Weight&Balance

How vague are airline load manifests that the crew didn’t notice they had one for a different airplane?
 
MauleSkinner said:
How vague are airline load manifests that the crew didn’t notice they had one for a different airplane?
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I’ve preflighted an entire aircraft to only figure out it was the wrong one when the other pilots showed up. When they all look the same the only way to tell is via the tail number placard.

Additionally, it can also happen if the wrong passengers board your aircraft. I had it happen twice at the same gate.

For a few months American had Charleston, WV and Charleston, SC at the same gate in CLT. One would be 5 and the other 5A and both gates are ramp boarding via the same exit door as E was still mostly without jetways. To make matters worse someone had made 5A the first aircraft you walked to instead of 5.

Both times it’s was only discovered after a late passenger found their seat occupied. Before that late passenger the Gate Agents had directed everyone to the wrong aircraft.

The easiest solution was to call dispatch and have them swap the tails and get a new release. It was happening so often that towards the end dispatch would make two releases for each crew anticipating it would happen.
 
ARFlyer said:
The easiest solution was to call dispatch and have them swap the tails and get a new release. It was happening so often that towards the end dispatch would make two releases for each crew anticipating it would happen.
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LMAO. I bet the aircraft routers loved that. “Hey, Dispatch, what the heck are you doing? You just messed up my routing plan for the next two days. That airplane was due in Chattanooga for maintenance tomorrow.”
 
Greg Bockelman said:
LMAO. I bet the aircraft routers loved that. “Hey, Dispatch, what the heck are you doing? You just messed up my routing plan for the next two days. That airplane was due in Chattanooga for maintenance tomorrow.”
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Haha True! Most of the time those flights are just out and backs with roughly the same flight time.

However the stupid ones were tail swaps for an out and back with a second tail swap back into your first tail. A few times, especially on go home day, we’d revolt and both crews would refuse to swap. MX would magically make it go away with no fuss... Sometimes we wondered if it was management getting back at the crews for something the union did.

I was always friendly with dispatch. A few times they helped me out and held my commute so I could run over and make it home that day.
 
I was trying to jump seat from Houston to College Station, going home for my days off. The dispatcher gave me a boarding pass and said they are leaving in 5 minutes. I was hurrying as hurridly as I could, showed the gate agent my boarding pass and she directed me to the bus. This was on Continental Express at Houston International back when passengers were bussed from the terminal to the plane.

I got on the plane, quickly thanked the captain for the ride, thanked the FA and took my seat. The FA did her safety briefing, ending it with, ''So sit back and enjoy the ride to Lake Charles.''

Holy cow.!! How did I get on the wrong plane.?? Well, I hope Lake Charles is nice this time of year. Then one of the passengers spoke up saying he was going to College Station. A few other passengers said the same thing, so the FA asked if everyone was going to College Station, and all said yes.

The bus pulled up, we all deplaned and got on the bus and we were taken to the correct plane. Jump seating was always an adventure back then.
 
Zeldman said:
I was trying to jump seat from Houston to College Station, going home for my days off. The dispatcher gave me a boarding pass and said they are leaving in 5 minutes. I was hurrying as hurridly as I could, showed the gate agent my boarding pass and she directed me to the bus. This was on Continental Express at Houston International back when passengers were bussed from the terminal to the plane.

I got on the plane, quickly thanked the captain for the ride, thanked the FA and took my seat. The FA did her safety briefing, ending it with, ''So sit back and enjoy the ride to Lake Charles.''

Holy cow.!! How did I get on the wrong plane.?? Well, I hope Lake Charles is nice this time of year. Then one of the passengers spoke up saying he was going to College Station. A few other passengers said the same thing, so the FA asked if everyone was going to College Station, and all said yes.

The bus pulled up, we all deplaned and got on the bus and we were taken to the correct plane. Jump seating was always an adventure back then.
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ExpressJet, aka Continental Express after they spun off, was my first airline. They required new pilots to jumpseat for 10 hours so we could
observe normal operations.

Welp when I hired on they hadn’t hired in many years so crews weren’t use to seeing new hires. I picked a round robin route that took me from Houston to Charlie West and back via several intermediate stops. When I got to the gate in Houston the crew looked at me like I was crazy, to be jumpseating for 8 hours, until I told them I was a new hire and showed them the FOM requirement.

What’s humorous is that old ExpressJet requirement is now a FAA requirement for indoc. I never had as good of training as I got at ExpressJet.
 
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