Flight deck - CRM ?

[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.

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

[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.