Delta Pilots/FAs brownbag 01 April

[Kip Powick]

Delta tightens vise on staff (and hungry fliers): Delta will cut the number of flight attendants aboard some flights, and will eliminate meals for flight crews in the airline's attempt to further cut costs, reports The Wall Street Journal citing an internal company memo.

The cuts will take effect Jan. 31, and will include trimming one attendant from the current staffing levels on transoceanic Boeing 767ER flights and on 268-passenger Boeing 777 jets flown by Delta to Japan. The Journal's take: "With fewer flight attendants, Delta passengers may wait longer for already skimpy food and beverage offerings in coach-class seats."

Meals for crew on all domestic flights will be dropped April 1, meaning pilots and flight attendants will now have to fend for themselves — just like most of their customers.

[Guest long keel]

Is Delta an ALPA airline?

Having good food on board for crew is essential. If you cross a border with food in your bag, you risk major fines. How could there flight safety department let this one slide? Try going 8 hours with no opportunity to eat and then deal with an emergency, slippery runway, huge crosswinds etc. with low blood sugar. Even everybody's favorite whipping post SG feeds there crews.

[AME]

If you cross a border with food in your bag, you risk major fines.

Meals for crew on all domestic flights will be dropped April 1

[handyman]

I am amazed the FAA will allow this. Sounds like the death spiral of another once great airline.

[Guest long keel]

AME,

Fair enough but packing food for a multi-day pairing is impossible. Many pairings leave for 3-5 days and include both domestic and transborder flights with no time to eat between flights. If Delta changes its schedule to all one day pairings; then no food on domestic wouldn't be a safety issue as crews would have access to shop and prepare food at home. I strongly doubt this will be the case.

Every airline in North America could cut all wages and benefits to zero, if they don't right size the capacity first and price accordingly there will still be no profits. My point is safety should always come first. Here it is clearly less of a priority.

Hell, in prison you get three meals a day! I think the pilots and inflight crews of Delta should get the same when they are away for more than a day on the job whether they are domestic or not.

[John S.]

There may be a way for Delta pilots to cope.

Every day a number of pilots make a point of not eating crew meals. Some because they are Vegan, others because they have allergies, still others because they do not wish to destroy a carefully trained pallet.

Perhaps we could help the Delta pilots. Maybe we should start a thread on the forum about eating on the fly.

[Airband]

....because they do not wish to destroy a carefully trained pallet.

true self loading freight at last?

[Fido]

There may be a way for Delta pilots to cope.

....

Hey John:

Maybe you need to go down to Delta and demonstrate how the Regional Pilot flies 6 or 7 legs a day with only peanuts onboard the airplane!!!!

You don't see too many anorexic pilots at Jazz.

[John S.]

Oops I meant to say PALATE

But your idea is even better!

[AME]

Fair enough but packing food for a multi-day pairing is impossible. Many pairings leave for 3-5 days and include both domestic and transborder flights with no time to eat between flights. If Delta changes its schedule to all one day pairings; then no food on domestic wouldn't be a safety issue as crews would have access to shop and prepare food at home. I strongly doubt this will be the case.

longkeel

I hear ya!

[Lakelad]

"Of more concern, Corry said, is a proposal to implement peer evaluations among flight attendants. Instead of meeting with a supervisor once a year to discuss performance, as is currently the process, flight attendants would be reviewed by two peers and a supervisor each month, Corry said."

Well, that oughta spice up the galley conversations on the long hauls.

Meow

[Guest gldd]

What all air crew should do is after 4 hours of being on duty should walk to the airport restaurant stand in the line up and have a meal which would take a minimum of 45 min to 1 hour then be ready for the next flight. If the airline reprimands anyone the U.S. equivalent of the Canada Labour Board and FAA should take over. I know how hard it is to be the first few to do so but what do you do? This type of thing cant go on.

[CanadaEH]

Delta tightens vise on staff (and hungry fliers): Delta will cut the number of flight attendants aboard some flights, and will eliminate meals for flight crews in the airline's attempt to further cut costs, reports The Wall Street Journal citing an internal company memo.

The cuts will take effect Jan. 31, and will include trimming one attendant from the current staffing levels on transoceanic Boeing 767ER flights and on 268-passenger Boeing 777 jets flown by Delta to Japan. The Journal's take: "With fewer flight attendants, Delta passengers may wait longer for already skimpy food and beverage offerings in coach-class seats."

Meals for crew on all domestic flights will be dropped April 1, meaning pilots and flight attendants will now have to fend for themselves — just like most of their customers.

While I am curiously reading all the cutbacks, concessions, and layoffs that are happening all across North America, I don't feel the same as many of the posters in this thread. How can anybody with 100% certainty say that trimming one FA off a transpacific/atlantic flight is a bad thing? Does anybody know how many FA's are staffed on these flights compared to other airlines?

So Delta FA's don't get a meal on domestic flights, how long is the longest domestic flight in the US - 6-7 hours? "Fend for themselves" - that's some good spin for something that certainly isn't the end of the world.

[Seeker]

So Delta FA's don't get a meal on domestic flights, how long is the longest domestic flight in the US - 6-7 hours? "Fend for themselves" - that's some good spin for something that certainly isn't the end of the world.

CanadaEh;

I agree with your comments regarding the FA crewing but the meal issue is something else altogether. I can tell you that on a multi-leg/multi-day pairing where you're going to get your food is a big issue. If you're doing early starts you need to pack a bunch of breakfast stuff, doing late night and you need to prepare for that. Now the company wants the crews to bring/or get their own food through the day. For someone that works in one place it's not a big deal - you bring a sandwich, put it in the fridge and at lunchtime you walk down to the lunchroom and eat it or you walk to the Tim's and buy something.

Now look at it from my perspective: I'm doing an early morning start from a hotel and I'm going to need lunch; option 1)bring Tuna and crackers, 2) buy a sandwich the day before - keep it in my room with no fridge over night, carry it to the crew van, carry it through security, carry it through the ops room, carry it onboard and then kick it around on the floor of the flightdeck til lunch time, 3)wait until I get to some other airport and then stand in line for 15 minutes buy something for lunch, wolf it down because I need to prepare for the flight out.

A significant part of this is that the company expects you to eat during the flight. Proper meal breaks for the crew are not allowed for in the scheduled station stops (how long are Westjet station turns, long enough for the entire crew to leave the aircraft and go for lunch?). Airline execs realized long ago that it's cheaper and more efficient to provide crew meals than to have the aircraft sit while they go eat.

I don't always eat the crew meal because sometimes there is time to go buy something and sometimes I do bring things to eat but other times I do rely on the fact that there will be a crew meal. In fact, even those that try to avoid the crew meal will eat it occassionally when the flight is delayed or when the food from home is forgotten so to adopt a policy of never having crew meals will likely result in delays and bad attitude at a cost exceding the cost of the meals in the first place.

seeker

[handyman]

So Delta FA's don't get a meal on domestic flights, how long is the longest domestic flight in the US - 6-7 hours? "Fend for themselves" - that's some good spin for something that certainly isn't the end of the world.

First of all, it's not the flight time but the duty day that is relevant to the requirement of food. I believe it is a serious Flight Safety concern for all crew members to be properly nourished to ensure the ability to conduct their duties accurately and safely.

It goes without saying for the pilots to be able to focus on their flying and not their stomachs. Without proper nourishments their handling skills and judgment diminishes. This is a fact! The crew members in the back are our safety/passenger rescue team. Are you comfortable knowing that their judgment will be hampered due to low-blood sugar? Sure, everything is fine until something serious happens and then people cry "how did this happen and who let this happen?”

Crews flying regional flights have it as hard if not harder than long haul crews. With multiple hops and little time to relax between flights, many times the only option is a donut/burger/any other food high in unsaturated fats. This is not good!

Below is an extract from an Air Force article…

Proper Diet

To address the fatigue issues associated with diet, our Flight Safety office invited Dr. Barry Sears, a leading research scientist in biotechnology, to speak at a recent quarterly safety meeting about the correlation between diet, nutrition, and fatigue. Although a good diet may only represent 20 percent of an array of issues being addressed in the war on fatigue, it is expected to provide 80 percent of the solution to a winning strategy.

He compared the body to an engine. If the body is given the right protein-to-carbohydrate-to-fat ratio, then its performance is optimized like an engine operating with the right fuel-to-air ratio. He recommends a diet that consists mostly of carbohydrates in the form of fruits and vegetables. The next most important component is meat and fish followed by unsaturated fats. Breads, grains, pastas, processed foods, and starchy foods like potatoes should he minimized. Most of the people who follow his advice notice a difference in energy levels, alertness, and a reduction in nightly sleep requirements. These benefits are vital to the B-2 community in the battle against fatigue and valuable to operators of other airborne platforms.

The traditional box lunch is typically full of multiple servings of food with little nutritional value. The food in a standard box lunch is not rated to last longer than 4 hours. According to leading experts in the field of diet and nutrition, the large, unbalanced levels of complex carbohydrates can cause insulin levels in the blood to spike, inducing the infamous food coma. This has been verified by pilots who have experienced these food comas first hand. Not only does the food induce drowsiness, it is packaged in big boxes that waste a lot of space and leave unmanageable amounts of waste in the cockpit after 40 hours. A new concept in box lunches is being aggressively pursued.

Dr. Harris Lieberman of Natick Labs is working to design an in-flight meal that meets aviators' needs. This is the same organization that designed the Army and Marine Corp's Meals Ready to Eat (MRE) to support the demanding activities of a foot soldier in the infantry. Dr. Lieberman is considering the use of NASA's vacuum-sealed, antibacterial food technology coupled with a targeted 9 grams of carbohydrates-to-7 grams of protein-to-3 grams of fat ratio for all meals. This means one package contains meals prepared and sealed for an entire day, which will save space and time while reducing waste loads.

Whiteman's exercise physiologist, along with the wing's life support officer, is working to procure an in-flight microwave to facilitate food preparation. The microwave is an off-the-shelf product already certified by the Federal Aviation Administration and is currently used on RC-135 and some C-130 military aircraft. Cooking food is important to both aviators and flight surgeons because it helps to eliminate bacteria and reduce the opportunity for food-born illness. This is important because food-related illness can have a devastating effect on crews flying long-duration missions.

If you would like to read the entire article it is at...

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_..._10/ai_84151038

Cheers

[handyman]

One more quick story to bring home the point!

HYPOGLYCEMIC ATTACK CAUSES CRASH

[Canadian] Aviation Safety Letter 5/90

Approximately 45 minutes into a cross country flight, while flying at 4,000 feet above ground level, the pilot felt dizzy and then lost consciousness. He awoke as the aircraft was descending in an unusual attitude toward trees. The pilot was unable to recover from the unusual attitude, and the aircraft flew inverted into the trees. He survived and made his way back to civilization, and was admitted to hospital for tests.

Routine testing showed nothing amiss, but a medical specialist digging into the pilot's history learned that he was a regular consumer of alcohol. His hypothesis was that the pilot suffered a hypoglycemic attack due to fatty-liver disease. The pilot had only toast and coffee in the 18 hours prior to the accident, and a drink of grape juice just before departure. The high sugar content of the grape juice probably triggered the hypoglycemic reaction due to the pilot's liver condition.

Your liver may be in perfect condition, but you can still have hypoglycemic symptoms by not eating adequately prior to going flying, or eating foods that give quick energy (eg chocolate bars) but later lead to feelings of light- headedness, stomach upset and disorientation.

Remember to eat a substantial meal, high in protein, that provides long-term energy - it will make your flying more comfortable.

[Guest long keel]

Thanks for the articles CP Dude. Safety is obviously less of a priority then funding seat sales now. Sad indeed.

Again, if Delta can only make a profit domestically by starving their staff, I question the intelligence of the extent of the fare decreases just posted. If a crews boarded meal can make or break the profit, you have priced yourself way too low.

lk

[CanadaEH]

Seeker:

I don't always eat the crew meal because sometimes there is time to go buy something and sometimes I do bring things to eat but other times I do rely on the fact that there will be a crew meal. In fact, even those that try to avoid the crew meal will eat it occassionally when the flight is delayed or when the food from home is forgotten so to adopt a policy of never having crew meals will likely result in delays and bad attitude at a cost exceding the cost of the meals in the first place.

How many of your thousands of co-workers are in the same boat as you (in not eating those meals every flight)? If every week, 2400 meals went untouched at a cost of $4 thats $9600/week, $38400/month, $460800/year. It all adds up. My example could be way off but it could also be conservative, please take it for what it is - an example.

Our (WJ) crews are not provided a meal unless it is a charter flight. On flights over 2h25min, we have buy-onboard food available to our customers. I think the highest priced utem is a chicken sandwich at $5. Our crews are able to purchase any item on our "menu" at a discounted rate. A WJ'er will have to confirm what that rate is.

The understanding was/is there from our crews that they cannot be provied free meals, but a compromise was made that they can purchase them at a discounted rate. I personally don't see any harm in that, but then again I'm not a member of inflight.

cpdude:

The pilot had only toast and coffee in the 18 hours prior to the accident, and a drink of grape juice just before departure. The high sugar content of the grape juice probably triggered the hypoglycemic reaction due to the pilot's liver condition.

So the pilot chose to have only toast and coffee 18 hours prior to flying? A glass of grape juice prior to leaving? I'm sorry, but this pilot was negligent in not being responsible for his person and the lives of the people he could have hyphothetically been flying. Alcoholic or not.

I'm not here to discuss how one should go through a day eating, but I find it completely irresponsible that someone can neglect his/her body to a point where he/she blacks out during a flight because of malnutrition.

You go on to say that.. "I believe it is a serious Flight Safety concern for all crew members to be properly nourished to ensure the ability to conduct their duties accurately and safely".. - what do you have to say about the pilot in the above quoted article?

It goes without saying for the pilots to be able to focus on their flying and not their stomachs.

It also goes without saying that people need to take care of themselves. For anybody to properly do their jobs they need to be healthy enough to do so. Listen, I'm not challenging your right to an opinion because your opinion is valid in relation to safety.

Why doesn't Delta come up with a cookbook, free for employees (online, maybe?) with recipes for "healthy eating"? Is Delta providing the necessary storage space for crews to keep their home-made meals? I don't think Delta is cutting meals and not compromising in some way or another, health and safety will not be overlooked. Period.

[handyman]

You go on to say that.. "I believe it is a serious Flight Safety concern for all crew members to be properly nourished to ensure the ability to conduct their duties accurately and safely".. - what do you have to say about the pilot in the above quoted article?

If proper food was available and he elected to go without...your correct. But if the reason a crew member goes without is because proper nourishment was not available...then shame on the airline!

[Seeker]

I don't think Delta is cutting meals and not compromising in some way or another, health and safety will not be overlooked. Period.

Really? What makes you so sure of this? It doesn't seem to me that any compromise is being made by the company.

[Fido]

Time to ask again, How do Jazz pilots ever survive??? .

[Seeker]

Because we get a crew meal anythime we have to work more than four hours without a break of at least 1 hour.

[CanadaEH]

Really? What makes you so sure of this? It doesn't seem to me that any compromise is being made by the company.

I'm not sure of anything, I could be completely wrong.

If proper food was available and he elected to go without...your correct. But if the reason a crew member goes without is because proper nourishment was not available...then shame on the airline! 

Oh please. The airline is not to blame for this pilots choice of not eating well enough.