Episode 271 Hot Day, Hard Decisions
Ready 4 Pushback
Nik Fialka
4.8 • 716 Ratings
🗓️ 14 August 2025
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this solo episode, Nik talks about a tough day at work when a broken APU and hot brake warning forced him to make the hard call to refuse an aircraft right before takeoff. He shares what happened behind the scenes—from managing the rising cabin temperature to coordinating with maintenance and keeping passengers informed.
Nik explains why it's so important to speak up, trust your judgment, and make safety the top priority—even when it’s uncomfortable or causes delays. If you're training or already flying, this episode is a reminder that being a pilot means making tough calls and leading with confidence and care.
What You'll Learn:
How to recognize when an aircraft issue crosses the line from inconvenience to safety concern
Why communication and empathy matter—especially when passengers are frustrated
The process and pressure behind refusing an aircraft in an airline operation
How tough decisions build your confidence and credibility as a pilot
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, pilot. Welcome back to Ready for Pushback. I'm Nick Fialca coming to you live from the |
| 0:08.7 | world studio at my house in the podcast studio. How many of you guys have a podcast studio in your house? |
| 0:15.8 | I hope none of you because it just is this total like jammed up space at our house above the garage. We have an |
| 0:22.1 | extra room and I've created this really amazing studio out of it. And it's, you know, it's grown |
| 0:28.6 | incrementally. And as you see the show and you and you've seen me develop over time, man, |
| 0:35.2 | you've seen a lot of different evolutions, especially on the video side. |
| 0:39.4 | I promise one day I'm going to try to get these solo shows into video form. |
| 0:46.8 | I want your feedback. |
| 0:47.9 | Let me know what you think if you'd like to see that. |
| 0:49.9 | What's hard for me is I carry, I have notes. |
| 0:52.3 | Like when I do these shows, I have notes. |
| 0:55.3 | And I usually type them out. |
| 0:56.9 | I spend a couple hours on my front porch typing stuff out, referring to different things, |
| 1:03.9 | trying to create a mindset for what I want to convey, especially if it's something |
| 1:09.9 | kind of deeper or a little |
| 1:13.3 | specific. And it's not just a story. I will have a lot of notes. So what I do is I look at my |
| 1:21.6 | computer, which is not in front of my camera. And I'm a little self-conscious about just reading off of reading these |
| 1:30.0 | notes and creating my, my words without staring straight at the camera. I feel like the pros |
| 1:36.2 | can do that. I don't know. Let me know what you think. Send me a, send me a message on LinkedIn. |
| 1:42.4 | And let me know if you think I should try to do that and I might give it a |
| 1:46.4 | try. But today, no notes on this today. This is all from my mind. And so I probably could turn |
| 1:51.6 | the camera on, but this is what I want to talk about. I had a crazy hard flight the other day. |
... |
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