Oh Lord, Stuck on the Tarmac Again! [vanity]

July 20, 2004 | EggsAckley

[EggsAckley]

I hate flying. That's been the fact for quite a numbers of years. But after the events at O'Hare airport last Friday, July 16th, I vow that I will NEVER fly through that airport again, and what's more, I will NEVER EVER again fly on United Airlines. "Fly the friendly skies" my great aunt fanny! Their motto SHOULD be "We don't care, we don't have to. We're United."

On that day, dozens of planes were stuck on the tarmac, not allowed to take off. After the first hour had passed, our "friendly" pilot announced that there was a weather system holding up our takeoff. Weather? Where?

After four and a half hours of sitting on the tarmac we FINALLY departed. The explanation of "weather" was laughable; how could a weather system that no one saw hold up so many planes of so many sizes heading out for so many destinations?

I still have not been able to find out what the truth was, and I was away from computers for the subsequent four days, and had no way of researching what REALLY was going on that day. Was there a crisis at the airport? Controller shut-down? It was bad enough being trapped like sardines in that 707, with very little air, no water, and not allowed to get up and move around. What made it worse was that the crew simply didn't care how uncomfortable everyone was. It was a very unhealthy situation.

Anybody got any ideas?

[sandpit]

I took AirTran to Atlanta a couple of weeks ago from DFW. We couldn't land because Atlanta visibility was so bad at 8:30am. We got redirected to Chattanooga for a couple of hours. They opened the plane door (Chattanooga's a small airport and the weather was pleasant), got some more fuel. We proceeded to get snockered on bloody marys. The crew said we were taking the delay very well and if we had been New Yorkers we would have been unmanageable.

[gatorbait]

Find the ACDO and file the complaint there.

[EggsAckley]

ACDO ? (not very hip to airline terminology)

[Inspectorette]

Didn't you know that United AirLines stands for U Aint Leaving.

Yarggh! Hubby and I are flying from San Francisco to Okinawa at Christmas on United. The first leg is ~13 hours, then a four-hour layover in Osaka, then two more hours to Naha. (We're buying flight insurance for the first time just in case.)

[ex-Texan]

Sound like the was a "weatherman alert" . . . You remember the weatherman back in the early 1970s, don't you, Judy? Oh, well . . . Time marches on.

I flew into O'Hare in the 1980's and our plane has to circle the airport for nearly an hour while a severe weather system cleared out of the area. Outside the windows we could see other planes lined up and circling like lost birds. Lightning was flashing all around the plane and the clouds would turn bright pink when another blast went off.

Hint: Severe weather near Chicago may be avoided by taking another airline.

[eyespysomething]

Funny thing is, I was in Illinois Friday, driving across mid-IL to Hannibal, and could see very dark skies north of us.

Why is that funny? Because I live in GA, and had never been to IL before last week, but here's your thread, and there I was.

funny

[RedBloodedAmerican]

If thats the case, then they may have lost power to their maintenance controller, or other flight ops. So that would keep them from going. The pilot saying it was weather related might not have been wrong if indeed their company uses a system which was down.
Also, the pilot giving a reason for a delay is more a courtesy to passengers than a need-to-know issue.
If it was weather related from a system out there, it's not always where you are taking off from, but where you are going to that can cause weather delays.

[EggsAckley]

"Ya don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows...." Heheheh. Yup. I remember.

I'll never fly through Chicago again. If need be, I'll go through Atlanta, even if it's longer.

[LadyPilgrim]

Thank-you! This is a wonderful story!
Thank-you!!

[COBOL2Java]

Eggs, avoid United like the plague. Their service is terrible. Recently my family and I have been using the new Independence Air, and they have consistently been a breath of fresh air as far as caring for the customer. We use Dulles Airport (Northern Virginia) and their security is pretty tight. Normally only the ticketed passenger is allowed to take the little shuttle bus to the gate. My wife is deaf, and on both occassions when I was with her, the Independence Air rep took the time to recognize the situation, and without a prompt from me, offered to give me a special pass so I could go with her to the gate. Noone at Dulles has ever done that (and we've used Dulles a lot).

[Inspectorette]

Thanks - I sure hope so - that's a LOOONG time to be on a plane ;-)

[OSHA]

Connecting thru O'Hare is often a bitch because of bad weather high winds etc. Some times the flights have a hard time getting a landing slot there. I have always been satisfied with AA. even on delayed flights.
My horror story. Center seat, between two talkative women. One from Racine WI, one from Savannah GA.

[safisoft]

After four and a half hours of sitting on the tarmac we FINALLY departed. The explanation of "weather" was laughable; how could a weather system that no one saw hold up so many planes of so many sizes heading out for so many destinations?

Aircraft travel at nearly 500 MPH. Weather can ground whole groups of aircraft because congested airports like O'Hare have narrow departure corridors. Just because you cannot see it, does not mean it does not exist.

Just for a moment, think logically. Why would the crew POSSIBLY lie? Do you think THEY like sitting there for 6 hours?

I am an airline pilot, and I have waited 4.5 hours before for weather, in much the same way you describe. This is an ATC and "Act of G-d" kind of thing. Your choices usually are:

1. Go back to the gate, and loose your place in line. For this long a wait, it indicates you likely would NOT have arrived at your destination THAT day.

2. Wait in line and hope that ATC lifts the in-trail spacing over the corridor you are using.

3. Refile your flight plan over a different corridor.

Without question, your crew weighed ALL those possibilities.

I am always amazed at how meek people become when they encounter severe weather in an aircraft, and how little they understand the dangers and the precautions taken before flying.

No one was picking on you.

[Criminal Number 18F]

A weather system could cause a disruption like that for several reasons:

1. The entire system is groaning at the seams at certain hours. Every airline overbooks the runways, that is, you can only launch a plane every 2-3 minutes max (and recover planes at the same pace) but if there are 15 lines at an airport every one of them has seven flight departing within five minutes of 8 AM... five minutes of noon... etc.

2. Just because the weather is fine where YOU are doesn't mean it's fine at the destination airport. Air Traffic Control now issues ground holds, rather than air holds, when that's the case. (Ground holds are safer and more economical). And because the system's so tightly packed, if a field is closed for a couple hours (rare) or has to slow down its operating tempo due to weather (common), everybody going there has to wait... and that's not all.

3. Ground holds ripple through the system. A ground hold at, say, SFO, due to morning fog, has second and third order effects, and somebody is on hold at JFK because he can't get into DFW or ORD (O'Hare), because the ramps are all backed up with holding SFO traffic.

4. The bad weather doesn't even have to be at an airport. This time of year the midwest is full of big, convective weather -- thunderstorms in their birthing, prime or dying stages. You can't fly into a thunderstorm (well, you can't count on doing it more than once, so prudent pilots give them lots of room, and FAA regs and airline ops manuals forbid flying there, where common sense already says don't go). So everybody diverts to hell and gone around the thunderbumpers. This means the controllers have their hands full with planes off the usual tracks, and the controllers' primary mission is always to keep two planes from occupying the same space at the same time (which I why I personally appreciate them) and to keep the planes from merging with the terrain (ditto). This time of year everybody will also be asking the controllers for a higher or lower altitude because there's plenty of bumps. So they are some busy, busy, busy guys and girls. And that slows 'em down -- when they start getting antsy about safety, they slow things down to keep a handle on.

5. Plus, all this diverting takes time and makes planes more late at their destinations than they would be otherwise. (No choice in the matter: if you didn't go around the storm, you would never arrive at your destination. You can't win the Guinness Book record for lateness, you can only tie). That compounds the problem because you now have planes on the ramp when they are supposed to be turned around and gone, while there are waiting pax in the terminals, frutrated, and planes scattered willy-nilly around the ramp waiting for this and that. There may be no gate open for your airline... so now you sit in the plane for another half hour or forty minutes which feels like forever when you are already late.

So, even though you feel like you were gang-raped by United Airlines, rest assured that the aircrew and the gate agents (low-paid people who take way more abuse than I would ever consider doing) are pretty beat up too. The senior management of the airline (which is bankrupt, and is likely to move into liquidation before 2004 is out) may be responsible for some of this, but the people you see on the planes and in the terminals are getting beat up by the same circumstances as you.

The airline isn't doing this (making you wait) of its own volition, and the 4+ hours you were stuck on the ground are a nightmare for everybody on their side of the deal, too. In fact, if your flight had any chance to make money, that hold erased it just for what the extra cost of wages was (pilots and FAs are hourly employees -- most travellers assume they're salaried). I don't know what equipment you were on (it wasn't a 707 -- those antiques are hauling cargo around the third world, or being converted into pots and pans by scrap dealers). But assuming the usual domestic 737 with two pilots and four FAs the airline probably ate $12,000 in salary and bennies on your flight. You know what you paid for a ticket and how many people were on the plane -- now you see why United is financially paws up?

If the hold had been longer, it would have been worse (for you and the airline) because they would have had to call in another crew. Since fatigue has been cited as a causal factor in accidents, strict crew rest and duty hours rules have come into effect. If they call in a reserve crew, they wind up paying two crews... plus you have to wait while the reserve crew briefs-in on the flight. FAs can pretty much step into the position cold, but pilots have to know certain facts about the plane, the weather and the route before they go.

One thing the lines have done to make better on time stats, as these holds become longer and more frequent, is increase the "official" length of legs by anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. People are more concerned about arriving when they are promised, than about how much time it takes to fly.

The one thing the captain might have done to make your long stay on the tarmac more palatable is to permit a beverage service. The problem with that is, if the controllers tell him "OK, roll" when the service is ongoing, he has to say, "stand by" while the FAs put the carts away, winkle out any pax who have gone into the lavatories, and get everybody (including the FAs) belted in again. If he's not ready to roll when the controller green-lights him, he may have to say, "unable," and then somebody else goes and he winds up, if he's unlucky, at the back of the queue again.

The bottom line is: more people flying, and paying less, means that flying will be more congested and more hassle. Most people buying airline tickets are bottom feeders price wise. Most people will not spend $50 extra for a direct flight, but they will bitch forever about the airline that "forces" them to change planes. Therefore, very few airlines try to sell service and those that do (Midwest Express, for one) usually go blooey.

The way I see this shaking out is with two or three big bankruptcies, and then the market settling on higher prices. I'm not suggesting airline execs are blameless for the bankruptcies, the majors (especially American and United) have been run by inept kleptocracies for years.

But a nightmare like you had could happen to pax on any line -- even the best run (in the USA, probably Southwest, still).

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[treadstone71]

I rarely encounter problems on departure. My problems usually occur on arrival. 3 times in the last year (out of 5 trips), we take off on time, but on landing, we sit in front of the gate for half an hour waiting for someone to direct the plane to the jetway. Were we not expected? Or did we just land at a bad time?

Also, I consider all domestic airlines equally bad, so it doesn't really matter to me who I fly. However, I will NEVER take a flight which connects through Kansas City. Last December, I gatechecked my carry-on, since the first leg was on a tiny Canadair plane. When we arrived, they sent all gatechecked luggage through with the rest of the baggage! So, I had to go outside the secured boarding area to get my carryon, then come back through security to wait for my next leg.

[Pylot]

They kidnap you to the tarmac so that you can not take a competitors flight to your destination.

[EggsAckley]

You mention the ticket price; in this case we paid more than $500 for round trip from San Jose to Scranton PA. I don't call that a cheap price. And another thing, UA had NO FOOD on these flights. Well, they had some scummy looking "box lunch" on the flight from San Jose, at the price of $7.00. Not cheap. Crappy looking food. Fortunately I had anticipated that and brought sandwiches for us to eat. Coming back from O'Hare to SJO, NO FOOD available. Period. $500 round trip? For THAT kind of non-service, this was NOT a cheap flight.


All that, and service with a sneer. Lovely. Hell of a way to run an airline (run it out of existence, that is.)