Mnagement Interview Paper

Walter Jones is a flight line supervisor at Midwest Corporate Aviation in Wichita, Kansas. In the interview I conducted, Mr. Jones said that his responsibilities included, the hiring and firing of line employees; reporting to the executives and other managers in the weekly staff meeting; the ordering of uniforms, tools, and anything else the line might need; making the schedule for the line employees, the billing of aircraft hanger and ramp fees, and the billing of aircraft wash and detail services, just to name a few. Mr. Jones has been employed at Midwest Corporate Aviation for 7 years and line supervisor for 2 years. He says that since he used to work on the flight line, he realizes just how much work the men do everyday and believes that having that knowledge allows him to be better at his job.

When I asked Mr. Jones what he thinks are the worst aspects of being a flight line supervisor he joked that there are many difficult features that he has to deal with everyday, but that is the reason he gets paid the big bucks. Later, he seriously commented that a lot of the men who work under him are his age and it can be difficult at times to discipline or order them around, because he feels that they do not respect him enough because of the age factor. He also said that it is not easy to discipline employees because he tends to get too close to them and even commented on going out after work with some of the members of the line. One time, Walter mentioned, he was trying to tell an employee that he had done something wrong and how he should do it next time to make sure the customers are satisfied with the service and the employee just laughed and said “What are ya gonna do, J?” This employee had been working for MCA for a couple of years at that time and Mr. Jones had to make the tough decision of firing him, even though they had been friends for a long time and have went out a lot together. Walt said that the disrespect that the employee was giving him frustrated him, but to have the other employees see that and think that it was acceptable behavior could not be tolerated.

Another unpleasant factor of being a flight line supervisor, according to Mr. Jones, was reporting to the top management every week. When I asked Walter what went on in the meetings, he said that the president starts by pointing out the good things that he has seen and heard about the line. Next, the president points out the negative things he has seen and heard and wants to know what Walter will do to improve them. Mr. Jones said that he feels like he is very strong at working with the line staff but does not feel comfortable talking in front of the executives and thinking on his feet when he is nervous already.

Mr. Jones said that he will do anything to please his customers, but when it comes to dealing with hundreds of thousand dollar aircraft, the owners and pilots get extremely sensitive with the line handlings. He said that the executives upstairs do not hear a lot of the complaints from the customers but the line gets most of it. The line has to have every aircraft fueled to the exact gallon, oiled to exact quart on each side of the engine, washed without streaks, and so on. If something is not done right, Walter’s neck is on the “chopping block.” Walter trains all of the flight line to meet company specifications and then some. He complained that sometimes the line are doing their job sufficiently but the customer service agents do not happen to relay the message to them correctly or fail to give the message at all. But since the line has the customer contact on the ramp, they are the ones who get the brunt of the abuse from the customers. Mr. Jones has yet to find a way to remedy this problem.

Walter said that overall he really enjoys being the flight line supervisor. He gets to make his own schedule, (but since he is now on salary, he does not feel that he gets paid enough for the hours he puts in), he gets to work with aircraft everyday, he gets to meet new, exciting people everyday and has built meaningful