Posted on 08/10/2009 5:51:04 PM PDT by george76
By its sixth hour sitting on a deserted tarmac, Continental Express Flight 2816 had taken on the smell of diapers and an overwhelmed lone toilet.
What should have been a 2 1/2-hour trip from Houston to Minneapolis had moved into its ninth hour, and the 47 passengers on board had burned through the free pretzels and drinks handed out early in their Friday night flight from Houston.
It took 12 hours and a new flight crew for Flight 2816 to complete its journey.
Passengers on another flight that had been diverted to the airport in Rochester, Minn., because of storms were allowed to disembark and were put on a bus that would take them the 85 miles to Minneapolis. And the terminal, where passengers could at least stretch their legs, breathe fresh air and use the vending machines, was a mere 50 yards away.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
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We the sheeple.
Houston we have a problem...
Houston-based Continental has a problem.
Maybe it was plane full of RNC right wingers?
I imagine her plane still smells like diapers.
Air Pelosi uses a government jet. She uses up more than a million and a half dollars in fuel per year. No, she has no such worries.
If the takeoff is delayed for 6 hours, why can’t it come back and let the passengers back into the terminal the parts where people are already screened?
Houston to Minneapolis is an awfully long flight for a smaller regional jet too. I guess the airlines have to fly more of them on longer routes to save money but I just do not like them. If a flight is more than an hour I will avoid the regional jets if at all possible. They are not as comfortable and I feel more claustrophobic.
Kristy Nicholas, a spokeswoman for ExpressJet Airlines, said passengers couldn't go to the Rochester terminal to wait out the storms because they would have needed to redo their security screening and screeners had gone home. The airport's manager, Steven Leqve, said that wasn't true. Leqve said passengers could have waited in a secure area until their plane was cleared to leave. "This is not an airport issue. This is an airline issue," he said.
Welcome To Minnesota!!!
Hold yer noses and yer water!!
Not as bad, but I once had a 4 hour flight from Huntsville to Atlanta.
The saying “Better pi$$ed off than on” may not be relevant here, it seems they were the recipient of both.
What is wrong with these sheeple? Why didn’t someone just open the emergency exit and leave?
It very likely was due to some restrictions of FAA departure slots due to flight plans.
There are only a certain limited number of departure and landing slots at given airports.
If there's weather delays, then in-air flights get priority when the a/p reopens and then aircraft "in-progress" get slots after that.
If you return to the gate, you forfeit your flight plan, and the carrier may not get one at all that day before the airport closes.
This is the result of the ultra-thin operating margins. Airlines can't afford to just throw up their hands on a whole flight....once a day is lost, you can't make it up.
And this thing about "I won't fly this airline or that airline ever again" is nonsense. They know that flights are commodities. You'll take them in the future if they have the route and the fare.
Maybe they didn’t want to end up in jail.
Go directly to jail. Do not pass go.
March 30, 2009, 5:29 pm Man Charged in Opening of Plane Door
By Sewell Chan
In an era of frequent flight delays, inadequate leg room and interminable waiting on the tarmac, the desire of passengers to leave their airplanes as quickly as possible is understandable. But, the authorities say, a 60-year-old British man took that desire too far.
The man, Robert McDonald, was charged with recklessly endangering the lives of passengers by opening an emergency exit door while his plane — delayed for hours — idled on a taxiway during a layover at Kennedy International Airport, the Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, announced on Monday.
Mr. McDonald was detained pending arraignment in Queens Criminal Court on charges of second-degree reckless endangerment and second-degree criminal tampering. If convicted, he faces up to a year in jail.
Mr. Brown said that Mr. McDonald was aboard Delta Flight 149 around 7:45 p.m. Sunday as it sat at Kennedy on a layover from Las Vegas to England when he opened the emergency door and activated an emergency indicator light in the cockpit.
“The flight was delayed for several hours at Kennedy Airport last night due to inclement weather conditions,” Mr. Brown said in a statement. “Apparently, the defendant wanted to get off the plane, so he opened the emergency exit door. Fortunately, members of the flight crew were able to stop him before he could fully open the door and deploy the emergency chute.”
Mr. McDonald was arrested by police officers of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport. Mr. McDonald “caused a substantial interruption and delay in the flight,” and his actions might require “replacement of the plane’s emergency chute,” the district attorney’s office said.
Exactly. See #18.
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