View Full Version : Classy KLM Captain
Germaine
6th Jul 2023, 17:12
Today I was SLF on KL1482 from HUY to AMS, it was a pleasant and uneventful flight that as usual terminated on the apron with a bus waiting to take passengers to the terminal.
As the bus waited to leave, I observed the captain help a lady with luggage and child in arms down the steps. Once there, he went to the baggage handlers, and worked with them to unload a significantly sized multiple component stroller, by this time, said lady was at the bus. The captain made two trips from the aircraft to bus with stroller components the assisted with assembly.
Maybe it happens all the time, but this frequent flyer has not seen that level of customer service from a guy with four gold stripes before. Well done that man!
That was probably KLMCityhopper, which was once AirUK. My guess is a UK crew and although I'm long retired, I can say, "you're welcome, we aim to please".
Germaine
6th Jul 2023, 19:20
That was probably KLMCityhopper, which was once AirUK. My guess is a UK crew and although I'm long retired, I can say, "you're welcome, we aim to please".
Indeed, KLM Cityhopper, I didn't appreciate it was the old AirUK, that said, Captain was a young man so probably not ex AirUK, although, most men are younger than I so what do I know. Whatever, great example!
KLM CityHopper have some great crews. Yes, a percentage are British, however, for the record, as a once frequent user of this airline I wish to make it quite clear that many of the Dutch guys are just as courteous and helpful to their pax. I think it's more the airline than the nationality!
FUMR; I won't dispute that. We always had a good relationship with the Dutch crews, and of course AMS air traffic were always top-notch. You have to allow me a little bit of flag-waving though. I did 24 years with KLMuk and its predecessors.
Ollie Onion
6th Jul 2023, 22:08
Lots of us would love to do that, my last attempt resulted in a complaint against me for breaching Health and Safety rules as apparently I am not trained to carry a stroller upstairs to the aerobridge door :-). The loaders were refusing the carry it up the stairs as they can't have the requires points of contact whilst carrying something so I thought I would show them how it is done :-)
jethro15
6th Jul 2023, 22:31
................my last attempt resulted in a complaint against me for breaching Health and Safety rules as apparently I am not trained to carry a stroller upstairs to the aerobridge door :-). The loaders were refusing the carry it up the stairs as they can't have the requires points of contact whilst carrying something so I thought I would show them how it is done :-)
Been there, seen the film, read the book and have the tea shirt. Damn it you do, damn if you don't!
Could it have been the King of Netherlands, who I understand long term has been a part-time Cityhopper pilot.
As a point of interest, a lot of airlines forbid their staff to carry infants/toddlers for the reason of liability in the event of an accident (eg baby is dropped), instead we are trained to relieve the parent of the bags and other stuff so that the person can focus on carrying the baby( I'm guessing the case here did not involve carrying the baby). Not sure if the airline can still deny liability as any good lawyer will be able to contest this.
Having said that it is a human reaction to offer to carry the baby and I've seen the rule frequently broken.
Anilv
His dudeness
7th Jul 2023, 07:40
...my last attempt resulted in a complaint against me for breaching Health and Safety rules as apparently I am not trained to carry a stroller upstairs to the aerobridge door
Working for an airline sounds like huge fun.....
kriskross
7th Jul 2023, 08:01
You are not wrong there, Dude!
rog747
7th Jul 2023, 08:04
Today I was SLF on KL1482 from HUY to AMS, it was a pleasant and uneventful flight that as usual terminated on the apron with a bus waiting to take passengers to the terminal.
As the bus waited to leave, I observed the captain help a lady with luggage and child in arms down the steps. Once there, he went to the baggage handlers, and worked with them to unload a significantly sized multiple component stroller, by this time, said lady was at the bus. The captain made two trips from the aircraft to bus with stroller components the assisted with assembly.
Maybe it happens all the time, but this frequent flyer has not seen that level of customer service from a guy with four gold stripes before. Well done that man!
A most lovely story - this is the sort of thing that I, and my colleagues would, in the past, do happily (usually, lol) everyday of the week.
But sadly today our world, and not just the Aviation world, has sleep walked into a brick wall of litigation, ludicrous H&S, and much much more that prevents common sense to be included in our day to day working and personal lives.
There is hardly any 'can do' attitude today for fear of repercussions, which can quickly lead to the loss of your job, or at best demotion.
This story today though gives us a bit of hope.
As quoted above by His dudeness:
''Working for an airline sounds like huge fun...''
Well I am sure it still is, I have friends who still fly, and work on the ground and they will always love it,
but I am long retired now, and so I think I would last about 3 minutes in any Airline employment today!
Safeguarding rules where I volunteer state that touching babies and young children is a total no-no. I'm assuming this was just the buggy.
Jhieminga
7th Jul 2023, 08:52
Could it have been the King of Netherlands, who I understand long term has been a part-time Cityhopper pilot.
Not anymore, he now flies with KLM on the 737 fleet. Cityhopper sold the last Fokker 70 aircraft in 2017 and the government aircraft (also a F70) went around the same time. Government bought a new 737BBJ and our King got his 737 type rating.
FUMR; I won't dispute that. We always had a good relationship with the Dutch crews, and of course AMS air traffic were always top-notch. You have to allow me a little bit of flag-waving though. I did 24 years with KLMuk and its predecessors.
Ah, the good old Air Anglia days. I made a fair few flights with them and all were very pleasurable. An era I miss.
hunterboy
7th Jul 2023, 09:26
Blimey, in other airlines, you see this daily! Usually because the airline has under resourced the ground handling……Any pilot that is a parent sympathizes with any one travelling with young children and usually will try and help out. I’ve even see pilots pushing wheelchair passengers to immigration/baggage reclaim as the delay for assistance is sometimes measured in hours at LHR.
MerseyView
7th Jul 2023, 20:20
It would definitely be KLM Cityhopper, main line KLM do not fly to HUY. With less than a dozen and a half ex Air UK/KLM UK Captains left in KLM Cityhopper, and one or two now on a Dutch contract, I think the odds are in favour of the Captain being one of the hundreds of Dutch nationality.
There are no Health and Safety regulations precluding this sort of thing in Cityhopper and I doubt if there were, any pilot, Dutch or British, would take any notice of them.
krismiler
8th Jul 2023, 07:34
Cabin crew are normally forbidden from helping with carry on luggage in case of injury, or back strain from lifting a bag into an overhead locker.
Unfortunately these days liability is everything and doing something outside of your job description isn’t a good idea. What if the Captain involved had dropped a bag onto a loader’s foot and injured him ? The lawyers would have been all over it, the company would deny liability as he wasn’t trained and certified, the insurers would be singing the same tune so guess who loses his house in a damages claim ?
As for babies and children, all it takes is “He touched me.” and your career is over.
In a previous freight job, we weren’t allowed to ride in a courier van due to insurance rules, they didn’t want pilot income level claims in the event of an accident.
Cabin crew are normally forbidden from helping with carry on luggage in case of injury, or back strain from lifting a bag into an overhead locker.
This appears to be very much a Western issue as within Asia and on Asian carriers, cabin crew are very willing to assist.
VHOED191006
9th Jul 2023, 11:12
What an undignifying world we live in where we are ridiculed for simply being human. Companies have their sights firmly set on money, society with their newfangled ideas and behaving despicably. No wonder the world we live in is depressing.
How can cabin crew not know how to handle 50 lb overweight bags, or identify if this is beyond them, when they have been (presumably) trained to "assist" (manhandle) 200 lb adults onto and off the emergency slide ?
I do accept that there are a proportion of nuisance, "entitled" passengers, who will get a kick out of getting a 'flunky' to handle their bags. Which should be suppressed.
subsonicsubic
12th Jul 2023, 06:57
5 years ago I was flying KLM from Inverness back to HKG. My first (of many connections) was tight at AMS. I inquired about my connection after departure and received a handwritten note from the Captain reassuring me about my connections.
This took 30 seconds but has impacted the way I feel as a customer about KLM and the way I discuss the airline with my peers.
Good job Captain R!
SWBKCB
12th Jul 2023, 07:02
There is hardly any 'can do' attitude today for fear of repercussions, which can quickly lead to the loss of your job, or at best demotion.
Any examples of this?
go-around flap 15
12th Jul 2023, 08:19
A few years ago we got stuck AOG downroute in the middle of the night. Were told nobody to unload the bags until the morning shift came on a few hrs later. I didn't go as far as to unload 150 odd bags but I did go down and grab the 4/5 strollers that were in the front of the fwd hold. Luckily if you're young enough, which I was at the time, vaulting oneself up into the fwd hold of a 737 is just about possible without any external assistance. God knows what would've happened though if it had all gone pear shaped, something I didn't really think of at the time! Of course it was well appreciated and if nothing else has given me a good example of 'going the extra mile' at 2 subsequent successful job interviews - albeit with the caveat that in hindsight perhaps I was a little too keen at the time :)
topgas
12th Jul 2023, 11:21
Luckily if you're young enough, which I was at the time, vaulting oneself up into the fwd hold of a 737 is just about possible without any external assistance.
I flew back from Stavanger on Norwegian 10 days ago and from the gate watched the baggage handler vault into the forward hold of a 737 to receive bags, so still done by the "experts"
pax britanica
13th Jul 2023, 10:42
Two examples of FD crew going above and beyond.
I lived in bermuda at the time and having had a summer holiday in New England (Bermuda in August is something like 90 F and 95 % humidity) arriving back at Kindley Field we are struggling off a DL tristar with all the paraphernalia you carry for 2 under fives. The Captain who was standing by the door at the top of the steps said you guys look like could do with hand and picked up our backpacks and other baggage. At the bottom of the steps he asked if we had hold baggage- we did including a strolelr which was not in the main hold, he knew where to look found it -opened it so baby could be pushed not carried and walked us the 30 yards to the terminal.
Another time at Washington Dulles I am on a continental flight to EWR to get back to Stockholm on SAS, very bad weather, thunderstorms. Tomorrow is my daughters birthday and I do not want to get stranded. Mention it to the cabin crew and she takes me up to the flight deck and I explain that i dont know whether to swap onto a later LH direct to Frankfurt and thence to ARN. Crew go through all the short term predictions for Dulles and then again for Newark and say -go get LH, he isn't going to be out of here any quicker but by the time we depart all these thunderstorm are going to be right over New York so we probablty wont get to go or will get diverted.
So a couple of guys putting a real human face on the backs of heads on the flight deck that the pax usually see
Alpine Flyer
13th Jul 2023, 17:45
Having once carried one child on my shoulders and one in my arms through a medium sized terminal as someone decided our stroller should go to the baggage carousel rather than being delivered at the aircraft, I always try to help pax get their strollers if the ramp handlers fail to deliver them. (I am not working for Cityhopper.) Just like maundy, it should not be below Captains to perform seemingly mundane tasks if their initiative is required to get them done on time save passengers a hassle and performing such will not make them little.
SWBKCB
13th Jul 2023, 17:52
And any examples of somebody displaying a 'can do' attitude which has led to any repercussions, up to and including the loss of job?.
ShyTorque
13th Jul 2023, 22:12
Lots of us would love to do that, my last attempt resulted in a complaint against me for breaching Health and Safety rules as apparently I am not trained to carry a stroller upstairs to the aerobridge door :-). The loaders were refusing the carry it up the stairs as they can't have the requires points of contact whilst carrying something so I thought I would show them how it is done :-)
Good grief, man! Flying is risky enough as it is……You might have broken a fingernail :uhoh:
CaptainProp
18th Jul 2023, 09:25
Helped an old lady down the stairs and over to the bus last winter in bad snowstorm. As I hurried back to get up the stairs I was stopped by handling agent “You really shouldn’t do that without wearing a high-vis”. :ugh:
Intrance
18th Jul 2023, 17:27
I've offloaded my fair share of bags due to lack of ground staff. Doesn't really come to mind to be worried about what may happen and if insurance covers it. All in all I think it is a fairly low risk activity on my type, but whatever.
And then there are the cases where attitudes, rules and liability create funny situations. Main cargo door spring broken, door doesn't stay open anymore on the remaining spring. Maintenance had devices a strap solution. All stations informed. Part was not in stock, but ordered and scheduled to arrive in the evening, so one day of inconvenience. Outstations in smaller regional airports had no issue managing. Prop the door up, load the bags, all good. One of the outstations literally manufactured a sturdy prop to hold the door open in addition to the strap and left it in the cargo compartment for other stations to use.
Ground handling in the main hub was forbidden by their higher-ups to load that compartment due questions about liability and such. So leaving checked bags behind because it wouldn't all fit in the other compartments. But we arrived from every outstation with a full main cargo compartment. And they did offload those bags, but refused to then load the bags for the next flight in that same compartment... Must be different insurance policies for loading and unloading :rolleyes:.
megan
19th Jul 2023, 00:31
And any examples of somebody displaying a 'can do' attitude which has led to any repercussionsWorking for a major oil company which introduced a "Make the elephant dance" program to generate creativity in the work force, streamline operations, cut costs. Mate had to fly a load to platform A then fly a considerable distance to drop two pax at B, I had a load to B but two pax failed to show so we organised that I would take his two B pax thus saving considerable flight time, Mate said boss went bananas claiming I was over loaded, didn't have the nerve to front me. Trouble with making the elephant dance.