Interfering with Another Captain's Vessel
 

Here's the scenario: Firstly, we're a small airline, all the captains are on a first name basis, and we try to help each other out. Due to some weather ATC has shut down all departures. Ramp control is doing ATC's bidding and queing all of the aircraft that call ready to taxi. So nobody is going anywhere, and the "list" is 30 aircraft long. Eventually, the weather moves out and Ramp control starts sorting things out. We are directed to wait and jump in the middle of the line, about 7 aircraft back. Another company aircraft (the problem child) gets cleared to follow us. He acknowledges this. Amazingly, he sets takeoff power and blasts his way much farther up the line, and wedges his aircraft into a hole just big enough to squeeze into, like a bad scene on the M5. He's jumped ahead of 3 other aircraft in addition to us. I see this going down and give him a holler on company, to make sure he heard ramp control correctly. I honestly thought they must have misheard. In an angry tone he says he heard correctly, but that he deserves to be where he put himself. I ask him if he's kidding, but he asserts that he's in the right, and terminates the conversation, and refuses to answer further calls from me.

Now this guy was a royal pain when I was his First Officer, an arrogant guy always, and now a line check airman to the mystification of us all. My First Officers universally complain about him, and when this transpired, my FO at the time was livid, almost yelling, and ready to unstrap and throw down in the middle of the taxiway. I tried to bring the issue to this Captain's attention, but he rebutted my entreaty. Thus I said to myself "screw it," and turned in a report about the incident. The thing is, safety is one thing, and reputation is another consideration. This guy cutoff the very airlines we're all trying to get hired by. Somebody tell me I'm not a petulant child for doing this.

Seems to me you might also want to calm your F/O down a bit. He sounds a little too excitable.

Either way, report if you want, if you feel he's bringing your airline into disrepute. But don't confront him on the R/T. Don't ever wind people up when they're just about to go flying. And don't get yourself wound up, either. Not good for safety. Let it go and, if you have to, deal with it later, coolly and dispassionately.

OK, he might have misheard Ramp Control. But if he did, it's their problem and theirs to deal with, not yours. His aircraft is his to command - BY LAW. Let him command it. If the company (having received a report) don't like the way he's commanding his aircraft, it's their responsibility to deal with it.

Got to agree with Captain Stable on this one. If the other Captain is as you say he is then it's only a matter of time before he's finished digging the whole that someone will be only to glad to bury him in.

As long as the "whole" is not at the end of the runway.