Tel Aviv, Sheraton Hotel, 1997-10-31 01:00 local (Z+3)
Hello, All,
Tel Aviv is much more relaxed than it was when I was here last month. Guests are now allowed to use the hotel's main front door rather than being forced through the side door where metal detectors were set up last time.
Some interesting things happened at Tower during the nearly four weeks that I was at home. They illustrate the somewhat hostile environment I work in.
First off is that a captain and first officer were given forty-five days off without pay for making a navigational error while in the North Atlantic Track System. The FAA will undoubtedly take some certificate action as well. They were given a reroute while in flight, screwed it up, and wound up sixty miles off course and on an adjacent track. It was clearly their fault. Had they followed established procedures, it wouldn't have happened.
Another captain and a flight engineer were given two weeks off without pay. They screwed up a writeup on a maintenance problem and the FAA caught it. Essentially they tried to carry a item for an additional leg. It's something that's done all the time, but when you do it, you have to be very careful how you write up the problem. They apparently weren't, and it was obvious that the problem had really occurred on a previous leg, and they continued operating the airplane with the problem. Again, certificate action is pending.
Another flight engineer was fired. In flight the oil pressure on one of the engines dropped down in the yellow range on the gauge. When that happens, there is no indication on the pilots' panels—that indication appears when it drops into the red range. Anyway, you're allowed to operate in the yellow range for thirty minutes and then you have to shut the engine down. He operated it that way until the completion of the flight, which was three hours. I haven't heard what they're doing to the captain or the first officer.
All of these actions are essentially due to the fact that the FAA is closely scrutinizing everything Tower does. The company is definitely on their hit list, and having to contend with that is really slowing things down. Saturday evening I jumpseated down to SFO to take Tower's 21:00 flight to JFK to work. The flight was running at least five hours late, so I walked over to AA and took their 22:00 flight. I grabbed a quick bit restaurant next to the Tower ticket counter, and a waiter told me the previous days flight had run eight hours late. One wonders how Tower can stay in business.
The snitch-of-the-year award goes to a Tower first officer who is a fundamentalist Christian. He turned in three Tower captains for drinking within twelve hours of a flight. Personally, I think he was out of line. FAA regs require eight hours. The twelve hours is a company requirement. I've flown with all three of the captains. They are heavy drinkers, but I have never seen any of the three show up for a flight in an impaired stated. You have to watch those fundamentalists.
Not all of Tower's problems are the airline's fault. During my time off, some woman was running late for the JFK to Tel Aviv flight, so, hoping to delay the flight until she could get there, she called in an anonymous report that a kidnapped child was aboard the airplane. It was a stupid stunt. That kind of report at JFK brings an FBI team to the scene within minutes. The gal was caught, but the flight was delayed for hours. There's a comical aspect to it. Morris Nachtomi, Tower's CEO and owner of 76% of the stock, came on the scene and got mad at the FBI for delaying the flight longer than necessary. Apparently he came on the airplane and was rather irate. The FBI curtly informed him that as long as their investigation was in progress, the airplane was under their jurisdiction. When he protested, they physically removed him from the aircraft.
The JFK-Tel Aviv route is Tower's bread and butter, and Nachtomi does everything he can to make sure it runs on time. When it doesn't, he gets a lot of guff from the rabbis he pays to urge their parishioners (probably not the right word in the world of Judaism) to use Tower. About a week ago, the Tel Aviv flight was eight hours or so late due to mechanical problems. Nachtomi gave each of the passengers a free, round-trip ticket to Tel Aviv to quiet them down.
“The Jewish equivalent is 'member of a (particular) congregation.'”http://qa.answers.com/Q/Are_Jewish_people_called_parishioners
Finally, under the heading of look-before-you-leap, Nachtomi signed a long-term lease for two additional 747s. Both had originally been delivered to SAS (Scandinavian Airline Systems) and then later sold to Phillippine Airways. Since they had never been with a U.S. carrier, he should have enquired as to whether the aircraft were certified to U.S. standards. He didn't and they weren't. It's going to take three months and a lot of money to get them certified. Incredible.
Well, time to try and go to sleep. My body is in that state where, after being awake for three to four hours it wants to sleep for three to four hours—but no more. I'm going to try to time the sleeping so that I sleep just before leaving for some place In Hungary that I've never heard of early Saturday morning. Then it's on to Frankfurt and then JFK—at least that's the plan of the moment.
Everybody take care...Terry