Warbird Information Exchange

_________________
"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

Warbird I , what airline do you fly for or which one did you,if you don't mind us knowing? Hope it is not Delta.
Of course your primary job as pilot is to get the plane and passengers there safely. But, you are also a representative of your airline, of your company, even your profession or pilots in general.
So there is a public relations aspect to your job. It may sometimes be pleasant when the kids or ladies are glad to chat with you; it may sometimes be very unpleasant when a passenger is really dissatisfied.
Maybe the passenger is under a lot of pressure, maybe he was counting on the flight to get him home to his family, even to a sick parent, or back to a high pressure job on a deadline, or to make it to his cruise ship on time or vacation condo in Aspen that he has already prepaid. And if he doesn't get there who can he complain to? You are likely the only figure of any athority that he sees. Calling some 800 number or writing a letter or email is indirect and just not human nature.
You may not want to be put in this position or feel that it is fair to you or part of you job, but there it is.

The key is how cool can you be? You can be authoritative and abrupt, and make the passenger feel worse. Or you can remember the golden rule , and treat another human being as you would want to be treated.
You can first LISTEN to the passenger, let him know that you aren;t trying to ignore him. Then EXPLAIN why you diverted, "Sir, the FAA requires us to have at least a half mile visibility to even begin the approach, and the fog had cut it to less than that, or Sir we can see on the radar that a thunderstorm with hail and high winds is moving in and makes landing there too dangerous". Whatever the reason is, just share it briefly and factually. And no BS smokescreen talk. Tell him the same thing you'd tell your own crew, or another pilot. Then, perhaps it is up to some other customer service rep of the airline to see if they can get him a later flight, or a bus to the destination, or some kind of voucher or credit. But whatever, do it with manners,and be cool, even if the passenger is not. DON'T BE DISMISSIVE OF HIM OR HER.
The aim is to not make the situation worse,and maybe even make them leave feeling better,and keep a customer.

Think of EAA week at Osh. It is very crowded, there are lines for food, Portacans, rental cars, the trams or shuttle, or restaurants, and it can be hot,and you have to walk a long ways. BUT FOR THE MOST PART, PEOPLE ARE FRIENDLY, and there is an overall good feeling, with very few exceptions. It feels like we are all in the same boat. I know it can be a long wait to get fuel sometimes, and my plane takes a special wrench so I have to be there. One could get frustrated. But one thing the helps and that I appreciate is that the guys driving the fuel trucks are almost always nice, and doing the best they can. They are not nasty and anti public or anti pilot. I really like that feeling there.

There may be a few passengers who are going to be rude no matter what. Maybe they are from New York or some place where push and shove and loud talk is the norm. But you don't have to take on their personality or lack of it.

Cap, I think the idea of threatening a passenger with police or arrest just because they have a complaint is way wrong, and part of the public's frustration with airlines. When the airline or any other business doesn't meet the schedule, for whatever reason, don't try to shift the problem to the passenger,and call in thugs to heavy hand a customer.

This assumes that the passenger is merely voicing a complaint and not being any sort of danger. A dangerous passenger is a different matter, but if you are parked at the get it is unlikely that one is a real danger.
Just because the airline can try to strong arm a passenger and try to make a normal complaint into a safety problem does not make it right. If it goes to court, there are likely to be other passengers as witnesses and the pilot or crew may lose. Remember the Black female attendant who got into the big dispute with minister Joel Osteen;s wife. The attendant was successful in getting the lady put off the plane, but in court the attendants story did not hold up and she lost. She got no money, only a lot of bad P R for Southwest, and probably did not help her hiring resume.

_________________
Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Complaining is fine. But becoming irate such as I've seen more than one passenger in recent times is, by legal definition, disturbing the peace, and by doing it on an airplane or in the secure area of an airport is, again by legal definition, interfering with flight operations, which is a FEDERAL FELONY. Now, do they enforce it much? Hell no and for good reason too. But the point is, that when someone gets so out of hand that they can't control themselves and they cause more problems by their "complaints" (remember, you can only complain until it intrudes on anothers' "rights" then it becomes a crime), then it's the responsibility of airport police to step in and take care of the situation, by handcuffs or escort, whichever is needed.



First, please get the employer right Bill. Ms. Brown worked for Continental, not Southwest, and her lawsuit was done on her own, not by Continental. However, it is interesting that Mrs. Osteen was indeed fined by the FAA as they found that she had interfered with the flight crew in the incident and there were other witnesses that she did grab the arm of another Flight Attendant to make her "come over" and see what was going on. There is no "strong arm" going on here, there was an altercation that even the FAA found credible (who's really bad about not investigating these things anyway) and issued fines over. The civil issue is separate and Continental did not support and did a lot to distance themselves from their employee in the civil suit as they felt that everything had been done properly by the FAA.

CAP
I was mistaken about the airline being SW instead of Continental; but what difference does that make in the overall concept? I never said the airline, either SW or Continental sued the passenger.

But the attendant flied a big lawsuit against Mrs. Osteen. The FA, Ms Brown, had previously made a similar complaint against one of her own fellow workers.
Brown asked for a ridiculous amount, 10% of Osteen's net worth.

Brown lost, in court , with witnesses and a jury.

Neither you nor I were on Continental that day, but I strongly doubt that the wife of the minister of the largest Baptist church in the U S, with her children present, actually attacked the attendant. The Osteens were paying extra to be in first class, and certainly had the right to have a clean table top. There were no reports that Mrs. Osteen had been drinking, and they completed their trip on another airline that day.

It is much more lilkely that Ms. Brown resented being asked to clean the table top and saw a chance to take a shot at a big payday. I don't know, but I suspect that race was a factor here also.

As for your idea of threatening passengers with cops or security, anytime they make a complaint, that is bogus in both the cases in this thread, both planes were parked on the ground., no interference with any flight or safety.

I doubt if this would have happened with SW where crew like their jobs and don't resent passengers, and do realize that without customers there is no job and no airline

_________________
Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK