Mda Groundschool Shutdown By Faa

OldpropGuy

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Aug 20, 2002
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It's reported on the latest ALG Code-A-Phone message that the FAA shut down the MDA pilot groundschool, last week, after only two days. Something about not being satisfied with the program, even though it has been in devlopement since last year.

Can anyone comment on this?
 
Sounds fishy to me. I don't think they could have even started a ground school without the curriculum being approved by the FAA.

If there were technical difficulties, e.g. computers malfunctioning in a computer-based training system, it would only push the schedule back.
 
It has been shut down, and all training has ceased for now. The intructors were reading directly from the AFM, and some of the training sections were entirely deficient.

Somebody's head needs to roll for this.

What an embarrassment!
 
From what I hear, here in DC, there just isn't any staff at CCY. While romance can sustain interest in the F/A and pilot careers at sub-standard wages; apparently, it can't do so for desk jobs at a airline hq. I know of a couple folks who have left. And positions that have not been backfilled in sales/marketing or related area.
 
And to think this is by the same leadership that wants to vendor out heavy maintenance of the Airbus.
 

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Did I mention that this management team lacks the operational acumen of a McDonald's franchise?

Getting your groundschool whacked by the FAA. That's right up there with the PHL baggage belt, scheduling in july/august/september, and our favorite Harvard grad's plan to hub 100+ more RJs thru PHL (getting the bird from PIT, and thinking that CMU has a better MBA program, anyway....).

Anybody else seen that Fedex commercial where the guy has to ship some stuff and says "I have an MBA." and the woman says "Oh, I'll have to show you how to do it?" Maybe
 
Anybody else seen that Fedex commercial where the guy has to ship some stuff and says "I have an MBA." and the woman says "Oh, I'll have to show you how to do it?"



I think that just about says it all!!!!! That's why they get the big bucks, huh?

:D :D :D :D :D
 

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MBAs in and of themselves aren't bad. Every company needs people who understand the finer details of balance sheets, financing, etc. Just in my experience many forget about the non-quantifiable aspects of running a business (e.g., morale) and how these aspects indirectly affect what ultimately appears on the balance sheet. I'm in the process of taking the GMAT, applying to business school, etc., so I've become more familiar with exactly what they learn.
 
USFlyer said:
MBAs in and of themselves aren't bad. Every company needs people who understand the finer details of balance sheets, financing, etc. Just in my experience many forget about the non-quantifiable aspects of running a business (e.g., morale) and how these aspects indirectly affect what ultimately appears on the balance sheet. I'm in the process of taking the GMAT, applying to business school, etc., so I've become more familiar with exactly what they learn.
I agree that you can't lump all MBA's together to be vilified. But our last CEO, Stephen Wolf, had his degree in sociology. And he was far from being a people person, although the nauseating columns he wrote for the USAirways in-flight magazine were a desperate attempt to convince everybody otherwise.
 
USFlyer said:
MBAs in and of themselves aren't bad. Every company needs people who understand the finer details of balance sheets, financing, etc. Just in my experience many forget about the non-quantifiable aspects of running a business (e.g., morale) and how these aspects indirectly affect what ultimately appears on the balance sheet. I'm in the process of taking the GMAT, applying to business school, etc., so I've become more familiar with exactly what they learn.
There is a school of thought that Harvard (and particularly MBAs from) is directly responsible for the downfall of the corporate excellence in the United States. I believe it.

An MBA is all fun and good, but without operational excellent, it means zero. Dave (and to a very real extent, most of the executive suite in CCY) is a perfect example of this. A great deal of having a profitable business is execution, operation, and process design. Dotting your "i"s and crossing the "t"s. Despite all their differences, you will find that operationally (particularly from a process and best practice standpoint) there is LUV and then everyone else in the airline industry, and it is reflected in the balance sheet.

I give you the nightmare that AOG lives daily. The situation with spares and the maintenance farmout. The PHL baggage belt. The train wreck that is the US res (sabre) and backoffice systems.

The greatest strategic plan on the planet means nothing if it cannot be executed, or was written without any consideration about how/if it can be executed with any degree of success. You are seeing such a train wreck at US right now.

An accountant can cook the books, and a finance geek can get finance. I maintain my stance the the current crop in the US executive suite has to learn how to operate a toaster (airline) before cooking up any more grand plans for said airline.
 
Cx4, you are absolutely right.

20 years ago, a CEO with a Ha'vad MBA said essentially the same as you in a Playboy article (that's right, the articles! :D ). He was particularly incensed about a class called Administrative Practicalities, which taught the ends justified the means.

They also had the notion a manager was a manager was a manager, and that you could take the manager out of a potato chip factory, drop him into an airline, and he, with his MBA, would do just as well.

I'm certainly not anti-intellectual, but I do believe you can be educated beyond your capacities. We have several cases in point!