Narrative:

I; as a captain along with other captains at my air carrier; are put under a great deal of pressure to fly broken airplanes and delay the write-ups until we finish our mission and return to home base at the end of the day. We are flying airplanes in which lavatory 'occupied' signs and 'no smoking' placards and 'exit' signs have fallen off the walls. CSD and oil temp gauges; and clocks slide out of the panels because they have not been secured properly. Now at our charter bases where we do charters for a certain customer; we are under a great deal of pressure to skip fuel stops because the customer has complained to management that it delays the arrivals for the passengers. I do not feel comfortable in flying our aircraft and landing with minimum fuel. Our carrier is trading flight safety for customer service and skipping out and cutting corners when it comes to maintenance just to save money. I do not feel safe or comfortable in flying our aircraft most of the time. I fear it is just a matter of time before this catches up to our company and I do not want to be on board the aircraft when it does. The decision making is being taken out of the captain's control now and put into the control and decision of management. 'Fly the aircraft or be terminated' is the underlying message being sent to a lot of the captains here at the company.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: MD80 Captain believes his company is cutting corners on maintenance and attempting to appease a charter customer by eliminating a fuel stop.

Narrative: I; as a Captain along with other Captains at my air carrier; are put under a great deal of pressure to fly broken airplanes and delay the write-ups until we finish our mission and return to home base at the end of the day. We are flying airplanes in which lavatory 'Occupied' signs and 'No Smoking' placards and 'Exit' signs have fallen off the walls. CSD and Oil Temp gauges; and clocks slide out of the panels because they have not been secured properly. Now at our charter bases where we do charters for a certain customer; we are under a great deal of pressure to skip fuel stops because the customer has complained to management that it delays the arrivals for the passengers. I do not feel comfortable in flying our aircraft and landing with minimum fuel. Our carrier is trading flight safety for customer service and skipping out and cutting corners when it comes to maintenance just to save money. I do not feel safe or comfortable in flying our aircraft most of the time. I fear it is just a matter of time before this catches up to our company and I do not want to be on board the aircraft when it does. The decision making is being taken out of the Captain's control now and put into the control and decision of management. 'Fly the aircraft or be terminated' is the underlying message being sent to a lot of the Captains here at the company.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.