Pilot Has Unusual Candor
 

I took United Express flight 5755 this morning from Atlanta to Dulles for the second time this month to make an early morning meeting at the client. It took the flight attendant a few tries to lock the door for departure with multiple calls from the cockpit interrupting the safety talk to perform another attempt. We backed out of the gate five minutes early - good news. Then we returned to the gate a few minutes later with a message that the flap controlling computer was not working - bad news.

What ensued was a roughly four and a half hour delay while they attempted to change out the flap controlling computer(s). When we finally reboarded and backed out of the gate, the pilot announced that the flap computer had been switched into maintenance mode the night before and had not been switched back to the normal mode. So, the pilot admitted that a four and a half hour delay was fully preventable and human error. To me, I did not think airlines would admit this level of fault and just say, hey, we fixed the computer. Is this level of candor common to United Express pilots?

Very refreshing in this day and age of blame the others .

This is why I dont fly Express! An inexperienced pilot. I would've flown Delta as UA only has a few Mainline flight to Atl. They run away from AA and Delta hubs.

The first Delta flight to IAD is at 7:35. The Express flight is at 5:45 which gets me to the client site at 8AM, so they are the only same day option with a chance of making it to a 9AM meeting. Regardless - both Delta and United Express are running CRJ's on this route on Monday mornings.

I'm curious how honesty somehow translates to inexperience. Interesting.

One word: VOUCHER!

In what way does the pilot's experience level have anything to do with the mechanical? It is true that RJ outsourcing and pilot experience level is a major gripe with mainline pilots, but in this case it would be the regional carrier's maintenance staff, not the pilot's error. Your accusation is ill-based.

Agree, but still a mistake that should not have happened.

Not in the era of PMCO "customer service."

+1

Pilot Has Unusual Candor
 

Wow! I'm a mainline pilot, and have had things like that happen to me more than once. We don't get trained in every aspect of the maintenance side of our aircraft. That's why we have maintenance controllers.

I recently had a maintenance issue in LAS that caused an off-gate delay, ultimately ending with towing back onto the gate for repairs. One passenger was adamant that she wanted off the plane even though it was taken care of.

I had to wonder who would spend a week taking a chance with less than even odds feeding a slot machine but not want to take the chance flying in an airplane that the pilots were perfectly comfortable with?

Another example of how utterly little most people understand about the care and feeding of an airplane.

FAB

Agreed. I like the candor here.

Sorry, this was typed from my phone. I also, stick to my guns on this as I prefer to fly with a more experienced Mainline Pilot. Yes a pilot is a pilot, but I have more trust in a Mainline Pilot.

I'm sure the captain of this flight landed at Midnight the previous night and probably slept about 4 hours. The work rules are different for an Express Pilot.

Anyways, yes it was great that they admitted the issue. My first reaction was that it was the pilots fault, but it seems to be a maintenance issue? Not sure.

My apologies. I also just noticed that Delta is flying a CRJ900 with Wifi. Wow wifi on express flights!

That's absurd. How are you so sure? You have zero credibility with a statement like that.

I love it. You are trying bash everything about UA and UAX, but the facts (below) stand in the way.

There are many deficiencies at UA, but at least some of them are shared by all of the majors.

I've done lot's of research on this and I do refuse to fly Express. My choice. If you want proof, then google it. It's common for Express Pilots to be fatigued.

It's typical to land at midnight and take off at 6am. This is what they do. Land at midnight, take a shuttle bus, and by 430AM back to the airport to fly an airplane. Is that safe to you? Not to me. And I stand by my guns, I don't fly express. It's my one opinion, and safety is number one.

Here's a typical schedule

http://forums.jetcareers.com/threads...hedules.54376/

And here is more, some pilots sleep at the airport instead of going to the hotel room. Really? It's all about money. And United has more Regionals (I think) than Mainline. (From ORD that's true)

The great CO always had express flights everywhere. 4 hour flights? For real? No thanks. I have a choice and UA has lost, at least 50K from me the past 5 years, as I have refused to fly them(if not more) I believe a UA pilot must have at least 8 hours of rest time before they take another flight. Sometimes that delays the next AM flight out. (which is fine by me) Let the pilots rest and get me home safely.

Yes my fault for not seeing that Delta also had an AM express flight, but they mostly fly mainline between ATL-IAD. I continue to say it, why does UA always run away from other hubs? Almost all UA flights from all Hubs are flying mostly Express to ATL. ORD-MIA, express. Scared of AA. Most flights to DFW, express. It's really sad what UA has become. How can I really call it United when more than half the flights are Express. I started flying UA when it was the biggest airline in the world.

If I do go to ATL, I first look at the pitiful UA schedule, then I go ahead and book DL. Same for MIA, AA is flying 777 and 767's to MIA, (yes it's a hub) but can't UA throw 2 319's on the route? Why would I fly with a regional, (which treats employees badly)

Fact is, Regional Pilots are good, but they have very bad working conditions. The objective of a regional is to fly as much as possible for as little as possible.

Fact also, if you have an issue with a Regional, UA will tell you, sorry but that's ExpressJet not UA. Take your complaint with them.. This happened to me in my 1K days and decided to take my butt elsewhere.

Here is another good read if you really want facts. I'm not sure if pilots can fly the erj and crj, but a flight came in a midnight from IAD and left the next morning at 530am. Another ExpressJet. I'm pretty sure, the same crew flew the plane back to IAD. I might be wrong, and I hope I am, but this IS common in the Regional life of a pilot.


http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/blog/...nal-jet-pilot/

When I click on that link I don't see anything that shows landing at midnight and taking off at 6AM. I see a trip that starts at 6Am and ends at midnight 3 days later with the shortest layover being 15 hours. :confused:

I'm not a pilot but I'm pretty sure there are FAA regulations that have to be followed for all airlines with minimum rest times that are longer than what you are claiming.

I would have been glad to hear that nothing was wrong with the equipment. If there was a failure, I would wonder if they really got it fixed right. Kudos to the pilot for treating passengers with respect and honesty.

500-2300. Day1
600- Day 2

Pardon my ignorance, but what do airplanes eat?

500-2313. Trip 1 starts on day 2 of the month at 5am and ends on day 5 of the month at 2313
Day 6 of the month off
Day 7 of the month off
Day 8 of the month off
600- Trip 2 starts on day 9 of the month at 6am and ends on day 12 of the month at 1703
Day 13 of the month off
Day 14 of the month off
Day 15 of the month off
Day 16 of the month off
700- Trip 3 starts on day 17 of the month at 7am and ends on day 20 of the month at 2131
Day 21 of the month off
Day 22 of the month off
Day 23 of the month off
655- Trip 4 starts on day 24 of the month at 655am and ends on day 27 of the month at 1538
Day 28 of the month off
Day 29 of the month off
Day 30 of the month off

Then the pilot shows the details of the first trip below that where he has layovers of 15 hours, 24 hours and 17 hours.

We have veered off the topic of this thread and started talking about mainline v express. Subsequent off-topic posts will be deleted.

iluv2fly
Moderator, UA

Kerosene:D

FAB

Stand-Up
 

ExpressJet Airlines (large UAX operator) allows pilots and flight attendants to do a "stand-up" and is very common in their scheduling. The "stand-up" is specifically disallowed by other carriers collective bargaining agreements, but not at ExpressJet. The "stand-up" basically occurs when the crew duties on relatively late in the day and fly the last flight from a hub/domicile to a downline station. The flight may arrive around 2200-0100 local time. The pilots and flight attendant may only be 2-3 hours into their duty time and still be legal for the next 12 hours as the total duty time can be 14 hours on duty. The flight crew will then crew the first flight out in the morning departing around 0600-0900 and arrive back at the hub/domicile at the end of their maximum 14 hour duty period having only operated the two or perhaps three flights.

Well I guess this constitutes as a reason to get a refund on the flight or some hefty miles for the preventable delay due to human error.

Agreed. From personal experience, I know that I'm a lot more tolerant of delays when the pilot is up-front about causes and communicates often with the passengers. When there's no reason given, or when the pilot says, "we'll be sitting here for two hours due to ATC," and then never says anything else until we continue onwards, it makes me more likely to write letters of complaint.

Without any evidence to support the following speculation, it would seem to me that the major cause of travel rage is lack of control over one's situation, and being well informed significantly mitigates those feelings. If the pilots and crew would put a little more effort into communication -- and it doesn't really need to be the pilots, although messages from the top are highly valuable -- airlines, and specifically UA, would save a bundle.

I would take the word "inexperience" to refer more to our friendly honest pilot's failure to understand how the excuse game is played, rather than to his flying prowess. Giving a real reason for a delay, rather than a vague one, is, I would imagine, strictly against SOP.

^^^^^

Agreed. It's also another reason to turn on Channel 9 -- I've often heard the pilots trying to improve the situation for their passengers in various ways, and it makes me a lot less eager to blame them for things.

My experience exactly. It saddens me that many captains turn off Channel 9 thinking it to be a problem. My appreciation for the pilots, which is already pretty high, only grows when I hear them trying their best to get a more favorable takeoff slot, etc.

The type of trip that he is talking about is the stand-up or continuous-duty overnight. On those trips the pilots are on-duty all night and have their required rest during the day. The report to work in the evening, after having been on required rest all day, and are then legal to fly all night long. They get a hotel room during the "break" but they are officially on-duty that entire time.

This type of trip allows the airline to schedule the same crew on the last flight in at night and the first flight out in the morning eliminating the need to overnight two crews at that city.

While I too appreciate the candor, I actually interpreted his comment as a blame on others (the maintenance staff). Not a personal mea culpa, but instead absolving the pilot from fault. .?