Upon my return home from a trip to London and back, I reflected on a series of trials and tribulations. When I put on the fourth stripe 25Â years ago, I perceived my primary function simply as the boss on the flight deck. The responsibility for safely operating an airliner rested directly on my shoulders. The cabin crew was certainly under my jurisdiction, but they were on the other side of the cockpit door and, for the most part, acted autonomously.
As a 33-year-old captain, I was probably a bit naive. It wasn’t long before I came to the realization that some trips are more about managing than about flying. This particular London flight was no exception.
Still on the reserve roster, I had been assigned the trip by default. Let’s just say that the dominoes of other eligible pilots ahead of me unexpectedly fell the night prior and into the following morning. Sometimes that’s just the way the reserve cookie crumbles.
My first indication that I would be required to don the flight-manager hat came with the introduction to our purser, the lead flight attendant. Although mostly pleasant, he was preoccupied. His attention span during my briefing with the other 12Â flight attendants put him at an orbit barely within the solar system. Judging by his angst over a problem with the 777-300 passenger entertainment system and a first-class seat being rendered partially inop, his stress level was beginning to build. This turned out to be an understatement.
Despite the best efforts of the technicians involved with a troubleshooting process that had begun hours earlier, the entertainment system would remain out of service for our flight. Although my initial reaction is always to point out that the low-tech solution for such a problem is an item commonly referred to as a “book,” our customers have expectations, especially from a $300 million airplane. And our first-class passengers pay a premium for their seats. They deserve the appropriate service.
An unfortunate byproduct of a disabled entertainment system is the inability to play the required FAA safety video. Thirteen flight attendants have to manually demonstrate seat-belt buckling, life-vest donning and so on. Most took the atypical procedure in stride, but the purser reacted as though Armageddon was about to commence.
An additional problem with the disabled entertainment system involved our crew bunk. Apparently, the circuitry is connected. Among other items, the eyeball reading lights are wired such that they can’t be turned off. Our rest breaks required some creative blocking techniques to reduce the ambient light, i.e., a handful of strategically placed pillows.
Adding to the purser’s list of what else could go wrong, there were not enough coach meals aboard. On his own accord, unbeknownst to me, he instructed the agents to stop boarding. His logic was that catering would have to use the jet bridge and the aisles rather than the aft service doors to load the missing meals. Boarding passengers would create a roadblock.
The purser’s decision initiated a self-induced departure delay. The meals arrived but without an adequate amount of trays to accompany them. This criminal act invited a confrontation with the catering representative. The apocalypse began.
The purser had now completely transformed into the Tasmanian devil. Listening to his version of the entire crisis, I began to question his sanity. Although I admired his passionate desire to provide a quality product for our customers, he just wouldn’t let anything go. I was certain my crew was about to witness the man’s first stroke. His reaction to stress was such that I honestly considered removing him from the trip.
The coup de grace for our purser was the gate agent’s decision to offer our passengers the opportunity to deplane rather than suffer through a six-and-a-half-hour flight without entertainment and, worst of all, no Internet. Two of our first-class passengers indicated a desire to do as such, but through some creative thinking and the availability of our portable onboard video devices, the cooler head of the other first-class flight attendant prevailed.
The initiative taken by this veteran flight attendant was considered usurping and not well received by our purser. In that regard, let’s just say she spent a lot of time visiting us in the cockpit in an attempt to avoid the whirling dervish.
With the cabin service problems more or less resolved, I intervened and informed the frustrated gate agent that we would depart despite the dissatisfaction of my red-faced purser. The drama cost us a 40-minute delay. Wonderful.
Perhaps I should have interpreted my wife’s concern before departure to foreshadow craziness. She had called earlier, warning me of the media reports regarding drone sightings at JFK. Lunatics were running rampant that evening.
With the cockpit door closed and locked, sanity was restored. We pushed back away from the gate, taxied out and joined a line of airplanes waiting for departure from Runway 31L. The darkness of the evening and the fact that another conga line on an opposite taxiway was part of the fray made it difficult to discern our sequence. I lost count of red rotating beacons. The congestion was a result of a one-runway takeoff operation because of construction on 22L. We finally rocketed skyward just before midnight.
Our arrival into London’s Heathrow Airport was met with a flurry of ATC instructions. At the last minute, our clearance was changed from the standard south holding pattern to a north holding pattern. This required a few quick moments of flight management computer (FMC) data-entry juggling.
Hearing a collective sigh of trepidation as I clicked off the autopilot, my very competent copilots kept a watchful eye on my performance. Although all three of us had the opportunity for a rest break, we were still flying on the backside of our own personal circadian rhythm clocks. As it was, my crew’s vigilance caught a couple of minor mistakes.
Adding to the quirky nature of the trip, our downtown layover hotel had been temporarily changed to the airport hotel to compensate for traffic congestion caused by a bicycle race. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to do at the airport.
Our departure the next morning seemed to progress normally right up until I received paperwork for a shipment of lithium batteries. The FAA has conducted tests inside airline cargo pallets and the explosion results are frightening. I refused the battery shipment. Unfortunately, the refusal caused a slight delay. Without going into detail, our company has since provided clarification on the approved method and types of shipment. In that regard, this particular lithium battery cargo turned out to be safe. Live and learn.
Since it was the copilot’s leg home to JFK, I offered him the opportunity to taxi once the takeoff performance numbers were verified and the checklists complete. (The 777 has a steering tiller on both the left side and the right side.) Because copilots are not often given the chance to steer on the ground, their inputs tend to border on … well … not smooth. But my copilot performed as if he’d taxied the airplane his whole career. As we rolled into position on the runway, I observed a “comm” annunciation from our Engine Instrument and Crew Alerting System (EICAS) screen. Although it was tempting, I didn’t click on my touch pad to view the message. The sterile period at takeoff wasn’t the time to review a nonessential alert.
We discovered later that the message had contained revised takeoff weights, information that should have been available before becoming airborne. That being said, the revised numbers were relatively insignificant to our performance calculations. Nonetheless, it was a technical violation. I suggested that we file our equivalent of a NASA safety report. A handful of weeks later, after reading a response through our company reporting system, I am certain the FAA will not be knocking on my door.
Other than a slight weather deviation and an annoyingly choppy ride, the rest of our flight home could only be classified as mundane, a goal I strive for on every flight.
I did have the opportunity to fly airplanes on this trip … but mostly I managed. And that’s OK. After 25 years in the left seat, it’s still part of my job description.
