Paul, I am envious of you.

I am envious that your life seems so bereft of day to day problems, that you fill the void with anguish concerning something that you don't even know actually happened.

I want a life like that.

I am an old captain and I am prone to grumble from time to time.
(mainly from the time the aircraft settles in the cruise until the time it starts it's Earthward glide some hours later.)

I know that if I asked for my meal to be served in courses, the crew would laugh. They normally laugh at my bad jokes. They laugh at the same story I have told them umpteen times before, and they laugh when I moan and grumble.

Working as a team means that you do just that. People have to be flexible and accommodate different character traits within the group that they work with. Sometimes that means taking the time to understand the dynamics of a group and the individuals within it. A part of the subject that goes under the banner headline "CRM" is about understanding those differences and dynamics.

If a captain somewhere, wants his meal courses seperate, it may be because he is being humerous. It may be for a hygene reason. It may be because he is just a grumpy old git. But is it really important enough for you to get your knickers-in-a-knot over?

If you want to really set your ire on fire, just switch on Sky News, or read the Daily Mail. All sorts of stuff there that may be just as untrue, or badly reported.

[Tourist]

Young Paul

" In what other walk of life do people expect to be served a three course (or more) meal whilst at work??"

On a ship certain people would expect such a service.

The "Captain" for example.

[Young Paul]

It interests me that I made a disidentified observation about what I consider to be a flight safety issue (placed in a flight safety forum), and the first response attempted to undisidentify it, and accused me of having an axe to grind. The only axe I have to grind is flight safety. But if the hat fits ....

As I said in a neighbouring post,people talk about crew and flight deck "working as a team", but the impression that the cabin crew are basically waitresses and downroute entertainment is not really compatible with an understanding that they are part of the crew required for the safe operation of the airliner - it certainly doesn't accord them equal status as team members. "All part of one team" becomes nothing more than a slogan that is recited at the annual CRM training day to get a tick in the box.It certainly is the role of the cabin crew to ensure that the pilots are fed and watered in the air - and also to confirm that they are still alive on a regular basis. However, the flight crew are part of the same team as the cabin crew. They are colleagues, not premium passengers.

The defence of privilege as part of the status quo by those with power doesn't have a pretty track record.

[S76Heavy]

Simply being on the same team does not make all the team members, equals.

There are different responsibilities and different qualifications that, together, provide the full range required for the safe, efficient and most of the time commercial operation of the aircraft.

My crew only feeds me a candy bar and a bottle of water if anybody bothers to bring even that and they are bored enough to start on them, so I have no experience with 3course meals.

However, I don't see it as a CRM failure to voice unhappiness about the service, IF your rumour has any truth to it. Why do you?

[Young Paul]

PilotsOfTheCaribbean: You're right, I don't moan on the flight deck. I think that my job is a great way to earn a living. To be honest, the crew food is a bit rubbish, and it certainly doesn't come as a series of separate courses (unless you count a bag of snacks and another one of sandwiches as two courses). However, (as best I can tell) I get on well with the crew; I try and make sure I've spoken to all of them individually before we reach the aircraft, so I know a bit about them and they know I'm friendly and approachable (if something happens in the flight I need to know about it!); I help them clean the aircraft on the turnaround if I get time, and certainly when we're getting off; we have a laugh together; and if everyone's still smiling when we get back to the crew room then I consider it a successful day.

My knickers are, I suppose, knotted by this as a safety issue. I now have quite a few friends who work at the airline in question, and it worries me that lessons that other less worthy airlines generally learnt about CRM over a decade ago seem not to have penetrated in some places there. Lack of CRM can kill people. I don't want to hear that it's my friends. Or anybody else's.

[PilotsOfTheCaribbean]

Sorry paul, but I am still at something of a loss to understand why you now consider this a safety issue? I know you alluded it as your secondary point, the primary one being that it somehow brought the whole profession into disrepute. You stated that: Secondly, the role of the cabin crew is fundamentally safety within a team that includes the pilots. Without doubt it is. However, I am still trying to reconcile how a captain who supposedly wanted his dinner served in stages, anyway compromised that role? There is nothing in your post that suggests it did. Neither can I see where the captains authority was either compromised or under threat?

You know, it takes all sorts.....as they say.

From what you have alleged might have happened somewhere, the worst scenario you can arrive at, is that some captain got grumpy about something fairly trivial, and in the process might have upset one or more of the other crewmembers.

If you are setting up a firing squad for that particular offence, you might as well use me for target practice! There has been more than one occasion in my professional life, when I have been sharper than I needed to be with someone, or a little less sensitive than perhaps I should have been. On more than one occaision I have had to apologise later, or buy a drink and make amends. It is part of the territory with being fallible and sometimes grumpy. I take some comfort in the fact that it is a reasonably rare occurrance, and not always a one way street.

So a captain somewhere might have a foible about wanting his dinner in seperate courses? I have diffficulty sharing your opinion that is somehow a serious indictment on the whole profession, moreso that it might in some way be a safety issue.

As I get older I realise that that the skill in this aspect of CRM is being able to rise to the challenges that different aspects of personality and character can sometimes present. Some people find it difficult to adapt to those changes. In my experience younger people (who often make up the larger portion of the junior crew) are, in fact much better and very good at rising to those challenges. Most, but certainly not all.

We all have faults. If somebodies only fault is that they have a requirement to eat their meal in seperate courses, I really have some difficulty with this as a "red flag" issue. How it affects safety is beyond me.

[parabellum]

The whole story from the OP sounds like a pointless winge from a disenchanted member of the CC who possibly has a 'chip' about Flight Deck as well.

If the flight deck are, in fact, feeding from First Class then it has to fit in with the F class service which, from aperitifs to liqueurs, can take up to three hours on long haul. It is a simple matter to serve starters to crew when the pax are having theirs as well, but, as in my last airline, if crew wanted First Class food they had to wait until the entire service was complete in the cabin, then the whole caboodle would arrive on one tray, if an F class pax wants a second starter instead of desert, for example, it is not acceptable to tell them it has all gone. That said, every airline that still provides a proper first class service have their own way of doing things. Again, in my last employer, we would rarely bother with F class food as we were catered for and could have a J class 'trayed' meal any time we liked. In some airlines it is a Crew Meal, take it or leave it.

From my experience any opting out of the team usually came from down the back, "We don't mix with Flight Deck", or "He may be the Captain in the FD but I'm the captain of the cabin and you are my crew" etc. both actual but very, very rare occurrences.

Crew food is not and should never be a flight safety issue, divisive behaviour may be and should be addressed immediately.

[A37575]

Try being a pilot with some operators in Vietnam. The company supply one free bottle of water to last all day. No in-flight service for the pilots who have to bring their own noodles for the FA's to heat up. Five sector days...

[Young Paul]

For what it's worth ... the original incident was not being "raised" by crew at all: it was raised by me, a pilot. A crew member was reflecting on the airline he previously worked at, with the understanding from some captains there of what it meant to work as a team. In contrast to this, he remarked about the captain on this trip who, whilst he had actually been a decent person, seemed unengaged by what was happening in the cabin beyond expecting to be served his courses according to first class standards. It was me who was shocked enough by this to post.

[Young Paul]

Another example (http://uk.travel.yahoo.com/p-promo-3361359) of one of the "all sorts" that it takes, maybe?

[PilotsOfTheCaribbean]

Well, not really. I think even the most "common sense" challenged of individuals, spoiling for an argument wherever they can find it, would see the distinction between that event, and......

I heard a rumour ... about a captain on a European airline flying a longhaul route who grumbled to the cabin crew because they brought the starter for his meal at the same time as the main course.

Even if both events were broadcast to the world, one wouldn't raise an eyebrow (normally,) whereas the other quite clearly would, and has.

[mutt]

The cabin crew aren't paid to wait on the pilots!!! At some airlines they are paid to serve the cockpit as its an assigned position.

Now why is this a safety issue?

[Young Paul]

Well, I don't really know what to say. As far as I'm concerned, the attitude of somebody who expects to see other members of their crew waiting on them to their specification is closely aligned with the attitude of somebody with the attitudes expressed by this captain, absent the four letter words. It fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the operation of the crew. Other people don't see these two cases as being radically different behaviours: they have been similarly surprised at the behaviour of the pilot in the OP. This includes other pilots in my airline.

There's a difference between an assigned position which looks after the welfare of the pilots and one which is to wait on the pilots.

Clearly my understanding of what leadership looks like diverges from the people who have replied on here.

[PilotsOfTheCaribbean]

As far as I'm concerned, the attitude of somebody who expects to see other members of their crew waiting on them to their specification is closely aligned with the attitude of somebody with the attitudes expressed by this captain, absent the four letter words.

Have you considered that might be your problem Paul? You are expressing views that are far too narrowly focused in order to make a radical point based on little more than your opinion. Few other people see the "problem" you have expressed as being a particular problem in the grand scheme of things.

Cabin crew have a primary safety role, however much of their day to day role does involve waiting on people. For the most part that involves the passengers under their charge. To a more limited degree it also involves their colleagues, including the technical crew. They don't have a problem with that, so I am not sure why you do?

In all the years I have been flying, I am at a total loss to recall even one single incident involving the crew meal. Yes we have had discussions on choice, ever declining quality, timing, temperature, etc. It has been the cause of much laughter, grumbles, discussion, and general comment. I have even had the rare luxury of having an onboard chef (for the passengers) who has prepared the various courses at the relevant times. On one such occaision we joked that the lobster was simply too small and perhaps the caviar shouldn't have been served without a chilled spoon. We discussed writing a strongly worded complaint on the voyage report. We laughed, and then moved on to whatever else required attention. I have little doubt that if things had been different (and I had been a "grumpy git") genuinely complaining about the timing of my courses, the crew would still have laughed (perhaps not in my presence,) and life would have gone on without causing the collapse of a meaningful CRM structure, or the downfall of the professional standing of the worlds pilot population.

It may we worth mentioning, that I have recently had discussions with my own management concerning an issue relevant to this subject. The cabin crew are told that they can start serving after the seat belt signs have been switched off (at 18,000ft). Many of them will therefore start serving meals to the flightdeck crew (often prior to their longer passenger service,) at this point. As you will be aware, that is often a point in the flight when life is still very busy on the flightdeck, and is often not the best time for distractions concerning the choice or consumption of meals. This isn't a fault on the part of the cabin crew, who are complying with their own training. It is (in my opinion) a fault on the part of the training department. Not everybody shares this concern, and discussions are ongoing. However I make the point because in fact it is still what you have described as an issue concerning...
somebody who expects to see other members of their crew waiting on them to their specification.

I will usually brief the relevant members of the crew, to delay the serving of crew meals until a more appropriate time. From their point of view that is a variance to their own SOP's, but so be it. I give a reason, utilize my own sense of humour if relevant, and manage.

In the example (or rumour) you gave, it is unclear whether the captain wanted to vary the timing of his own meal for reasons of health, convenience, preference, or beause he was simply grumpy generally. Whatever the reason (and even taking the worst case scenario,) few people (including myself) can see why this is an issue that causes you so much apparent angst? It really isn't a safety issue, nor does it bring the entire profession into the disrepute that you suggest it does.

A bad tempered rant against various groups of your colleagues, that is then negligently broadcast to the world in general, is hardly comparable. Such behaviour, erroneous though it clearly was, would certainly contribute to a public perception of professional disrepute. Even torturing logic to the extreme, it is difficult to see a correlation between these two examples.

[Young Paul]

Well, all of that is built into our SOPs, which have been thought out to make them work in a high-intensity operation without wasting time. The crew should check on us 20 minutes after seat belt sign is switched off; we may not be quite at top of climb and therefore out of "focussed flight deck", but we'll be close enough to have the capacity to respond.

You're probably right, the problem is probably mine. In the airlines in which I have worked, the cabin crew work far harder during flights than the flight deck, and so the thought of getting them to run around after us and be distracted from passengers when we are out of "busy-time" above 30,000' would be ridiculous. We depend upon them to provide for us, of course, and they have a safety role in ensuring that we're still alive, but that's all we expect. I personally am uncomfortable (my problem again) with being treated deferentially, having been brought up in a society in which everyone has equal value as a human being, from the most junior cabin crew member to the chief pilot, or for that matter the CEO. So I'd never be happy to assume authority except that which is inherent in my role - I think I've had to assert that authority over cabin crew about twice, and it was no more than a gentle growl - and that doesn't extend to specifying how my crew food is presented. I think that fits fairly well with where most of our crew are coming from, which I guess is good from the point of view of the working environment. However, if flight crew in other airlines are used to being waited on, and cabin crew are happy to do it, then who am I to judge? There is only a problem if/when the worlds collide.

[+TSRA]

Young Paul:

Have you considered, in your attempt to paint this Captain as a throw back to the 1950's, that there may be other reasons for why he wanted his food given to him in "courses"? You keep talking about this Captain being "waited" on without actually knowing the reasons why. Yeah, maybe the guy is a dick or maybe he was in a bad mood, maybe your friend took this all the wrong way and was having a bad day and took a reasonable request badly. Lets play, What If....

What if the Captain, being possibly older but not too old, suffers from something like Diabetes? All reissue points aside, if this were the case then his request to have the food served to him in courses actually increases flight safety because he would be checking his blood sugar between each meal, and does not want to impress upon the Flight Attendant(s) to prepare more for him if he does not need it.

What if it was a very late departure and the Captain, in his infinite wisdom, considered the effect a large meal would have on his ciradian rhythm and therefore requested his meal to come to him in stages to avoid potential safety issues later on in the flight?

There are many real world, safety of flight issues why the Captain would have requested his meal in stages. Many more than the potential "he was a dick" reasons.

I want to add something into the mix because there seems to be an undertone in this thread that needs to be discussed in our industry:

There is still a Chain of Command on the aircraft, whether new Captains, the First Officer and/or Flight Attendants want to believe it.
The airplane is not a democracy. The First Officer and/or Flight Attendants will not be held criminally liable should something happen, but the Captain will, therefore what they say, goes.

The concept of CRM has come so far left of centre that some crewmembers seem to think that if the captain makes a call they dont agree with, then CRM allows me to challange that and if they still dont like it, then its the Captain with Poor CRM Skillsm. Quite the opposite.

CRM allows you to voice your opinion knowing that the trained crew members will take the information on board. It does not mean that you will like the response and it does not mean that you are all equal on the totem pole.

United Airlines has gone, at least IMO, the right way with their C/L/R course - Command, Leadership, Resource Management. (BTW, I dont work for United, so its an unpaid plug!) Its a couple of years old now, but its great!

They're instilling in their crew again the idea that, yeah the Captain is the boss, but as Captains: here is how to be a great Leader and here is how you as a crew work together.

Thats CRM

Rant over.

PilotsOfTheCaribbean:

My airline overcame the issue of the seatbelt sign/flight deck service by simply adding a Chime after takeoff -generally through 5,000 feet or "through the bumps" which lets the Flight Attendants know that they can get up and begin service to the passengers only. They will not contact the Flight Deck until the seatbelt sign is off which to them indicates that Sterile Cockpit has ended. Its a simple change that I know numerous carriers do, but for some reason took us forever and a year to figure out how to do it.

[mona lot]

Now I've heard it all.:D:D

Young Paul, it is obvious from your posts that you are a member of cabin crew masquerading as "flight deck".

So CRM is all about how crew meals are served to the flight crew. I will be sure to pack a broadsheet next time I go for my annual CRM recurrent :zzz::zzz:

[Young Paul]

Mona: An ad hominem argument is not the sign of someone capable of critical thinking. And you're wrong, anyway.

+TSRA: Of course there's a chain of command. And the number of times I've had to assert it in my time as a captain is about twice - both times addressing behaviour of crew whilst off the aeroplane. People pretty much universally know what they are supposed to do (it's laid down in the ops manuals!) and get on with it. The ops manuals is the framework under which the chain of command is defined, and this derives from other statutory documents. It will define the scope of command authority and responsibility, along with everything else. The captain does not have unlimited authority, "chain of command" notwithstanding. Evidently I disagree about the scope of that authority with most of the rest of the commenters on this thread.