Making the skies friendly again

[Papa9571]

Here is a story of one airline captian who goes out of his way to make sure his passengers have a good flight.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1188266 ... lenews_wsj

[expat]

What a breath of fresh air. Now if he could sell his "product" to check in and security staff, we would be on to a winner as passengers. There is nothing worse than handing over a few hundred to a couple of thousand Euros to have the privilege of then having to then deal with people who reply to your "good morning/afternoon/evening" with "empty your pockets, put your bag and jacket in the box, next"

Matt

[Chris_F]

If I were a competing airline I'd be calling that guy with job offers right now.  Think of what a competitive edge that would be in the airline business if all your pilots and staff acted that way!

[Jayhawk Jake]

If I were a competing airline I'd be calling that guy with job offers right now.  Think of what a competitive edge that would be in the airline business if all your pilots and staff acted that way!

Key word is all.  The only extra business United gets from this one amazing captain is from the people who fly on his planes.  Put him on a 747, you might generate some extra revenue, but probably not.  EVERY pilot would have to be that way for it to make any difference.

[FsNovice]

sounds like a great pilot to have.

[bok269]

Its great to here that there are still pilots out there who love their job and actually care about their customers.

[Chris_F]

[quote][quote]If I were a competing airline I'd be calling that guy with job offers right now.

[Triple_7]

If only his personality could be implanted in the heads of security, check in, other personnel, air travel wouldn't be considered such a PITA/border line hell.

Capt. Flanagan mingled in the lounge answering questions and using his cellphone to call United operations officials to ask about connections to Asia and to cities on the West Coast.

I wish I could have had this guy when I headed for Taiwan...a ground delay (on the plane, at the runway, engines shut down) of over an hour was looking to make me miss my MH flight to TPE.  Flight attendants were of no use, ended up having to call home, have my mom get the number for AA, then after arguing with them I was transfered to MH to figure out what I could do in case of a missed flight being the next MH flight wasn't for 2 days.  Ended up making it thanks to a small delay of MH, but had a close call.  If an airline employee could have helped a little it would have made things a whole lot easier.  Had I missed that flight, according to AA I would have been stranded for 2 days being the MH flight was technically booked as separate being no partnership...no transfer to any of the other 3 or 4 flights heading that direction a little later was offered.

But as mentioned before...there are nice friendly people about, large airports forget it, but smaller regional airports you might get treated like a human being instead of another head of cattle.  FWA is a wonderful experience...LAX on the other hand :-/