does ops ever call the hotel?

[JetPilot_Mike]

Do you guys have any provisions for taking a taxi to the hotel? At Comair, our hotel contracts state that it is the hotel's responsibility to find out when the flight is arriving and have the van at the airport on time. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We are trying to get away from calling the hotel to send the van, because it conditions the hotel to wait for the call. Of course on a short overnight it's hard not to call.

We also have a provision that if the van is not there to pick us up by 35 minutes after block in (20 min duty + 15 min wait for van), then we take a cab and the hotel pays for it. If they won't pay, captain pays, gets reimbursed from chief pilot, and the company deals with the hotel.

 

[crashpad]

OPS at AWAC has called the hotel on many occasions.... to ask for the flight times from the crew! Usually at 1-2 am on short overnights......uh, sorry I misinterpreted the title of this post.....

 

[Wanderer]

I don't think the people at the hotels have a clue on what is going on.

I love when they come out for your crew, and end up picking up another airlines crew....thinking it is your crew....and don't come back for you.

 

[shamrock]

You're calling in-range, or calling your times in (for the non-ACARS people), and you politely ask the ops people to give the hotel a buzz and tell them that you'll be curbside in XX minutes. They say "sure, no problem" or "they've already been called". Good, alright, no wait in the cold. So you put the plane to bed, and walk on out to the curb, looking expectantly for that green Holiday Inn van. And you wait, and wait, and wait some more. "Does anybody have the hotel number handy?" "Do you have your pairing handy?" So you dig it out of your bag (you'd think after 5 years I'd learn) and call the hotel. "Oh, okay, we'll send the van right out..." Geez. "Did you ever get a call from xxxxx operations?" "No this is the first call tonight."

Until you mentioned USAirways in the next sentence I was sure you were talking about ASA.

It happens here too. We even had a ramper follow a crew to the hotel to have a "discussion" with (threaten) the Captain after he caught them lying about calling the hotel. First class operation we have here, don't ya think?

 

[GateGirl]

As an ops agent who gets told to call for cabs, pizza, and many other random things with the in range calls let me explain something to you....

1) You call in range, we answer, you ask us to call the hotel/cab/pizza delivery guy (don't laugh ive called him many times)/wife/kids/babysitter/whoever the heck else you can think of for some strange reason...
2) I take the in range call, I have a million other things going on as well, someone's calling because they're bag is missing... someone's calling for air france's number (you'd be surprised...)
3) In small stations the ops agent is the ramp agent too, so I have to find the chalks, and night wands, which of the 12 pairs I have one wand works, so now i have to find batteries and im kicking myself in the butt because why didnt i do this before the darn plane called in range....
4) the plane comes i ramp it in, i take the pax off, yadda yadda yadda
5) take the in times, your calling wherever it is you have to call to tell them your comming with the RON aircraft but they arent listening so you call me again and ask me to call them (by the way, ive totally forgotten to call hotel van by now)
6) I put the times in I somehow manage to mess the times up and I have to call dispatch

Now even at larger station where 3 and 4 arent relevant you have more than one aircraft calling you inrange... and they to want you to call some random person too. So I jut thought I'd let you know. Im not complaining. I dont care, and heck if I remember to call the hotel van/cab/pizza guy/whoever i'll do it, i dont care.... but sometimes were busy and we forget were human too...

 

[atldc9]

I used to have this problem. Settled it pretty quickly. When you ask op's to call the hotel, tell them to get the name of the person with whom they spoke. When you call in your times, get op's to give you the name. Pretty easy to tell who is lying when they have to answer the question, either at the hotel or airport- 'who'd you talk too?'

Trust but verify.

 

[GateGirl]

I used to have this problem. Settled it pretty quickly. When you ask op's to call the hotel, tell them to get the name of the person with whom they spoke. When you call in your times, get op's to give you the name. Pretty easy to tell who is lying when they have to answer the question, either at the hotel or airport- 'who'd you talk too?'

Yup and thats what ops says to you "sorry XXXX, there must be something wrong with one of our radios I didnt quite get the end of that last transmission..."

 

[crashpad]

The oriental proverb says;'Why do something yourself when you can get others to do it for you'. I like; 'If you want something done right, do it yourself' Hint: cellphone as you're leaving the aeroplane.
Of course, if you're the captain you can ask a fellow crewmember to do it and kill two birds.....it works fine, either way.

 

[91100 100 set]

Dash8, it happens everywhere dude. But mostly at those super-senior US stations all across the NYS thruway. I was home last Sat, and was planning on going to the party, LG called me to see if I was going, but I was out running errands all afternoon and got home completely exhausted at like 9 pm, so I figured I'd work on the dent in my couch and watch taped episodes of Aqua Teen (loser, I know). I shoulda come out for it. I've never been to a MR party, and lately my attitude seems to be right in line with his, so we'd have lots to talk about (and drink lots of Mr. Seigal's mini's)

GateGirl, I know there are alot of ramp, gate, and ops folks that work pretty darn hard all over and for lots of different companies with and without the express tag on it, and I give them credit where credit is due. But it burns me to see 10 rampers sitting in a break room watching CABLE TV (my own domicile has 50+ channels on the TV), on the clock mind you. Or the ones that have the nerve to yell at you when you come into the breakroom and turn the lights on to read something and you wake them up. Still on the clock. Dateline runs episodes about when I fall asleep on the clock...

 

[FlyChicaga]

Usually our Ops is very good about it. Sometimes it's the hotel that's making the excuses though. "Nope, they never called, first we heard of it." Right.

The worst I've ever experienced is when we completed a rough day with an approach in a snowstorm up in Michigan, right down to minimums. Get inside, exhausted, ready to get the heck to the hotel, and find no van. Go get ops? Nope, they are out working the outbound flight for the next 15 minutes. So we try to call using the number off our pairings via cell phone. None of us can reach the hotel. So we head to the hotel phone board. Not going through. By this time ops is out at the counter again. They try, no luck. What is going on?? We call dispatch, see if they can try. No luck there either. Finally, after 30 minutes, we go in search of a taxi. But alas, no taxis are available. Won't be available for a while due to the snowstorm. So we keep trying the hotel. Nothing. Finally, over an hour and a half later, we just call another hotel and see if they can bill the company. Luckily we find a real nice hotel up the road (actually better than ours), and 2 hours after we blocked in are finally in bed. Only bad news is that we need a 4:30 am van, but they don't start van service until 5:30 am. WTF??? So we manage to negotiate that one of the building maintenance personnel will drive us to the airport at 4:30 am.

Turns out the power went out in the whole area our hotel was located, which was about 2 miles up the road from the hotel we ended up at that night. I'm thinking we need to permanently change, since it's a more "electrically sound" area.