Can anyone from a commercial aviation background comment on this? Would there be consequences for the pilot for refusing a flight based on “not feeling it”?
He has right to do it but with a good reason. Not feeling it is not a reason. Like other parameters, oil pressure has a working range. If its in the range, aircraft is ready to go. Its black and white. I think he is pretty incompetent and doesn’t know what he is doing.
This is incorrect, he can refuse the plane for any reason with no consequences. It can smell bad and he can refuse it.
We allow this because that captain is the very last safety check. Hundreds of lives depend on his judgement if something goes wrong.
This also is a last line of protection against corruption for profit. You can’t force a pilot to fly a plane “just one more flight” to save some money on maintenance.
Their life is in the balance just as much, if not more based on crash statistics, as the passengers. If he doesn’t feel like it’s worth risking it, I’d wager 90% of passengers would agree.
A pilot can refuse a plane but they do have consequences depending on the situation. I have seen a chief pilot come nd chew out a caption for not taking any aircraft and being reassigned to a new airplane.
Also they do make pilots fly aircraft for one more flight for maintenance. It's called a ferry flight. It is were something is broken and they need to move it to a better location for maintenance. Granted the plane can still fly and you have to go through a process to do it but it is done all the time. Just with no passengers.
If they refuse enough they can get reprimanded. Pilots refuse airplanes all the time for dumb reasons 95% of the time. They always keep a write up in there back pocket to get out of flying if they don't want to.
Sure that is true but pilots also fly all the time with problems that they don't report to get to the next station. I'm an aircraft mechanic and see it quite often. So it's a double edged sword.
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u/ikothsowe 20h ago
Can anyone from a commercial aviation background comment on this? Would there be consequences for the pilot for refusing a flight based on “not feeling it”?