Great Captain

[Astrocaryum vulgare]

FWOF, don't be under misapprehensions, despite the name of this bulletin board, many of the posters aren't professional pilots.

[pulse1]

On a BA flight which was delayed in Munich because of strong winds at LHR, the captain made himself available at the gate to answer any questions from the passengers.

I thought that this was a nice touch and seemed to help nervous passengers as we eventually approached LHR to land on 23. Somehow, we felt involved.

[Dogma]

Great to hear that this Captain had the Brass Balls to get out in front of the Pax

Personally, I would not do a PA in front of the Pax unless the delay is or has been over one hour. That said, if you are less than comfortable with public speaking, try to do a stand-up PA when the issue is not a serious one. This provides the skills/experience for delivering bad news to a hostile crowd in the terminal or onboard.

Tea on turn around...occasionally, saying good bye to the Pax almost never.

One of the best hands on Skippers address to his pax was in Singapore on British Airways - tech delay news went down very well as a result.

[Ambulance 'Charlie Alpha']

Hello All

Never had go out to chat to the pax in my current job but did it many, many times in my last job for a regional turbo-operator. When you spend your whole 6 sector day, all week, running late, tech, no bags, poor weather, catering etc, etc, going out and speaking to the people that keep you in a job actually takes a hell of a strain off the single cabin crew onboard..... and yes, as a team/crm/just getting on together thing, they really did appreciate it. If things were running really late for whatever reason, actually going into the gate and explaining the problem to them face-to-face used to work wonders. Also helps prevent your cabin crew taking nothing but crap for 8-10 hours. Firestorm will back me up on that, I'm sure! Making a cuppa for your crew and helping with the tidy on quick turnarounds is almost essential in that job. If nothing else it guaranteed that your cabin crew got a brief sit down and a drink before working balls-out, without rest for the next few sectors. I still take hot drink orders in my current job if time permits during the hour turn-around. Just good manners really because I do bugger all else once the new route's been executed! Despite comments on here, it actually is appreciated by the people you work with on a daily basis.

Just my two-penneth.

Cheers

ACA

[Farty Flaps]

Utter tosh. There is a varying scale of pointlessness on doing the above .

Small face to face company...useful
Loco... essential as youve sold your soul
Charter mostly pointless as they dont really like you as a social group and no individuality will change that.
Ba type company...out and out dislike and disdain....utterly pointless

Now as for the Captain thinng. Ive done it once in my career on a big jet, up in the terminal on the mike expalining the problem. Did it assauge the passengers fury and complaints ...not one bit.

All it really does is massage the egos or insecurities of people that need to be liked or assume they have the skills of Henry Kissenger

[Fil]

Often helps gets people onside when they see the Capt explaining the situation, it feels it has come from the top. Another plus is when Capt then walks the cabin answering any questions from passengers. Obviously only when delay is large.

[Dogma]

arty Flaps

"Small face to face company...useful
Loco... essential as you’ve sold your soul
Charter mostly pointless as they don’t really like you as a social group and no individuality will change that.
Ba type company...out and out dislike and disdain....utterly pointless"

You appear to have an extremely jaded view of airline life! Are you referring to making a cup of tea, etc?

With regards to standing in front of the Pax, etc, I have had good feed back from Pax and crew alike. They are often left for hours getting little or no information from the handling agents. If our Capt's did not take this initiative, we would see blood shed in places like Sharm, Al Ain, Spain, etc.

All power to the Captains that are all around pilots, ambassadors, scholars, judge, jury and executioners!

[Curious Pax]

Only seen it once (I'm SLF) when in the middle of a 90 minute slot delay on stand on a MAN-AMS a number of years ago. It was BA, and the corresponding KLM flight had just trundled past us going out on time. There were a number of pax chuntering loudly about this, which was obviously fed back to the captain. He appeared in the cabin, apologised for the delay, and walked round answering questions, which totally defused things. Probably also helped him by allowing a leg-stretch rather than spending the time strapped in his seat.

As others have said - used correctly, and when operational circumstances permit, it can be a very powerful tool in a captain's armour.

[lexxity]

From a ground point of view, during massive delays if somone with stripes can come and do a call at the gate or onboard it does us all well. Takes the pressure off the gate staff and cabin crew. So thanks to those of you who can talkto the pax.

[Firestorm]

Farty Flaps. I appreciate your point of view, and you are quite right. That said, if your crew know that you are a leader (be it Captain or Co-pilot) who will do a bit extra to help the rest of the team out a bit, either by picking up some gash, or making a brew, in my experience they will make a little bit extra effort to do a good job, and avoid getting into a situation that will need them to be dressed down. I don't have a problem with pulling someone up just because I made a brew for them, or with someone who made a brew for me. As much as anything else helping in the cabin is the only opportunity at a low cost airline to get to know anything about the crew members, and sometimes the only opportunity to see their faces during an 11 hour duty. Don't get me wrong: I have lots of other things that I am required to do before I start brewing up, and I make sure that they are all attended to, and that the Captain has had any help he needs from me first; any spare capacity that I have I will help the rest of the crew.

[Mike Read]

It used to be considered good PR for the captain to go through the cabin and talk to the pax. Story goes of the rather pompous chap who anounced his intention to his first officer, said "you have control", put on his cap and left the flight deck. After a few minutes F/O get on cabin address. "Ladies and gentlemen, most of you will have seen the TV programme "Jim'll Fixit". We have on board a lucky winner so would you all give a big hand to the gentleman dressed as our captain who is walking through the cabin now."

[Firestorm]

As for talking directly to the passengers. If the day is gone to a ball of chalk it really helps the situation if they can see a bit of sincerity on your face. Wasn't there a debate (nationally, and probably on Proone) started by a certain Mr Straw about not covering one's face during a conversation! I accept that some people may not like public speaking and all these things, and I am the last one to espouse anything that is liberal and luvvy, but if as the Captain of an airliner you can't deliver a few lines to the passengers without hiding behind an armoured door I think you are a bit wet, and if you can't be bothered to roll your sleeves up to help the rest of the team to achieve your 25 minute turn around, then, like wise you will have trouble winning my total respect.

I'm a bit confused by your how to pull a hostie advice, but as that is not something I'm trying to achieve, it's not important. We don't nightstop anyway, and I was well able to pull an intelligent woman without resorting to wearing chinos.

ACA: those were the days!

[Bomber Harris]

"When we landed the Captain was at the door saying goodbye and the FO was standing on the jetbridge saying goodbye."

I don't think it actually says it anywhere in my ops manual, but I was always under the impression that one of us has to be in the seat with a radio 'available' to call fire crews or ambulances if necessary. Also, be there in case the APU fire bell goes off...somebody has to pull the handle if you don't have auto discharge option fitted!!

Surely it's inherently a bad idea for BOTH crew to leave the flight deck with pax onboard. Sorry, a little off thread, but responding to the third post in this thread.

[Dogma]

The other day I was followed into LGW by an Excel aircraft, the Pilot on the RT sounded like he was taking the P1SS. This annunciation would have been more at home on the deck of a repainted GPO van. Anyone from XL know?

Or perhaps we are at the end of the Officers and Gentlemen time line of the profession or is this just the spread of TV inspired regional accents? Innit!

!Thread creep warning!

[Rainboe]

Farty, my experience backs your opinions! We once offloaded all the pax from a 747 when the fan blades were discovered bent at the ends and home base were being consulted. I went into the lounge to speak personally and 'take the flak'! Flak there was- everybody just had to phone home NOW, we had the lawyer who became the self appointed 'spokesman' threatening divine retribution in court, the many bizarre accusations of 'you're lying to us!' and 'there is more you're not telling us', the tearful woman who just had to get home within an hour of original schedule because her mother had to leave on her own holiday immediately and there was nobody to look after the kids.......every case a sob story, all had to call home immediately. I don't feel it helped having someone physically to 'punish' and vent spleen on. Did I take it? No. I insisted 'I was not paid enough to lie to anybody thank you very much!'. To 'I'll take you to Court'- 'good, see you there then!' and 'how dare you accuse me of lying! Why on earth would I lie to anybody?'

Got an extra night in Antigua though.

[JW411]

I think this is an age issue. I am now an old fart but, when I started my professional aviation career, going through the cabin with your hat on your head and talking to the passengers was the thing to do.

I was never totally convinced that this was really necessary but, on the other hand, I got to meet a lot of very interesting people.

Then, along came aeroplanes that flew at F350 and above so leaving the flightdeck for long periods of time became a bit problematic because of the loss of cabin pressure problem.

The other loss of contact with the folks that help to pay our salaries has been the ban on flightdeck visits. I would always allow flightdeck visits when it was appropriate and ALWAYS with the agreement of the rest of the crew. It could be a pain in the bum sometimes but watching the wide-eyed kids soaking it all up and realising that that was exactly how you yourself got started many years ago was worth the effort.

We now have young pilots who don't know what a flightdeck visitor is. They struggle through pointless security checks and seek final refuge behind their reinforced flightdeck doors. All command is conducted from that environment and contact with the punters is to be avoided at all times.

Now then, if you really are a captain then I think you should have the balls to get out there when something is going seriously wrong on the ground and tell it like it is.

In 50 years of flying, I only had to do that on half a dozen occasions but I was happy to do so for at least you can hopefully allay the fears of the nervous and give good information to the rest. It also takes a lot of pressure off the cabin crew.

As for standing there at the front whilst the passengers are disembarking???? I have seen this done on BA quite a few times and I personally find it just a bit nauseating. What are you trying to say? It almost looks like you are looking for a tip.

It seems to me that we a have a new breed of captain. "I shall rule behind my locked door but don't expect me to appear in front of you to give any explanations. We employ other people to do that".

It's a bit like the politicians in today's blameless society who can never understand why they should consider resigning when they make an imperial boll*cks of something.

[Dogma]

Good post JW411!

We need the advise on these and other issues from Skippers that have had a careers worth of experience.

[omnidirectional737]

Oncewent tech on turnaround in Egypt and Captain went over to terminal and spoke to the punters and told them the reasons and we would all be night stopping and when we would be going etc. I thought this was a real nice touch and next day passengers said as much to the crew.

Dogma does it matter about the accent if you say the right things? isn't that what std r/t is for?

[Farty Flaps]

Firestorm...Dear oh dear. I said DONT wear chinos.
Anyway. Its only the straight captains that feel the need to help the hosties and act like some Alpha male "I'll take care of things".MMM I wonder why.
Lots of commendable reasons have been put forward but they all mask the real reasons for such behaviour. Ingratiation is a form of compensation for a lack of confidence in your leadership skills. We in the gay community wouldnt dream of it and quite frankly dont need to do it. I dont need or crave approval to exercise real leadership and the habits discussed here are neither leadership or good CRM..
As for standards well if you consider having to help out to achieve your turnaround in a loco, isnt that a manifestation of selling the industry down the river by prostituting yourself in order to get that magical 3000 hr command and perpetuating such monstrosities as RYR et al

[Empty Cruise]

Getting to grips with what your job actually entails...

JW411,
Good post, sums it up nicely! But have to pull you up on one thing: age has nothing to do with it Now, a bit of tact and a pair of big brass ones might make all the difference, but age? No way, Jose! It's part of the tool-kit, and if it seems expeditious, will use it to our advantage.

Have never heard anybody whinge & moan over it like Farty, but there must be some insecurities-thingy going on there, me thinks. Ok, you tried it once, and it blew up in your face - believe me, that's happened to me too, but only 1 out of maybe 20 times. Now, just because you've become unstabilised on one NDB-approach doesn't mean that you'll never attempt another one, or start calling people who fly them all sorts of names would you???

So once you're done ranting about ingratiating and approval-seeking, try looking up projection - it might lead you to the reason why you feel the need to display your anger towards people who don't hide behind their reinforced F/D door

Bottom line, the punters generally appreciate it! That's good enough for me - I'm not too impressed about this trend that drives our proffession down among bus drivers et al - if you think you have the leadership skills to drive a train, then by all means go do that - but don't point fingers at the people who take their job seriously and know what it involves. You're not just a bunch of button-punching pillocks who might as well have become bakers instead - you're professionals, nomatter what O'Leary tells you. Either live up to it or find another job Until such time, stop calling those who do their job propperly all names under the sun

None of the above intended as disrespect to traindrivers, busdrivers or bakers - and not even to those "pilots" who've yet to grasp the extent of their commercial duties. But shame on you...