Man, we still have guys who won't reject planes with maintenance discrepencies..../quote]
Just curious, but how likely is it to get cabin temps in the 37C-38C range with an operating APU? I ask because during my 1.5 hour taxi in ATL tonight I heard 2 Captains on 31.15 asking flight control about returning to the gate because they had those temps in the back and were looking at an hour plus taxi. I wouldn't want to judge anyone unfairly, but I've never seen 37 or 38 with an operable APU so I would suspect they might have taken busted airplanes.
I flew in to ATL that night to renew my ID card in the AM. My bag was lost so I was waiting in the lost bag office and listened to several passengers that were on that flight. They ALL new the crew had set them up as when they made their PA to let the pax know what they were going to do, the pax ALL wanted to press on and that the temp was "not bad at all". I gave the 20 or so pssengers from that flight every excuse that I could think of but they would not buy any of it. I rode the hotel van with several of them and they were quite upset.
The problem as I see it is that when the complaints come out it wont be because the temp was to high, but that the crew did it on purpose because they wanted to go home (I dont think any one of them knew that there were contract issues at stake). I explained the rules and safety issues related to excessive cabin temps but the pax ALL stated the temp was NOT to hot. I have been on MLOA for some time and understand the issues our pilots are going through but maybe a better explination to the pax may be in order.
Good luck to you guys