Hey, I've got a GREAT Idea for the "checkerboard" system.
In JFK,lets put to 777's side by side(gate to gate), a LHR and the NRT, with 4 container loaders, and two jetveyors, all running at the same time !
The "1" guy on the ground(mabey the CC) can "RUN" back and forth, trying to BUDGE those "pesky" freight PALLETS off the Ramp dollies, Then stick a BROOM up his A$$, so he can sweep up FOD.
Checkerboard ??
CHECKERBOARD MY A$$ !!! :down: :down: :down:
"The Job You SAVE, May be Your OWN" !!!
"Work safely...VERY SAFELY" !!!
NH/BB's
NHBB, you and I usually agree on things, but evidently you don't know what you are talking about here. The whole point of the checkerboard plan is that you would NEVER have two a/c at adjoining gates being handled by the same crew. The reason it is called a checkerboard is because if you plot the gate schedules on a piece of paper it looks like a checkerboard.
0700-0735---0735-0810--0810-0845--
Gate 1---flt 2--------empty-------flt 4
Gate 2---empty--------flt 3-------empty
Gate 3---flt 5--------empty-------flt 7
Gate 4---empty--------flt 6-------empty
and so on and so forth. One crew would be assigned to gates 1 and 2 and another crew would work gates 3 and 4. One crew is responsible for 2 gates, but one of them is always empty. You don't have 10 crews sitting around for 2 hours then working their butts off because 15 flights all arrived at the same time--a la the "banks" of flights at hubs--and getting blamed because 6 of them didn't depart on time.
In the case of a flight arriving early, just enough of the crew breaks off to marshal the flight in while the rest finish the flight they are working on.
I can say that it is working extremely well at STL. Now, if someone with some influence could just get the LGA crews to fold the blankets and pick up the trash on the flights where they are supposed to be cleaning the cabin instead of just walking through and pretending that they are working...
And, don't any of you even start with me about the pay cuts and yada, yada, yada. Old news. That ship has sailed. The past is past. Get over it. The job is what it is, and it pays what it pays. If either of those two is not to your liking, go get a job that deserves you and your talents.
As of May 1st, I will be back to approximately what I was making in March, 2003. However, there are duty rigs and benefits that I will never regain.
If I don't like that, it's a free country which has outlawed both slavery and indentured servitude. I have a choice--in fact, I have 3 choices. I can go find another job; I can accept the situation
as it is, or I can be just as miserable as I care to be (or can stand). What I don't have a choice or a right to do is make everyone else miserable in the process. Whining is unattractive in children. It is insufferable in adults.
. And that some stations that were to checkerboard this year will delay it till next year 
