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I am with the passenger. How many times have we been lied to about the real reason that the airplane is not taking off....

If the weather is good, and the magical iPhone says its good, but the pilot says its not, I'd be thinking mechanical difficulty too. Its not like the airlines have an incredible history of being truthful/honest/decent to their customers.
 
SkyHog said:
If the weather is good, and the magical iPhone says its good, but the pilot says its not, I'd be thinking mechanical difficulty too. Its not like the airlines have an incredible history of being truthful/honest/decent to their customers.
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There is more to a weather delay then some crappy nexrad image on a cell phone.
 
SkyHog said:
I am with the passenger. How many times have we been lied to about the real reason that the airplane is not taking off....

If the weather is good, and the magical iPhone says its good, but the pilot says its not, I'd be thinking mechanical difficulty too. Its not like the airlines have an incredible history of being truthful/honest/decent to their customers.
Click to expand...

Sitting up in the pointy end we have absolutely no reason to lie about why we're delayed. If we get put in the penalty box, it's not because we have a mechanical problem that we just don't want to tell the pax...we're pretty sure they'd notice when the mechanics start taking parts of the airplane off and subsequently climb on board to fill out the logbook. If we say it's wx/ATC, it's just that. If we don't' say anything else for the next 40 minutes, it's because we don't know anything else. When we're given an EDCT or wheels-in-the-well time, they're probably not going to say anything more to us (except shut the f-ck up if we try to talk...especially in New York) until that time passes. While the gate agents and airlines on whole may not be nicest to their passengers, as pilots, we have no reason to lie about a delay. If it is mx, we probably won't be going into detail over the PA as to what the problem/fix was (mostly because most people don't care that much), but if it's a mx problem and nothing else, we'll say that. We don't use "weather" as a blanket excuse. As Jesse said, the nexrad image doesn't show everything. Unfavorable winds or low ceilings (even without storms that show up on radar) at departure or destination will slow everything down. Storms en-route, something that everyone forgets about will shut down entire departure/arrival gates, or make us decide to park it for a while until a system passes. If it's raining in Atlanta, all of the NY airports are going to be stopped because they run out of room to park all the ground-stopped outbounds and they start to get in the way of the folks that can actually leave. If it rained in Boston three hours ago and it's cleared up now, they're probably still going to be delayed catching up on all the arrivals that were pushed back during their flow program. The current weather this minute at the arrival airport isn't the only weather that can affect the go/no go of a flight.

Sorry if this has turned into a rant, but I was accused of lying about a delay three times last week and when I asked "what would the CA or I have to gain from lying to you about why we're sitting here picking our noses, next to seven other planes that haven't moved in the last 20mintues?" no one could seem to answer. I'll be the first to admit that gate agents can be schmucks sometimes, but they get yelled at all day...it's hard not to be. No one has anything to gain from lying, though, least of all the pilots. When you're delayed, so are we.
 
Sadly Matt, you're stuck there hearing it directly from passengers who otherwise get to vent behind a closed door to FAs. Maybe they should listen to the comm on board when pilots call the tower for their sequence and get yelled at by the controller.
 
Teller1900 said:
Sitting up in the pointy end we have absolutely no reason to lie about why we're delayed. If we get put in the penalty box, it's not because we have a mechanical problem that we just don't want to tell the pax...we're pretty sure they'd notice when the mechanics start taking parts of the airplane off and subsequently climb on board to fill out the logbook. If we say it's wx/ATC, it's just that. If we don't' say anything else for the next 40 minutes, it's because we don't know anything else. When we're given an EDCT or wheels-in-the-well time, they're probably not going to say anything more to us (except shut the f-ck up if we try to talk...especially in New York) until that time passes. While the gate agents and airlines on whole may not be nicest to their passengers, as pilots, we have no reason to lie about a delay. If it is mx, we probably won't be going into detail over the PA as to what the problem/fix was (mostly because most people don't care that much), but if it's a mx problem and nothing else, we'll say that. We don't use "weather" as a blanket excuse. As Jesse said, the nexrad image doesn't show everything. Unfavorable winds or low ceilings (even without storms that show up on radar) at departure or destination will slow everything down. Storms en-route, something that everyone forgets about will shut down entire departure/arrival gates, or make us decide to park it for a while until a system passes. If it's raining in Atlanta, all of the NY airports are going to be stopped because they run out of room to park all the ground-stopped outbounds and they start to get in the way of the folks that can actually leave. If it rained in Boston three hours ago and it's cleared up now, they're probably still going to be delayed catching up on all the arrivals that were pushed back during their flow program. The current weather this minute at the arrival airport isn't the only weather that can affect the go/no go of a flight.

Sorry if this has turned into a rant, but I was accused of lying about a delay three times last week and when I asked "what would the CA or I have to gain from lying to you about why we're sitting here picking our noses, next to seven other planes that haven't moved in the last 20mintues?" no one could seem to answer. I'll be the first to admit that gate agents can be schmucks sometimes, but they get yelled at all day...it's hard not to be. No one has anything to gain from lying, though, least of all the pilots. When you're delayed, so are we.
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Completely understand. In fact, go back in and read the comments on this posting, many people argue back and forth for just this point.

KennyFlys said:
Sadly Matt, you're stuck there hearing it directly from passengers who otherwise get to vent behind a closed door to FAs. Maybe they should listen to the comm on board when pilots call the tower for their sequence and get yelled at by the controller.
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This is a benefit of flying on United, where you can listen to ATC through the headsets. I wish more airlines did this. But, I do understand that this comes with its own slew of problems from passengers, such as one United captain told me about when I was talking to her on a parking shuttle. She said that she always turns it off on her plane ever since a passenger heard an exchange that she had on the radio that he thought was non-standard and suspect, so he wrote to the FAA. She was grounded while the incident was investigated, though it was a perfectly legal and logical exchange (I'm not sure what it was, I didn't ask because she already seemed pretty bitter about the whole thing). She was eventually cleared and okay to fly again, but now she turns the pax ATC off because as she put it, "I don't get paid enough anymore to deal with that kind of crap."
 
t0r0nad0 said:
She was eventually cleared and okay to fly again, but now she turns the pax ATC off because as she put it, "I don't get paid enough anymore to deal with that kind of crap."
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Sounds like she was attacked by the same kind of idiot who would tell me, "Flying those little planes is dangerous?"

Of course, I'd want to respond with... "No, being on the road next to idiots like you is dangerous."
 
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