World Cup, BA and PR

[Rockhound]

A few days ago I found myself (SLF) on a late-afternoon BA B-767 flight from Moscow to London. A couple of World Cup matches had been completed not long before we boarded. Not knowing the results, I asked two of the cabin crew, on separate occasions, if the flight crew could find out what the scores were and announce them on the PA system (I felt sure a number of the other passengers would be interested, as well). I overheard one of the cabin crew calling the flight deck to make the request. No match results were forthcoming and I mentioned the matter to the crew as I deplaned in LHR. I was referred to the captain himself, standing nearby, to whom I expressed surprise that my curiosity could not have have been satisfied by a brief radio exchange with a ground station or with BA in London. A decidedly prickly captain, who perhaps imagined he still worked for BOAC, harrumphed that this was "impossible". I told him I didn't believe him for one second and that a little PR goes a long way, particularly in the airline business (I refrained from telling him that, in my opinion, this was not how an airline that lost nearly 0.5 billion pounds last year should operate) and we bade each other a somewhat frosty goodbye .
I wonder if my experience would have been the same on the day of the England-Argentina match......
Any comments from the professionals?
Rockhound :p

[zed3]

Certainly on our patch of the planet it is not unknown for crews to request info on such sporting events. The result is normally transmitted instantly - somebody usually knows!!!

[barcode]

I'd much rather that the operating crew were doing what the SLF are paying them for and flying or monitoring the aircraft.

Where do you draw the line? Horse racing results from major races? Celebrity births, marriages or deaths? The latest Big Brother evictee?

An old Captain I used to fly charter with once said (on a night Tenerife when for the nth time that season we had been asked to PA for Kevin, wanting to know if Tracey would marry him): "Tell them to get stuffed (or something like that)...this is a commercial flight, not a radio request show"." Enough said.

[jetgirl]

I was operating yesderday during the England vrs Argentina game. The london controller announced the score as soon as the goal was scored and kept us up to date with the match! We relayed the info to the pax who were keen to know. Why not......unless the sector is really busy.

[roger]

Bar code
all the old Captains must be retired, I had at least 5 requests for the Eng vs Arg score. Ask me any question, if I know and have got the time I'll answer, how-ever if it's on big brother there may be a delay while I phone the wife....:)

[Smokie]

A little PR goes a long way and our pax BHD-NCL were delighted when we revealed the score of the England vs Argentina game.

When speaking to the handling agents, passing on fuel
requirements for the next sector etc, one further request was all it took !
For the record I'm not an avid footie fan but as I said earlier, a little PR goes a long way.:) :) :)

[FlapsOne]

Barcode get a life!

On a 4 hr sector from Moscow to LHR there will have been plenty of opportunity to find out the score and let the guests know. If you don't want to use the PA, send the message back with the CC.

We can all do a little more for the pax. When they ask something so simple - just do it!

Now if that had been London to Manchester ..............................

[Send Clowns]

I rememeber being airborne on the day of the boat race on a BA aircraft. When I asked the hostess if she knew the result (it had been rowed while we were airborne) not only could she tell me straight away, but it was the right result - Cambridge had won :D One happy pax.

P.S. I hear that about every 6 months a memo goes round the airlines from NATS asking that crews do not ask London Centre for sports results and the like. It stops briefly, and gradually returns 'til the next memo :D

[Pandora]

FlapsOne,
We were proud to be able to give the results of the Sweden - Nigeria match to our Pax on Wed, even on a LHR-MAN. :D I always have time for the pax.

[Notso Fantastic]

You chaps are forgetting that:
This was not for the England Match but for other less important ones.
Longer sectors out of UK VHF range are not ideal for asking results......which should not be done on ATC frequencies anyway!
Company frequencies are not permitted to be used for Sports results!
The aeroplane probably wasn't equipped with HF and did not have a pilot available to listen to the BBC and wait for the Sports results to come up.

I think it is more important to get you to your destination safely! Sports results in the air from pilots are NOT DESIRABLE! Anyone remember the Brazilian pilot who flew the wrong way and crashed in the jungle listening to a football match ? That crew behaved impeccably- you want sports results go by a paper! So Rockhound, take you criticisms of their professionalism and go ram them somewhere- they had an important job to do thank you very much.

Now please read under where it says 'Reporting Points' what defines that particular forum and have a think next time where you should make such postings (or in this case not bother). You will observe someone had to move it.

[HugMonster]

Notso, you don't need HF between Moscow and London.

Sure, we all know what the rules say about use of ATC (and company) frequencies for such matters. Provided that the frequency is relatively clear, I would have less trouble with people breaking that rule than I would with them listening to whatever they can find on the ADF.

Of course safety has to come first. You mention the famous Varig flight. You don't seem clear about the details, however. Both pilots were listening to the football commentary. When the "Pull Up" command came, one said "Shut up, Gringo" and disabled it. I don't know what your definition of "impeccably" is, but I hope you were being sarcastic. "Impeccable" that is not.

If ATC were too busy, or the flight crew were too busy, then tough. No results possible. They have a job to do, and that must come first.

Having said that, I would be extremely surprised if there wasn't a moment in the cruise when ATC was quiet and a polite enquiry could have been made. A large part of our job is to provide a service to the paying passengers, and just a little PR goes a long way. No need to go overboard with it, just bear in mind that we want them to come back and use us again. If the captain on this particular flight felt it was below his dignity to demean himself with such mundane matters, then one hopes he will retire soon. If the problem was lack of time and attention to his primary duty, then it costs nothing to explain that in a friendly manner to the enquiring passenger when Rockhound asked on disembarking. Alternatively, he could include in his mid-cruise PA that they had been asked to find out the results and hoped to do so if they got a chance.

It's all about PR and looking after the punters, Notso. Better to spend your time doing that than the Times Crossword. You can keep the pax happy and feeling cared-for AND do the rest of your job entirely competently, professionally and safely and (with reference to your rather aggressive and rude comments to Rockhound), politely.

[Land ASAP]

Why ask? Don't you find there's fun in trying to get all the way back to your home without anyone letting it slip, only to find your wife has recorded "Gardeners World"?

[FlyingRabbit]

Notso Fantastic

please get your facts straight. That Varig flight had navigation problems and the pilot tried to correct those by locating the signs broadcasted by a known local radio station (i'm not a pilot, so someone can probably explain this much better than me).

Just another urban legend...

Regards
FR

[Hand Solo]

Wasn't the "Shut up Gringo" comment made somewhere in Spain by a Mexican airline whilst descending over (and in to) mountainous terrrain? If the BA aircraft had no ACARs they'd have no way of contacting London directly from Moscow, and even if they had, the company would get very annoyed by people wasting time and money sending requests for sports results. I for one would not like to spend my time flying in eastern europe distracting ATCOs who don't speak the best english by constantly grilling them about sports results they may not even know. Id rather they concentrated on keeping me away from other aircraft. By the time the aircraft reached somewhere in Europe where they speak decent English and might know the results I'd imagine the crew had forgotten about the request. Even if they hadn't, do you really think ATCOs over Europe want to have their time wasted by being asked sports results every five minutes? I know the guys who work the BA company frequency at LHR get seriously annoyed when people waste their time calling up for trivial things, they're busy enough as it is.

[Kizzy]

Fly Virgin mate! We are kept up to date with all the scores from Ops and are encouraged to relay them to the pax when safe and convenient to do so. The way that this tournament is going I think it will capture an increasing amount of public interest and adds a bit of fun to the routine.

[M.Mouse]

Please, please can we remain civilised?

FlyingRabbit, 3rd September 1989: Flight RG 254 took off from Marabà at 17.25h for the last leg of the Sao Paulo - Marabà - Bélem flight. By accident the pilot entered a 270 deg heading into the flight computer, instead of 027deg. At about 20.45h the aircraft had to make a forced landing in the jungle due to fuel exhaustion. The aircraft was located two days later. The crew were listening to a football match at during a good proportion of trhe flight.

Hugmonster you are getting confused, see above and on the flight I think you are referring to the "Shut-up, Gringo!" statement was an Avianca 747 on approach into Madrid on 27th November 1983. They were the last words on the CVR in reponse to the GPWS warning system a few seconds before flying inbto a mountain.

To the subject in question it is I believe against UK law to use aircraft radios for non-operational matters. Patently stupid, unnecessary and almost unenforceable.

If I have time I do try and obtain any results asked for. It is not always possible or sensible but I would at least let the person concerned know that I had tried.

Rockhound, I am sorry that you received such an abrasive response. The majority of us in BA realise that we are in dire straits and work very hard to look after our bread and butter. The response you received was wrong and I believe not typical.

As far as Notso is concerned he is actually a very pleasant chap but his postings here and on the BA Compuserve forum belie his real character.

[timzsta]

Such requests are surely handled when time and situation allows. A friend of mine flew back from somewhere in Africa last year on the night of the Germany v England match. At time of boarding it was 1-1. About an hour into the flight the Captain announced the final 5-1 scoreline.

This must be tempered though with the fact that pilots and controllers must be concerned in flight safety first and foremost, passengers requests and football come second.

Can you imagine the board of inquiry chewing over a CVR that went something like this:

"London good afternoon xyz with you FL350, request England score"
"xyz, 1-0 England, Beckham penalty, 44 th minute, s**t avoiding action turn ..."
Last sound on CVR "TRAFFIC TRAFFIC DESCEND DESCEND".

[HugMonster]

Possibly I am getting confused - but I don't think so.

There's a tale that dates from the time when Sir Richard was making his transatlantic ballon crossing. Apparently a Virgin 747, having established contact with Shanwick, requested information on how the Company Chairman was doing. They didn't know, told the Virgin to stand by, and they got the info and relayed RB's latest reported position.

This was overheard by a BA flight, who called up asking "Shanwick, Speedbird xxx, can you tell us where Lord King is please?"

Shanwick were reported to be "not amused".

[5milesbaby]

Simple strategy in London's airspace.

If you can check-in immediately on frequency, and determine soon after its not busy, then ask. Its then up to the ATCO to a) tell you where to go, or b) tell you!!

If I know I'll tell you, I know what its like not being able to see a big event, and I myself make sure I'm updated instantly when something happens. Relaying it takes 5 seconds, sorry to those I have had to ignore in the past.

[rob777]

Don`t most of our pax have access to pay phones now? A quick call every 5 mins and we`ll soon be back in profit!
:D

[Rockhound]

Thanks to all who responded to my post. I never thought this bit of trivia would extend to a second page of posts. I was pleased to see that the great majority of respondents felt that my request was quite legitimate and normally would likely have been answered, subject to operational conditions. I suspected as much, as pax in N American airspace are often kept abreast of the score in major sports events. Guess I was unlucky to have a captain who was a stickler for the rulebook.
More PR like this compensates just a little for the loss of flight deck visit priviliges since 9/11, which flying enthusiasts like myself enjoyed so much, remembered vividly years later, and looked forward to (if vainly, sometimes) on every long-haul flight. Will they ever be granted again?
Rockhound :)

[AeroBoero]

Hug;

You mention the famous Varig flight. You don't seem clear about the details, however. Both pilots were listening to the football commentary. When the "Pull Up" command came, one said "Shut up, Gringo" and disabled it.

That is the part were you got confused (or confused us...). Both are separate accidents.

[HugMonster]

OK AB - thanks.

I concede the point.

[Notso Fantastic]

Hugmonster.....<<Of course safety has to come first. You mention the famous Varig flight. You don't seem clear about the details, however. Both pilots were listening to the football commentary. When the "Pull Up" command came, one said "Shut up, Gringo" and disabled it. I don't know what your definition of "impeccably" is, but I hope you were being sarcastic. "Impeccable" that is not. >>.....you plainly do not know what you are talking about. The incident I was referring too was the pilots on a 737 in Brazil listening to a football match and going in completely the wrong direction and running out of fuel and crashlanding in the jungle.

I still think we should be more professional. We are NOT a sports results service period!

[CaptainBaldrick]

Perhaps, just perhaps, a crew might not feel the need to listen to a match if they could just get a quick update from an ATCO instead - then they wouldn't crash, as they could then get on with being professional! ;)

No, notso, we're not a results service. Instead, we are part of a team dedicated to getting our passengers from A to B in safety and comfort. Nothing more. God forbid that we should actually consider their journey to be more fun and enjoyable, and take a little time out if we're not doing anything and nor is ATC. We might lose the image of being untouchable skygods! Oh - and the FO isn't there for fun, either. If he cracks a joke, it is definitely bad form to laugh at it. He might think he's your equal - very unprofessional. All communication between the two pilots should be operational only. It would, of course, be extremely unprofessional to say anything at all to the cabin crew beyond what is strictly necessary for the purposes of the flight.

For heaven's sake, notso, loosen the sphincter a little. If the pax have a good time, they're more likely to come back. If they think you're an uptight anal retentive who relies on being stuffy and pompous (of course I'm not saying this about you!) they will look elsewhere next time.

[screwdriver]

I remember once strapping a headset earpiece to a PA mic and having Big Ben's new year chimes (via HF BBC ) played in the cabin. Ahhh...Halcyon days!:p

[Pandora]

To any BMI pilots out there;
every time I pass through T1 there is an almighty great big ad for BMI showing a smiling pax whose main cause for joy is that even though he was at 30000ft, BMI had just got him the footy results.
In BA we have been told we must not under any circumstances use ACARS for obtaining sports results. ATC time is too precious to give out results, and you shouldn't be listening to the radio while flying.
Now I know how I do it (bending a few rules along the way) but if this is a service actively encouraged by BMI, then how do you get the results? Do you have SOPs pertaining to the acquisition of results?

[barcode]

As a little experiment yesterday, I got the results and PA'd them with my pre-arrival PA. During disembarkation, I stood (as usual) at the door to bid the travelling public farewell.

Positive comments about footie results: NIL

Adverse comments about footie results: THREE (including two along the lines of "thanks for spoiling that, I'm on my way home to watch it")

Lesson: unclear, something involving "all of the people, all of the time"...

(thanks to the Ryanair aircraft who passed it on to us BTW, no use of ACARS, company freq, HF, etc required!!!)

[Brakes...beer]

5milesbaby,

Really appreciated London bloke announcing results on frequency today during a quiet spot - it saves umpteen questions to company every 30 secs - so that we can all announce the results to pax.

[Thunderbug]

I think that the most likely explanation is that the Capt is not at all intersted in Football (I hear that this affliction is posssible!). But he should have made the effort.

The opportunities to pick up scores on a LHR-SVO are numerous. Spare a ADF for BBC 5 Live, spare a HF radio and pick up the results on BBC World Service during the news bulletins or passing Berlin, call the company frequency.

Flying back from Southern Africa yesterday during the England - Nigeria game, we got an update from the company frequency in Nairobi and heard the final results on the World Service. The pax were informed that the Cabin crew would have the result so happy bunnies all around.

Advised NOT to use ACARS (None over most of Africa anyway), I seem to remember a large European airline causing the ACARS system to crash by sending the World Cup Final 1998 to all its aircraft!

[Hand Solo]

Must be nice to have hour after hour with nothing better to do than listen to the football results!

[HugMonster]

Not if you're unemployed it isn't :(

[PAXboy]

You may be glad to know that it is not just aircraft that are endangered by football ...

Some years ago an Italian cruise ship rammed another boat in dense fog in the Med. Not sure if there was loss of life but certainly embarassment when it was discovered that a TV set was rigged up on the bridge so that they could watch the Italian national team play football :rolleyes:

A friend of mine told me that, on a recent STN to NCL on GO, she had a Coke thrown over by an angry football fan - he was aiming at the stewardess, as she had just told the people on the other side of the aisle the score in a key Newcastle match, which he had taped to watch later! :eek:

[apioca]

DM (the danish arm) actively advertised to the public that they would immidiately relay soccer results involving the danish team (now history) to all aircraft in the air. If (when) denmark scored the drinks trolley would make an extra round.

On all boeing schedules flights on the day of a danish match a special cake showing the flag of the two countries playing was served to all.

Unfornunately this only lasted 4 matches.............

[PPRuNe Pop]

What's that old adage - you can please some of the people some of the time...........


PPRuNe Pop
Administrator
[email protected]

[spitfire747]

On a recent JMC flight from Sicily, the FO announced over the PA system everytime England scored against Denmark, after each successive announcement the entire plane errupted in apllause and cheers and the crew certainly earned themselves some brownie points. DON'T BE SO BORING !!!

[paulc]

Flying back from Dubai on the day of the England - Nigeria match -
the crew broadcast the result only a few minutes after the game was schedule to end. A nice touch and it made the flight that little bit better - very good PR too as i am probably not the only person to have related this story.

[Bokomoko]

Notso Fantastic and M.Mouse,

Because of several errors Varig 254 made an emergency landing in the jungle, however your opinions aren’t quite true.
Some facts, based on final report and informal talking with investigators:

PP-VMK, a Boeing 737-241, took-off from Maraba for a 40-minute flight to Belem. Unfortunately pilots made a mistake in setting a 270 degrees course instead of 027, basically due to a failure on Varig’s flight plan computer program that showed 4 digits for magnetic course (0270). To fly the correct course pilots had to disregard the last digit rather than the first one. That was the first error...
During approach preparation both pilots realized that something was wrong because they were unable to contact Belem Approach Control using VHF radios or receive any Belem navaid. Therefore, they didn’t have time to listening to a soccer game under that stressful situation. Additionally, when the airplane started its descent from cruise level, the 1st. half between Brazil x Chile had already finished.
The airplane flew for almost 2.5 hours until fuel exhaustion and the pilots tried to do everything as possible to find the correct way for a safe landing – yes they had also set ADFs using Belem broadcast, but do you really believe they were listening to that match lost in that dark night?
The airplane made its tragic landing almost 2 hours after the end of that game.

By the way, Bye-Bye England….Brasiiiillll 2-1 :D :D :D :D :D

[Land ASAP]

Congratulations Brazil, I hope you win it (against Germany in the final). I also hope Rivaldo can cure his tragic case of Multiple Sclerosis, the cheating mincer.

So there we have it, Brazilian pilots will go to great lengths to keep you up to date with the latest scores. British pilots cannot be relied upon for the 'results' but have yet to run out of fuel and be forced to make an emergency landing in the rainforest.