Where does our duty begin, or end?

[Boots2Wings]

I’m looking for some sort of consensus, or at least, a common thread. Those that know me know I’m used to boxes, so 121 constantly presents its nuances…and as the days tick by until an eventual upgrade in this realm, there is one thing I cannot quite get a consensus on, and its the only thing leaving a trip (as an FO) I don’t know how to discuss…where does our role as “pilots” end when it comes to customer service?

Ive flown with great sticks, amazing people, and friends id gladly share a beverage with; but among one of the common sentiments I get on a trip is; “they don't pay me to make PAs”, “why would you stand at the gate before boarding?”, or “sure, you can help with those bags, or push the chair…but you're more than likely to get Section 19’d than thanked”…

Its not about being “thanked”, but, I mean, we get paid because they sit in our seats…so where does the humanity/liability meet a reasonable point?

 

[jtrain609]

Humanity eh? I know where you work.

 

[Box hauler]

I’m looking for some sort of consensus, or at least, a common thread. Those that know me know I’m used to boxes, so 121 constantly presents its nuances…and as the days tick by until an eventual upgrade in this realm, there is one thing I cannot quite get a consensus on, and its the only thing leaving a trip (as an FO) I don’t know how to discuss…where does our role as “pilots” end when it comes to customer service?

Ive flown with great sticks, amazing people, and friends id gladly share a beverage with; but among one of the common sentiments I get on a trip is; “they don't pay me to make PAs”, “why would you stand at the gate before boarding?”, or “sure, you can help with those bags, or push the chair…but you're more than likely to get Section 19’d than thanked”…

Its not about being “thanked”, but, I mean, we get paid because they sit in our seats…so where does the humanity/liability meet a reasonable point?

It begins and ends where you want it to. Want to go out of your way and do extra tasks? Great go ahead and do so. The same can be said if you just want to show up and do your job.

 

[Boots2Wings]

Humanity eh? I know where you work.

Probably, but that doesn't change the notion that we have jobs because people buy seats. Do we not have an obligation to them regardless of the shop?

 

[Boots2Wings]

It begins and ends where you want it to. Want to go out of your way and do extra tasks? Great go ahead and do so. The same can be said if you just want to show up and do your job.

And no fault to those that want to do so, im just curious what leads that thinking process. Obviously, right seat, its limited, but those of us in that seat eventually have to be the tone setter. So whats the line?

 

[EAD]

Probably, but that doesn't change the notion that we have jobs because people buy seats. Do we not have an obligation to them regardless of the shop?

Your obligation to the passengers is to professionally move them from point A to point B, safely first-and-foremost, and then ideally on-time. That is what you are paid to do. Anything extra comes from your own convictions.

And no fault to those that want to do so, im just curious what leads that thinking process. Obviously, right seat, its limited, but those of us in that seat eventually have to be the tone setter. So whats the line?

A big part I had to figure out when I upgraded was learning how and when to just get out of the way and allow things to happen around me. Sometimes helping with a wheelchair or bags is the right thing to do, sometimes it's not. You'll naturally find your own balance

 

[luke3]

Your obligation to the passengers is to professionally move them from point A to point B, safely first-and-foremost, and then ideally on-time. That is what you are paid to do. Anything extra comes from your own convictions.

Winner winner chicken dinner.

After that I'd say communication is pretty important. I like to picture myself deadheading in the back. If things are going off script to the point that I'd be thinking "WTH is going on", I'm making a PA explaining the situation. Business as usual and I stick to the FOM required PAs.

The rest is time and willpower permitting. Just finished a redeye, going to a short overnight, or quick turn to a plane swap? "Shutdown checklist complete - Seeya". Long sit, need to wait out ATL traffic to go home, or keeping the plane, I'll say goodbye to the pax. I also always tell the FO that they don't have to wait for me.

My limit is I don't do things outside of my job description, especially pushing wheelchairs. But I will happily go find someone to do it if I have time.

I like to think my approach is middle of the road, but it's just my first month on the line as a 121 captain and I'm still trying to define my style 100%.

 

[Skåning]

No PAs from 8pm to 8am. People got up early or it’s been a long day, don’t need me to interrupt their moving watching.

On the ground with a delay or MX issue, start the timer and make PAs every 15 min.

What do you wanna hear when you DH? Just do that

 

[///AMG]

As an FO, most of this really isn't in my wheelhouse, but I've seen good CA's thread the needle well. Like was said, if you were pax in the back, wondering why we closed up 10 mins ago and aren't moving, and now the jet bridge is returning, you'd want a little update. None of us are salesmen, or hawking the company credit card though.

 

[Screaming_Emu]

Heh, duty.

 

[Screaming_Emu]

Now that I got that out of the way, I think it depends on two things.

1) What does your company require
2) What would you want as a passenger

1 is self explanatory. If the company puts it in a book and it doesn’t go against anything in the contract, that’s your job. Same goes for the morons who say “if they want me to dress professionally, they should pay us like one.” I’m hardly a uniform nazi, but at least make an effort. We might not make what we deserve, but we are making enough that if the company requires us to show up in clown shoes, well that’s the way it goes.

2 is a little different for everyone I guess. So maybe it’s not what YOU want as a passenger but what the average passenger wants. Sadly for them, there really isn’t much we can do for them other than provide information. I like to travel, but the process isn’t that enjoyable. That is magnified when things aren’t going as planned, so providing the right amount of info can help put minds at ease or modify their plans.

Information needs to be in a format that the general public can understand. Just the other day I was on an AA flight and the pilot on the PA told everyone that the reason it was hot on the plane was that the APU wasn’t working. I know that that is, he knows what that is, but most passengers don’t. Give a brief description and then more importantly, what that means to them, when they can expect conditions to improve, and then toss in some empathy like “we know it’s uncomfortable, we’re sweating up here too.”

 

[SurferLucas]

Usually starts at the butt and ends in the bowl, your mileage may vary.

 

[roundout]

I worked 8 years where you work; I've seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and the in between. Usually I don't give advice, but I'll give some.

• Start with the ALPA code of ethics. Then read the Vol 1 about professionalism. Come up with your best approach using these resources.
• You can never go wrong doing the right thing, even if the Captain next to you is "over it" or whatever. I've actually been "that guy" and the FO went and did something above and beyond and I was like "oh wow, that person is a rockstar - I am behaving poorly" even though I didn't do anything "wrong" or unprofessionally, per se. I just didn't do what was right.
• Have some humanity, even though your employer would prefer you behave as a robot.
• Don't get caught in the trap of "well if they paid me Delta rates I'd (whatever task)!" BTDT. That allure lasts about 3 paychecks then wears off and you're back to the same old same old just with more money in your 401k. How you react to external stimuli doesn't coincide with what your hourly rate is.
• Stay off the Facebook pilot page. That place is a dumpster fire.

tl;dr be a human, have some grace with people even though everyone else around you might not

If nothing else, working at brand F gives you great stories for your legacy interview (and a decent pay check).

 

[JustinS]

What do you wanna hear when you DH? Just do that

I want to hear what runway we’re taking off from and what number we are for takeoff.

 

[ppragman]

I was never a 121 guy or anything other than 135 scum/Alaska pilot in general, but I will say that I took my responsibility to my customers extremely seriously. Be a good human. Don't work yourself to death, that's expected by management but absurd and counter productive to safety and took me a long time to learn, but do recognize that people rely on your service and you hold a lot of lives in your hands. Even if you're just flying around a few people in piston singles or whatever, you have an ethical obligation to do right by those people as best as you can. Consequently, that means some times you'll have to disappoint them, but you have an obligation to do your best at whatever you do. We are blue collar workers - each flight is like an potter crafting a vase - yes, not all the vases are perfect, but each time we try to do a little bit better than the last one.

To me, at least, I didn't really care about how I looked, or if I was clean shaven (not that what I was doing really required that), but I did really care about the people I flew. If the elders were getting off the plane in the village, if they needed help, I gave it to them. I tried to learn some of the local language everywhere I went in Alaska, and I tried to connect myself to the communities I serviced. That experience doesn't have to stop just because you're flying 190 tourists to Tampa or whatever, you can still "care" about the people under your charge.

That doesn't mean obnoxious PAs where you talk about servant leadership or other such nonsense. If anything, it means less of that. On the contrary it means that you offer to help people when you think they need help, you try not to inconvenience people, and you have a little heart because the ramifications of your decisions can effect a lot of people. A perfect example of this from my career was after a particularly traumatic medevac, I noticed that the mother of the patient was so alarmed and in shock that she was starting to just wander off onto the ramp somehow past the medcrew (who had suddenly gotten very busy busy and stopped watching her). I stopped putting the airplane to bed, went and got her and physically guided her over to the ambulance while the crew was still working to help her kid, "hey why don't you come with me and get buckled into the ambulance, ok? Oh, yeah, we see this sort of thing all the time, the medcrew I have tonight is fantastic, I see this 10 times a week, you've got nothing to worry about. Watch your head as you sit in here, be sure to connect your seatbelt, are you comfortable? It's going to be ok - are you doing alright? I've got some water here."

Now, the god's honest truth is that I didn't know if the kid was going to be fine - arguably probably not - but my responsibility to my passengers didn't stop until everything was handled, even though I had already been shutdown for 10 minutes or so, I could see that she was in trouble (both in terms of being unmonitored on the ramp at night and wandering around in shock), and I could do something about it. The prop ties and paperwork could wait (even though the wind was howling). So I went and did something about it.

When you see the right thing to do - and believe me, you know it when you see it - just go do it. Literally just care about people enough to try to do the best you can to help people. You're not going to get rewarded for it, hell, you'll probably make things less convenient for yourself a lot of the time you do the right thing - but do the right thing anyway. You owe the people in your charge a little bit of explanation when things are weird, delayed, or chaotic if you have time to give them that information.

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

I had to nearly pry a CA out of his chair to do the walk to get an OAL jumpseater on. He’s a commuter, too! Don’t be that guy.

 

[MikeD]

Be a humanitarian, yes, but be careful in how you go about that in different situations, especially as it comes to working under a contract and the liability you may unknowingly assume. If pushing wheelchairs and slinging bags isn’t your contractural duties, be very cautious in doing so yourself. Try to find those whose job it is to push wheelchairs or sling bags. If you get injured in the course of doing something outside your contractural obligations, or worse, hurt someone else while doing same, that could cause you some real headaches, or worse, as it comes to your own job. Too, performing a job that by contract is not your job, but is someone else’s actual job, could get you jammed up too. Unless some exigent circumstances exist, you can’t go wrong by coloring within the lines, as it comes to these things. That doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk about it, you can be nice about it, and still keep within your duties. Especially in todays litigious society.

 

[roundout]

Be a humanitarian, yes, but be careful in how you go about that in different situations, especially as it comes to working under a contract and the liability you may unknowingly assume. If pushing wheelchairs and slinging bags isn’t your contractural duties, be very cautious in doing so yourself. Try to find those whose job it is to push wheelchairs or sling bags. If you get injured in the course of doing something outside your contractural obligations, or worse, hurt someone else while doing same, that could cause you some real headaches, or worse, as it comes to your own job. Too, performing a job that by contract is not your job, but is someone else’s actual job, could get you jammed up too. Unless some exigent circumstances exist, you can’t go wrong by coloring within the lines, as it comes to these things. That doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk about it, you can be nice about it, and still keep within your duties. Especially in todays litigious society.

This is good to keep in mind, but there are plenty of ways to help without overstepping your bounds. In fact, with a uni and a badge, you might be the only person who actually can do anything.

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

Be a humanitarian, yes, but be careful in how you go about that in different situations, especially as it comes to working under a contract and the liability you may unknowingly assume. If pushing wheelchairs and slinging bags isn’t your contractural duties, be very cautious in doing so yourself. Try to find those whose job it is to push wheelchairs or sling bags. If you get injured in the course of doing something outside your contractural obligations, or worse, hurt someone else while doing same, that could cause you some real headaches, or worse, as it comes to your own job. Too, performing a job that by contract is not your job, but is someone else’s actual job, could get you jammed up too. Unless some exigent circumstances exist, you can’t go wrong by coloring within the lines, as it comes to these things. That doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk about it, you can be nice about it, and still keep within your duties. Especially in todays litigious society.

You forgot one…














…don’t use flaps 2

 

[///AMG]

Be a humanitarian, yes, but be careful in how you go about that in different situations, especially as it comes to working under a contract and the liability you may unknowingly assume. If pushing wheelchairs and slinging bags isn’t your contractural duties, be very cautious in doing so yourself. Try to find those whose job it is to push wheelchairs or sling bags. If you get injured in the course of doing something outside your contractural obligations, or worse, hurt someone else while doing same, that could cause you some real headaches, or worse, as it comes to your own job. Too, performing a job that by contract is not your job, but is someone else’s actual job, could get you jammed up too. Unless some exigent circumstances exist, you can’t go wrong by coloring within the lines, as it comes to these things. That doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk about it, you can be nice about it, and still keep within your duties. Especially in todays litigious society.

All of this is true, but I'll happily grab some old person's hand to get them over the jet bridge step to the wheelchair if I'm the able bodied person present. Back to your point of being a humanitarian. I feel like our customer base is mildly cultish, in I suppose an endearing way. I can get into that. There is an old eskimo (mostly retired during covid) that treated people very well. I think we need to get back to that. Enough drivel from me, but that is what id like to see. You'll all probably mock me because senior mamas are like your overly neurotic mom, but they might also have life lessons to teach. Some of the experienced yet younger socal gals are just rad. Super service.