Chapter 132 I have always been lucky!
"Teacher, it's useless for you to go." Xu Cang wanted to stop Li Hongming. Just looking at Li Hongming's face, he was really afraid that Li Hongming would go down and clash with the aviation oil people.
Wu Taiming quickly pushed Xu Cang: "Catch up, don't let anything happen."
At this time, someone had to be watching the cockpit, so Xu Cang was the only one who could follow.
Xu Cang naturally knew the seriousness of the matter. He grabbed the reflective vest and quickly chased after him.
After coming down to the apron, Xu Cang looked at the fuel truck and did not find Li Hongming or the refueling technician. At this moment, there were two plainclothes crew members standing on the apron. These people were on vacation and returned to their hometown in Tianning.
Since these people did not have checked luggage, the company thoughtfully arranged an infield vehicle for them so that they did not have to walk through the terminal and could be taken directly outside.
Xu Cang looked around but couldn't find any trace of Li Hongming. He was so anxious that he almost broke out in a sweat. At this time, one of the girls from the flight crew who was waiting for the car shouted to Xu Cang, "Brother, are you looking for the captain?"
"Yeah, did you see that?"
The man pointed to the entrance of the airport cafeteria across the bridge and said, "That way."
Xu Cang looked in the direction for a moment and found the refueling technician and Li Hongming who had already entered the aisle. After thanking the girl from the refueling crew, Xu Cang walked away quickly. As soon as he entered the aisle, he heard Li Hongming said impatiently: "Our company has called just now and said that the arrears will be settled as soon as possible."
"Captain, there's really nothing I can do about it. I'm just following orders. Please don't make things difficult for me." The refueling master was quite uncomfortable with Li Hongming's aggressive attitude, but he didn't dare to refute Li Hongming too fiercely. If the crew held a grudge against him and reported him on the on-site command frequency, wouldn't he be in big trouble?
After Xu Cang came in, he was just about to persuade Li Hongming that it was really unfair to put all the pressure on a gas station attendant who had no say in the matter.
However, Li Hongming said directly: "Okay, I won't make it difficult for you. I checked on the plane and found that there are still 12,000 pounds of fuel left, which means we need to add almost 10,000 pounds. How much is 10,000 pounds of No. 3 fuel?"
"Ah?" The refueling engineer was a little confused about what Li Hongming meant: "Captain, why are you asking this?"
Li Hongming was very impatient: "I buy oil, I pay on the spot, you give me 10,000 pounds of No. 3 fuel, this should be okay, right?"
"Captain, do you mean to buy fuel separately?" The gas station attendant could hardly believe his ears. It was the first time he saw such an operation. He turned his head in a daze and looked at Xu Cang who came in.
Xu Cang immediately stopped him and said, "Teacher, this 10,000 pounds of fuel will cost tens of thousands. How can a flight operator lose money?"
At that time, pilots' salaries had not yet skyrocketed. Even for Li Hongming's instructor level, this was almost a month's salary for him.
"What do you know? If this plane can't take off, the company will have to pay a lot more money later. Don't worry about your personal gains and losses, but consider the overall interests of the company."
Xu Cang was stunned, and immediately felt that Li Hongming was too conscious, and could actually think about . Many people can actually understand this truth, but in reality, if employees take the initiative to consider the company, sometimes they will not only not be rewarded, but the company will also take it for granted, and even under extreme conditions, their own interests will be damaged.
Therefore, driven by the instinct to seek profit and avoid harm, many people still tend to consider their own interests first.
To be honest, Li Hongming's move really shocked Xu Cang. However, Li Hongming was too lazy to explain the reason to Xu Cang, and immediately continued to say to the refueling master: "The debt owed by our company to you has nothing to do with me . I only care about my plane. I will buy 10,000 pounds of aviation fuel in my personal name. This should be fine, right? I can pay for it now."
As he spoke, Li Hongming directly took out a bank card: "As long as you agree, you can swipe the card on the spot."
Xu Cang and the refueling master looked at each other in bewilderment. After a long while, the refueling master wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, "Captain, to be honest with you, this is the first time I've seen this. We all do business with airlines, and I don't know whether they sell to individuals separately. If you don't mind, I'll report it to my superiors."
Many large civil aviation companies only do large-scale business, so how can there be any retail business? Let alone the gas station master, Xu Cang has never seen such a fierce operation. It is normal for the gas station master to ask for instructions.
"It's okay, just go and report. We don't have much time, so it's better to be quick." Li Hongming nodded.
The gas station driver did not communicate via mobile phone, but rather relied on the intercom on the gas truck, so Xu Cang and Li Hongming followed the driver back to the gas truck.
The refueling master told his team leader about the situation, but his boss was also confused and told him to ask for instructions further and asked him to wait a moment.
When the gas station master was talking on the phone, Xu Cang and the others were standing nearby, so they naturally saw everything the gas station master was asking for. At this time, Li Hongming was not in a hurry. He could understand that some procedures had to be followed.
So the three of them hung around the oil truck, chatting casually while waiting for a reply from above.
"Captain, your business is so good, how come you owe so much money and are in such trouble now?"
Li Hongming was originally going to explain it casually, but he soon discovered the problem and frowned and asked, "How do you know that our business is good?"
The gas station attendant couldn't see the occupancy rate, so how could he be so confident that their business was good? Xu Cang also noticed something strange and looked at the gas station attendant with some curiosity to see how he would answer.
Little did he know that the gas station attendant pointed to the jet bridge and said, "The flight from here to Qizhou is very popular. Passengers who can't buy tickets often gather at the check-in counter. This is nothing new. Anyone in the airport will know it."
"Is there such a thing?" Xu Cang was quite surprised. The Tianning-Qizhou route didn't seem like a popular route. How come it was so hard to get a ticket?
However, Xu Cang was just surprised, and had no other emotions. However, Li Hongming was different. He left Xu Cang and ran towards the ladder on the side of the corridor bridge.
"No, what's going on?" Xu Cang really couldn't figure out why Li Hongming was so impulsive. He said something to the gas station attendant and then chased after him.
As soon as Xu Cang stepped onto the covered bridge, he heard Li Hongming's roar: "Where are the ground service personnel?"
Li Hongming was standing at the cabin door. The ground service officer walked down the jet bridge blankly and asked in confusion, "Captain, what's wrong? Do you want to pick up passengers?"
"No, no, no, wait a minute." Li Hongming asked the ground service with a little excitement: "Let me ask you, is it common for people to be unable to buy tickets on the Tianning-Qizhou route?"
"Yes!" The ground service officer scratched her head. Although she didn't quite understand why the captain would ask such a question, she still confirmed, "There are a lot of people flying from our side to Qizhou. There are probably many people who can't buy tickets outside. Just take your return trip as an example. It's fully booked, and a lot of people are overbooked. We have to kick people off later."
Now that the gas station attendant and the ground service said so, it seemed to be true. Li Hongming's eyes turned and he asked in confusion, "Why are there so many people flying to Qizhou this day?"
"How should I know? I don't understand. This route is full every day, but you're the only one flying each day. You don't add more flights, and other companies don't fly." The ground service smiled and said, "I've dealt with overbooking issues on this route many times. I know it very well."
"You're right, you're right." Li Hongming gritted his teeth and threw the card to Xu Cang. He pointed at Xu Cang and said, "Go watch over there at the oil truck. Once they agree, tell them to start refueling. If you want to pay by card, just go ahead and swipe it."
Xu Cang quickly returned the card to Li Hongming: "Teacher, I told the master that he would come up and tell me when he has any news. Teacher, what are you going to do?"
"What else can we do? Make money!" Li Hongming took the card that Xu Cang stuffed back to him. Without speaking to Xu Cang again, he made a direct call to the person on duty, No. 1.
Perhaps the duty officer No. 1 had saved Li Hongming's mobile phone number. As soon as the call was connected, the duty officer No. 1 quickly said, "Instructor Li, I'm trying to communicate as quickly as possible. The refueling issue will be settled soon."
"You are fooling around. After going through all the procedures, the opportunity has been lost. I will pay for the gas this time. You don't have to worry about it."
The first on duty said anxiously, "How can this be possible, instructor, you can't pay, how can I ask you to pay out of your own pocket?"
"Now is the time to be fussy. Once you have completed the process of settling the outstanding debt, there will be no flying afterwards. This matter is settled." Li Hongming said firmly: "Besides, I am not calling you because of this. I just heard from the airport staff that it is difficult to get a ticket for the Tianning-Qizhou route. How did the marketing department do the route analysis? How many money-making opportunities have they wasted?"
"What? It's so hard to get a ticket for the Tianning-Qizhou route. How could this be?" To be honest, even the duty officer didn't expect this route to be so popular. "Then, instructor, what do you mean?"
Li Hongming snorted, "How can we, Shandong Airlines, not make money?"
"Instructor, do you mean to add a flight temporarily?" The man on duty No. 1 was also very smart. He thought for a moment and said, "But, our company doesn't have any extra planes today. Instructor, you know that our company's planes are all fully booked and we can't spare any more."
Xu Cang was standing next to Li Hongming, and even though Li Hongming didn't turn on the speakerphone, Xu Cang could still vaguely hear the voice on the phone. However, even if he didn't hear it, he could probably guess that Li Hongming wanted to add a flight at the last minute.
Theoretically, this temporary overtime operation is feasible. However, given Shandong Airlines' almost non-existent extra capacity, it is simply impossible.
However, Li Hongming said coldly: "The reason why Shandong Airlines can develop so fast is because of its hard work. This is difficult, I don't know, but if we give up in the face of difficulties, how can Shandong Airlines develop?"
After these words were spoken, the other end of the phone fell into a long silence. Finally, the person on duty No. 1 gritted his teeth and said, "Teacher, don't hang up. Wait a moment."
While Li Hongming was waiting, the gas station attendant came up to the corridor bridge with a POS machine that he got from somewhere and a receipt in his hand.
After he came up, he identified Li Hongming's position and said, "Captain, the higher-ups have agreed. However, before refueling, you have to pay first. There are also some forms for you to sign, and you should keep the receipt."
"Yes." Li Hongming threw the phone to Xu Cang directly to free up his hands, and then told Xu Cang: "Turn on speakerphone."
Xu Cang took the phone and pressed the speakerphone, while Li Hongming started to pay and sign the bill.
After a few minutes, a voice finally came from the silent phone: "Instructor, I found out that our plane 5123 will fly to Cangjiang later, and the stopover time in Cangjiang is two hours. The stopover time after that is also scheduled for one hour. I will notify the subsequent crews to shorten it to the standard of 40 minutes, and they should be able to catch up. I will ask the operation control to change the plan and insert a round trip to Tianning directly before the Cangjiang plan. All subsequent flights will send delay reports, and the last flight will be less than an hour late, which is enough time for the maintenance to fly back."
Xu Cang was stunned by what he heard. He postponed the front of the subsequent flights and shortened the stopover time, thus freeing up overtime space for Tianning-Qizhou. It can only be said that the operation of the No. 1 on duty was really too aggressive.
While fiddling with the documents, Li Hongming shouted to the phone held by Xu Cang: "Let's do it! Let the follow-up crew fly faster in the sky, don't dawdle in the sky, maybe we can catch it in the end."
However, this was not the end. The duty officer raised another question: "Instructor, the plane issue has been resolved for now. But I asked the dispatcher, and they said we don't have anyone. The backups were all used up this morning, and we checked the ones that were not flying, but the times didn't match. It's because they didn't have enough rest time."
"Our company has so many flights, and everyone is flying on time. Who can help catch the flight?" Li Hongming thought for a moment: "What if we go back and fly another round trip to Tianning? Will there be enough time?"
"Instructor, I just asked the dispatcher to calculate the time. If you fly like this, it will be very easy for you to exceed the air time. It's too dangerous."
If the crew exceeded the time limit due to some force majeure or unexpected circumstances, such as when the takeoff was calculated to be within the time limit, but due to a thunderstorm during the flight, the landing time was exceeded, this is within the scope of explanation.
However, it was calculated before takeoff that the crew was very likely to exceed the time limit, but they were still allowed to take off. In the end, they really exceeded the time limit. This was a case of knowingly violating the regulations and failing to strictly control the risk of time limit. The authorities will make trouble for them.
Although the Tianning-Qizhou section only takes more than an hour, it takes a lot of time to add a round trip. Moreover, the most terrible thing is that unlike Xu Cang, Li Hongming and Wu Taiming had already flown a section before taking this flight, so the air time margin was very small.
The company couldn't find anyone who could cooperate with the flight arrest, and Li Hongming and his team couldn't fly, which was quite embarrassing. However, Li Hongming didn't give up: "A crew that is simply resting will definitely not work. If you want to find someone, look for those who are on a long vacation, such as annual leave. Their rest period should be fine. By the way, didn't Zhang Heng go back to his hometown during his annual leave? His hometown is in Tianning. Let him join in. The dual-captain operation can extend the air time limit."
"Isn't this a bad idea, instructor?" The No. 1 on duty was a little worried. He felt a little embarrassed to force someone who was on annual leave to come to work.
As a result, Li Hongming said directly: "Don't worry about this. I will call Zhang Heng later. Can you handle the temporary flight application?"
"We can do it!" The number one on duty said confidently, "The bureau's building is just across the street. If they don't agree, I'll just go to their office and stay there. Don't worry, instructor! I'll definitely get this done."
"Okay!" Li Hongming also paid the money and prepared the receipt: "I'll refuel right away, you go and make the arrangements, I'll call Zhang Heng."
"Okay!" The number one on duty said immediately: "Teacher, I'll wait for your good news."
After saying that, the person on duty No. 1 hung up the phone.
Li Hongming asked the refueling technician to go ahead and refuel, but he did not follow him. Instead, he directly called the captain Zhang Heng mentioned earlier. It was not known whether Li Hongming did it on purpose, as he still kept the hands-free mode.
Soon the call was connected, and a young man's voice came from the other end: "Teacher, what's the matter?"
"Xiao Zhang, the company has a flight and can't find anyone. You are in Tianning, right? Can you come to Tianning Airport?"
"Sure!" Zhang Heng said without hesitation: "My documents are all in the car, but my clothes are at home. If I go home to get the clothes, it will take a lot of time."
Li Hongming: "How long will it take you to get to the airport?"
“It takes at most two hours to drive.”
"Then don't worry about the clothes, just check the documents. If you get caught by the bureau, I'll pay for you." Li Hongming said proudly, "Tell the dispatcher to add you to the schedule now. When you're almost at the airport, call Tianning's airport agent and ask him to send the mission letter to the security checkpoint."
Zhang Heng immediately said, "Teacher, I know all this!"
"Okay, then you can do whatever you want. See you later." Li Hongming hung up the phone and suddenly remembered something. He looked across the cabin door and shouted to the chief steward Li Feifei in the front cabin workroom: "Chief steward, if Tian Ning is added later, will you exceed the time limit?"
Li Hongming remembered that this crew had already flown two sections before. If two more sections were added later, together with the original Tianning-Qizhou, it would be six sections.
Generally speaking, the rest regulations for cabin crew are more relaxed than those for flight crew. But no matter how relaxed they are, they can't stand such pretense! Moreover, Li Hongming also knew that Shandong Airlines' flight attendants were not well-off, so it might be difficult to find people.
Just now, when he was talking to the duty officer one, he was only concerned about the plane and the flight crew, and completely forgot about the cabin crew.
Li Feifei calculated in her mind and shook her head: "No, we must add more people, otherwise we will definitely exceed the time limit."
The most common way for a crew to extend their duty period is to add more people. The duty period of the entire crew will usually increase as the number of people increases, but of course this is not unlimited.
"Is it easy to find someone?" Li Hongming asked.
Li Feifei was silent for a moment and did not answer. She hurried to the side door of the jet bridge, looked down and found that the crew was still waiting for the car on the apron, so she shouted down: "Wang Qian, come up."
The girl who had just pointed out Li Hongming's location to Xu Cang heard Li Feifei's voice and immediately ran up: "What's wrong, sister?"
"The company has to work overtime, and we don't have enough manpower to take care of it. Can you cooperate and fly two more sections?" Li Feifei said, "I will explain the situation to the team later and ask them to communicate with the HR department to compensate you for the vacation time."
However, Wang Qian didn't care at all and waved her hands: "I don't care about this. It's just that sister, when is the extra flight? I have to go back to the company's attendance building to change clothes!"
The pilot is hiding in the cockpit anyway, so the passengers can't see what he is wearing. The flight attendants can't just wear casual clothes to provide service, how can that be decent?
"You will come back to Qizhou with us later. We will change planes, and you will follow the infield car back to the company to change clothes, and then go directly to the airport. You don't have to worry about anything on the plane, just get back to the plane before takeoff. Can you do it?" Li Hongming asked.
Wang Qian nodded heavily: "Captain, we can definitely catch up!"
"Okay!" Li Hongming made the decision right away and said to Li Feifei, "Talk to the cabin department. Ask them to prepare the food and other things in advance, so that we don't have to wait for some messy things. We are in a hurry this time, so we have to do everything as soon as possible. Got it?"
Li Feifei nodded: "Got it!"
Xu Cang watched from the side from the beginning to the end. This was really the first time he had seen such a company. After a simple idea came up, from the plane, the flight crew, to the cabin crew, the constant adjustment, and finally the temporary flight application, a flight was put together just to make money.
Everyone in Shandong Airlines, from leaders to employees, from pilots to cabin crew, is like a wolves with bloodshot eyes, tirelessly pursuing profit.
When the plane landed in Qizhou, Xu Cang got off the plane. Because there would be another second captain on the plane later, it would be redundant for Xu Cang to stay on board.
It was only afterwards that Xu Cang found out that after the flight, the company not only returned the fuel money that Li Hongming had paid in advance, but also gave him an extra sum as a reward. Zhang Heng, who cooperated with the flight arrest, received a transportation subsidy and flight arrest incentives, while flight attendant Wang Qian received an extra three days of paid leave.
Xu Cang finally understood why Shandong Airlines was able to develop so fast. The employees spared no effort to create benefits for the company, and the company was generous in rewarding the employees, thus forming a very good cycle, and the whole company was thriving.
Shanhang's means of making money were as violent as those of bandits. However, it was these means that shocked Xu Cang so much that created the myth of Shanhang's rapid rise.
Even that night, as Xu Cang lay in bed, the scenes of the day were still flashing through his mind.
Before, when he first met Deng Wenjia, Deng Wenjia said that the secret of Shanhang was human subjective initiative. At that time, Xu Cang was a little disdainful, as he believed that human subjective initiative had its limits and had to follow objective laws.
But now it seems that Xu Cang still seems to have underestimated the power of people. Sure enough, it was right to come to Shanhang!
…
The next morning, Xu Cang went directly to the company and completed the Airbus theoretical test quite smoothly. Then he received an arrangement to go to a simulator center in the suburbs of Qizhou for an initial inspection in the afternoon.
Xu Cang had lunch at the company, and then took a taxi to the simulator center. When he arrived at the simulator center, he found that the Airbus co-pilot who was cooperating with him this time had already arrived.
Since Shandong Airlines itself did not have a reserve of Airbus pilots, and Guoda Airlines's move to force Airbus aircraft into the airline was too abrupt, the result was that Shandong Airlines actually did not have enough Airbus pilots.
Fortunately, China National Airlines still had some conscience and sent some Airbus pilots to Shandong Airlines for emergency response. After Shandong Airlines trained its own Airbus pilots, they would be gradually withdrawn to Air China.
The co-pilot who cooperated with Xu Cang this time was sent by Air China.
When Xu Cang arrived, the co-pilot was looking for food in the lounge on the second floor. It must be said that in 2000, the desserts and drinks in the simulator center were quite good.
There were not many people in the hall, and when Xu Cang came over, the co-pilot heard the noise. Curious, he turned around and saw Xu Cang, and greeted him: "Xu Cang?"
Xu Cang put the flight box aside and said, "Yes! Brother, thank you for your cooperation today."
"It's not hard, just two hours." The co-pilot was very enthusiastic and even invited Xu Cang to come over and eat together.
Xu Cang didn't like desserts, so he just made himself a cup of tea. The co-pilot, on the other hand, kept his head down, wishing he could finish all the snacks on the table.
Xu Cang drank up his tea in boredom. The instructor in charge of the inspection did not come until the scheduled review time. So Xu Cang asked the co-pilot, "Brother, does the inspector have any preferences this time?"
"Instructor Shi, he doesn't have any special requirements. You just need to operate it more carefully. The procedures are not demanding." The co-pilot looked at his watch and waved to Xu Cang again: "Don't wait! Instructor Shi never gives comments. He must have come here to meet the inspection time. Come and eat first. This pastry is delicious."
Generally speaking, a simulator is divided into pre-class review, training and post-class review. If it is a simulator inspection, the pre-class review time is relatively short, mainly to explain the inspection requirements and conduct some theoretical oral examinations.
However, many old teachers are too lazy to conduct oral examinations and simply ignore this step and go directly to the inspection project. So from this point of view, this teacher Shi is still a more traditional old-school inspector who does not do anything fancy.
Xu Cang never worried about normal flights. His only worry was that the inspector had too many tricks, which might cause him to capsize. Judging from the description of the co-pilot, this inspector was a person who focused on control and not procedures, and whose work style and evaluation criteria were relatively traditional, which was undoubtedly a good thing.
"Brother, you eat it. I can't eat anything too sweet." Xu Cang waved his hand, declining the co-pilot's kindness.
Suddenly, he saw a middle-aged man in a white shirt coming out of the computer room. The man saw Xu Cang and asked tentatively, "Are you waiting for the simulator that starts at 2 o'clock? Machine 2?"
The co-pilot pinched a piece of bread and asked in confusion, "Well, what's wrong?"
The middle-aged man apologized, "I'm sorry, there's a problem with Unit 2, so your simulator may have to be rescheduled."
"Hmm?" Xu Cang asked, "What's wrong?"
"There's something wrong with Unit 2's balance calculation program, and it can't be fixed anytime soon."
The co-pilot was knowledgeable: "There's a problem with the balance. How far off is it? If it's not too far off, it should be able to fly."
The plane was tilted, and although it was uncomfortable to fly, it was still able to fly.
Xu Cang didn't say anything, which was considered as agreeing with the co-pilot's statement.
"It's not a matter of how much it's off." The middle-aged man scratched his head: "The center of gravity of this plane keeps changing, and it can't be fixed, so... I can't say how much it's off."
"My goodness, the center of gravity of the plane keeps changing. How can this plane fly?" The co-pilot finally stopped eating and advised Xu Cang: "Brother, the center of gravity keeps changing. The plane can't fly. How about talking to your pilot and changing the time?"
The center of gravity is constantly changing, which means that the aircraft can never be straightened. In such a situation, the autopilot probably cannot take over. It takes a lot of effort to fly, and there is no guarantee that it will be able to fly down.
Before Xu Cang could answer, the co-pilot's phone suddenly rang. He took out his phone and saw that it was a new email. He clicked it and saw that it was the next flight schedule.
After watching for a while, the co-pilot was startled, then smiled at Xu Cang and said, "Brother, we are going to fly together later, and the plan is out. However, we have to fly plane 1899, which has always had problems with its fuel flow. How come it was sent to you and is flying for us? Brother, don't you think our luck is too bad?"
Xu Cang shook his head very seriously: "It should have nothing to do with me, I have always had good luck!"
