Yes of course. Don't look at the elephant that is sitting in the corner of the room. Keep ignoring it. Your product is substandard. Your customers deserve better. Your on time performance is terrible. Your customers deserve better. Your baggage handling is terrible. Your customers deserve better. Maybe you need more of me and less of you. You seem to think that kind of service is fine. I don't.
Really?
We need more of
you? We need more pilots who whine and bitch incessantly? Who do nothing but denigrate our product on a public forum ("our product is crap!"), with every opportunity they get? That's what we
need? Can you explain how that will help anything?
We as pilots ARE aware of the problems our airline faces (on-time, baggage, etc.). And no, we
don't think that those issues are "okay." But I'm pretty sure that the way for
pilots to address them is by working with the company, and showing how specific issues may be addressed. Give them a frontline view, as it were. Seeing as how we don't write the checks, and can't just snap our fingers and make operational changes. Responsible leaders act that way.
And you know what? It has an effect. After the January MDW meltdown, VPOps Van de Ven blamed the weather and new part 117 rules as the "culprit." The union immediately took them to task, privately and without fanfare, and then presented them with a report from the frontlines, with input from 1.500 pilots, explaining what
actually happened and why things broke down. Guess what? The company agreed and changed tacks. They've created a new office, staffed by a pilot (Chuck Magill, formerly VPFltOps) to oversee and address operational issues noted and experienced by crews as they happen. In other words, they listened to us. They've also changed the way calculate turn times and connection times throughout the day to allow for contingencies that frontline employees see, but that Dallas managers may not see (although this large change in flow planning won't happen until late May or June, due to lead time in scheduling and selling flights). This is to address "ripple delays" from waiting for slow connections. Don't know that this will solve
all our operational issues (we still need to address ramp staffing), but it's definitely a start.
On the other hand, maybe
you're right; maybe the answer is to just complain and moan on anonymous forums, like whiny little bitches, and
hope that GK and VdV happen to read FI in their spare time. Maybe that'll produce better results.
Bubba
