ATA News

[aftrburner]

I heard a rumor that ATA was furloughing back to 13 years seniority effective in June/July 2006. Anyone hear anything that would confirm or discredit this rumor?

 

[njcapt]

Bogus. Even if all the POTENTIAL furloughs (not firm) go through this summer, the senior non-voluntary furlough would have approximately six years of system seniority. Voluntary furloughs have gone many years higher, but obviously those were discretionary.

 

[atafan]

NJCapt is correct, although I do wish more 13 year guys would take the volunteer furlough.:0

Also no news expected until about mid Jan or so, a new station and some new city pairs are rumored to be announced later in January. Same business plan just minor mods to further enhance codeshare with SWA.

 

[HalinTexas]

Rumors are still coming around that Denison is telling members of our union leadership that SWA is either going to get ETOPS in 2008 or begin the process in 2008.

Evidently we've got some numbnuts in Dispatch and bag apes on the west coast that can't load a B737 properly. Putting it out of CG and we're overburning or offloading pax.

 

[B747FR8DAWG]

How long will ATA operate the L1011's? and what is the fleet composition now?


Thanks

 

[HalinTexas]

How long will ATA operate the L1011's? and what is the fleet composition now?


Thanks

I don't know. What day of the week is it?


We'll be down to 29 airframes the end of January. I think 4 or 5 L10's.

 

[737 Pylt]

I don't know. What day of the week is it?


We'll be down to 29 airframes the end of January. I think 4 or 5 L10's.

Hal:
What's the breakdown of a/c? Just wondering, plus a friend of mine there told me you guys were taking deliver of 767s?? is that true?
737

 

[alpine1989]

Evidently we've got some numbnuts in Dispatch and bag apes on the west coast that can't load a B737 properly. Putting it out of CG and we're overburning or offloading pax.

Numbnuts in Dispatch? Please elaborate.

 

[njcapt]

The cg envelope at high gross weights almost comes to a point. Taking off out of LAX and SFO with all the gas the -800 needs to carry to get to the islands, if the bags aren't loaded VERY carefully we have to bump pax. This has been happening on a daily basis since we started using the 737 on the Hawaii routes.

One of our Check Airmen developed a weight and balance program for Palm that can tell how bags/cargo should be loaded in order to maintain proper balance. It could be used by the station or dispatch to avoid these issues (since the flight crew doesn't get the load numbers until 10-15 minutes before departure), but the brilliance of this idea is lost on the people who could make it happen.

The fleet breakdown as of mid-January will be 15 737's (12-800's and 3-300's), 10 757's and 5 L1011's (to be reduced to 4 by March).

 

[HalinTexas]

Numbnuts in Dispatch? Please elaborate.

Numb: no sensation or feeling

Nuts: crazy or testicles


Put the two together and use your imagination.

As it applies to this situation:

Dispatch plans a flight at a specific ZFW and a "hope for the best" CG. This includes that ever-so-valuable cargo. As we all know that an aft CG gives a better burn than a forward one. There is no "load planning" going on at this stage. Also forcast winds for the Pacific are pulled from the ether, because past behavior is no indication of future performance, i.e. winds aloft are pulled from someone's arse because we don't like to use historical data. <--<sarcasm>

Fast forward a few hours to the flight. As Hunter alluded, the crew gets the load form 15-20 minutes prior to departure. It very much is a delicate balancing act to get the aircraft in CG, and if it's loaded wrong, out of CG, our contracted baggage handlers have to move stuff around. This fact is compounded by the fact that no computers are currently authorized to compute W/B on our aircraft. The FO does it manually, mostly by himself, while the CA cheers him on.

Due to our poor planning, we've booked the requisite number of passengers, but can't take them because someone thinks the aircraft will be "overweight." We've taken several significant delays while cargo is redistributed. We've also had an overburn problem lately, and I think it's probably due to a more forward CG than was planned as well as inaccurate application of winds and temps. aloft. It's not like we're new to this either. We're just slow and lack adequate leadership.