VS010 JFK-LHR 27 Jun 07 (PE)

[Neil]

This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

Some of the points in this TR have already been covered in a post by Baldbrit, but here is our PE TR from start to finish, giving our experiences and opinions on how this flight was handled by Virgin. I will try not to go on too much but an awful lot happened with this flight so apologies in advance if I go on.

We left our hotel nr Times Square at 5:30pm and our driver told us that the journey would take about 2 hours because of problems caused by the weather. Thunder storms had started coming in during the early afternoon and had knocked the power out on in parts of Manhattan, including the subway, stopping it for about an hour. Entry to the the tunnel was really bad but once through went we round via La Guardia where the roads were quieter and our journey took about 1hr 30mins in total. We checked in to our pre-selected seats on 71 A&C without problem, but upon inquiring about upgrading we were told the flight was over sold in all classes so not possible and be thankful we were on the flight (something that later on turned out to be very untrue!). Security was very busy and it took us over 30mins to get through. Got to gate B30 at about 8pm and noticed that the VS46 at B28 was still on stand, so already running late. The weather outside was heavy rain with thunder and lightning happening regularly.

About 8:20pm an announcement was made that the crew were on board but the aircraft wasn't fueled and we couldn't re-fuel while the lightning was happening so this meant boarding would be delayed, but as soon as they started to fuel we would start to board as this roughly both took the same amount of time. Boarding was eventually called at about 9:30pm, with priority called first. This however didn't seem to register with the majority of the pax and everybody tried to board, or decided to wait as close as possible to the boarding area, making pre-boarding very difficult. We did however manage to get on board fairly early and settled down with a glass of champers. Then the fun started....

Sat happily drinking our champers, we heard a loud bang and all the a/c lights went out, pretty much straight away they came back on and then the Captain announced that he thought the a/c had just been struck by lightning and was going to check it out. It later turned out that it was a lamp post next to the a/c that has been struck and not the a/c directly and the problem was all fixed. Next we had to do a fair bit of seat swapping as the check in staff has allocated a 10yr old boy an Exit Row seat something that is not allowed and had also split another family up, so being the kind hearted people we are we agreed to take row 70 A&C, the hardship! With the lightning still on-going outside at about 11:30 the Captain announced we had still not yet re-fueled and that at about 12am the Flight Deck Crew were going to be out of hours and he would keep us informed. During this time, the 2 SCC members looking after the Upper Deck were excellent, very chatty/friendly and constantly offering drinks/snacks and generally making sure everybody was OK. At about 1am after no more announcements from the Captain or FSM we were told we would be fueled within 30mins and that whilst we were going to try and take off the Crew were seriously running out of hours, they were already in their discretionary hours, and the a/c who had left the gate over an hour ago were still on the taxi way and had yet to take off. The Captain said that he thought it very unlikely we would get off but that Virgin Ops had told him he had to stick with it until it was not legally possible.

So off we went, taxi-ing around JFK for the best part of 2 hours, during this time that few announcements that were made by the FSM were incorrect and inaccurate (even the SCC sat opposite us could not believe some of the announcements) we were finally told at around 3:30am time was up and we would be returning to stand. We went to a remote stand and were made to exit down some very wet metal steps, whilst thunder and lightening were still in the air!

We were then bussed into the terminal, told to go to the Domestic Baggage reclaim and wait there. A few bags came straight away but at about 6am, over 2 hours after we had been taken off the a/c some people still did not have there bags back, and I know of 1 pax who even had his bag lost!! During our wait for the bags, one announcement was made, we were told that our flight was rescheduled for 5pm on the 28th and that we should check in at 3pm, it also stated that no hotels in a 200mile radius could be found, even if they did have some there was no buses to take us to them, so we would have to wait in the terminal but food vouchers would be given out. This was the only announcement made by any Virgin Ground crew from us leaving the a/c to us boarding again.

So after collection our bags we found ourselves a lovely slab of concrete, that was pretending to be a bench and tried to get comfy, something we did not do so eventually gave up and decided to have some breakfast. With 9+ hours still to go before our 5pm new takeoff time I was already restless but managed to hold out for another 2hours before my inquisitive nature got the better of me and I headed back upstairs to the Virgin check in area to see if I could find out anymore. The ticket desk queue had at least 30/40 pax who had connecting flights waiting to try and get them re-booked, so no point waiting there, and I eventually found the ops guys who had made our 1 announcement hiding in a corner and managed to ask him if everything was still as planned. No was the answer. The new flight, now called the VS110 was going to be leaving at 6:45pm due to the fact that the B744's can't land at Heathrow before 6am due to noise restrictions (something a few of us had already worked out) and we were told we could check in whenever we wanted. Why no announcements about this was made I do not know, but I told as many pax as I could recognise from our flight but losing the luggage would have made such a difference to so many people.

For us it proved to be the best decision of the day. Thankfully as we were dropping our bags off, 2 very lovely people who I had got chatting with in the baggage hall were doing the same, and as they were traveling UC, they very kindly invited us as there guests into the Clubhouse, something we will be eternally grateful for as the CH was a place of such luxury compared to our concrete slab of a bench. We then spent the next7 or so hours resting and enjoying the CH delights, including a wonderful shower, a CH burger and a few drinks, along with some excellent company. Without this I am not sure how we would of coped, and as BaldBrit said in his post, we all really felt for the poor Y pax with kids, still stuck with there luggage, still expecting a 5pm departure, all because somebody couldn't be bothered to make an announcement.

After a very nice time in the CH, our flight and the VS4 were both called at just gone 5:45, we made our way through a quiet security up to the gate. Our a/c from last night, G-VROC was still waiting for us and boarding was called at about 6pm. Then another problem, the security sticker on the back of our passports was still the one from yesterday as the check in staff had not put the one with today's date on. This seemed to be a major issue for the gate staff and much discussion was had before common sense prevailed and a decision was made that providing we had yesterdays sticker we would be fine.

We were the first 2 people on the a/c and made our way upstairs to be greeted by the same excellent CC members from last night, finally something that went our way. Tried to sit in our new seats of 72 A&C only to find a child seat in one of them as it had not been moved from last night. The CC told us just to sit in 70 A&C and they would sort the other pax out around us, yes, things were again looking up. This suited us perfectly as 70 A&C are by far the best PE seats imo, and with sleep the only thing on our mind the more leg room the better. Unfortunately this was when the good stopped and the bad started again. At just gone 6:45 the Captain announced that, we were fueled, pax were on board, but due to a huge mistake by JFK ground staff the crew had no idea who was and who wasn't on board. Rather foolishly they had transferred all of the pax from the original VS10 onto the VS110, but some of the pax did not come back for the new flight, plus they checked us in again and added some people from other missed flights so basically it was chaos. This took over an hour to sort and eventually at just gone 7:30 we pushed back. We started taxiing and could clearly see how busy the taxi ways were and after about 10mins we stopped and did not move for nearly an hour. The FSM made one announcement during this to say that we were 15th in the queue and was just waiting our turn. It soon became pretty obvious to everyone that no a/c what so ever were taking off, and things were not looking good, especially when the SCC member in his seat in front of us said there might be a CC time issue arising fairly soon. Eventually another announcement was made saying that the Captain had negotiated very hard with ATC and a new route had been agreed meaning we could take off straight away, which we did.

Normally here I would tell you about the services during the flight, how good the crew were etc etc, but I can't as I slept right until the FSM announced we were started our decent into LHR. Talking to the CC, this was what most pax did and the CC had a nice easy flight with not many meals etc being served. Managed to get a quick OJ before landing, which happened not long 8:30am, just over 23hours after we should have landed!. At the gate we were told there would be some VS ground staff waiting to give us a letter about our problems, this turned out to be 1 person, who had to ask our class of travel and then gather 3 leaflets/letters together, thank god we were quick off the a/c, I dread to think how long the pax at the back of Y would have waited. Collected our bags, again no real sign of priority baggage in action and off to collect the car for another 4hr + drive home.

In total we spent somewhere between 15-16 hours sat on the a/c for our 6hour flight, and from leaving our hotel to arriving home it took something like 40 hours. The Captain and FSM were nothing short of appalling, the JFK ground staff even worse. Thankfully the 2 people who took us in the CH and the 2 CC members we had made this terrible episode more then bearable, and whilst we fully appreciate that VS have no control of the weather, which was the reason our flight got canceled/delayed the staff and procedures/practices they had in place to deal with it were severely inadequate and something that needs to be addressed, so that every pax, and not just the ones who got lucky like us, can be looked after in an acceptable manner.

That's it, I am sure I will have forgotten certain things that happened. We have been offered 37,500 miles by Virgin and I have written a letter of complaint to them, not moaning about the fact the flight was canceled but about the poor handling of the situation when it was. I am looking forward to their response.

What a shambles! As you say nothing VS can do about the weather but their customer care seems in need of a good kick up the backside.

Neil, one small point I don't understand about your TR is you have given some generous marks for cabin crew yet in your penultimate paragraph you say

The Captain and FSM were nothing short of appalling, the JFK ground staff even worse.

-Steve

Thanks for the TR[y]

Unfortunately, both of your flights on this trip seem to have been a disappointment. One can only hope your flights in the future will be an improvement, though I doubt that would be difficult to achieve[;)]

45.

[Neil]

Originally posted by Stevieboy
What a shambles! As you say nothing VS can do about the weather but their customer care seems in need of a good kick up the backside.

Neil, one small point I don't understand about your TR is you have given some generous marks for cabin crew yet in your penultimate paragraph you say

The Captain and FSM were nothing short of appalling, the JFK ground staff even worse.

-Steve

Steve - I have given good marks for the CC in the ratings because of the 2 members of CC who were looking after us on the Upper Deck, they both were excellent in really difficult circumstances and really went the extra step to ensure we were as comfortable as possible. I didn't want to give a bad mark just because of the Captain and FSM.

Neil

Neil, excellent & well balanced report [y] I really feel for you guys, what a saga! Not sure if you & t'other half are anything like me & Steve, but we book our holidays ages in advance and look forward to the flight aspect of them immensely - what a let down when something goes wrong, whether it be out of the airline's control or not. I guess the one positive is that it happened on the return and didn't take time away from your hol.

Looking forward to meeting you in a couple of weeks at the RBS [:)]

James

Originally posted by Attitude23
The new flight, now called the VS110 was going to be leaving at 6:45pm due to the fact that the B744's can't land at Heathrow before 6am due to noise restrictions (something a few of us had already worked out) and we were told we could check in whenever we wanted.

This isn't strictly true. There is a general noise curfew on flights arriving at Heathrow before 6am, with certain known exemptions, mostly flights from the Far East which are scheduled to arrive before 6am, and there are about 10-12 of these a day.

The curfew isn't based solely on aircraft type, as most of the types scheduled to land before 6am are heavies such as the B744/777, A330/340, and roughly about 16 aircraft land during the curfew - most of those between about 0430 and 0600L.

If you're timetabled to land after 0600L, you either a) time your departure so you don't arrive early, or b) hold in one of the stacks until you land after 6am.

Trying to get permission to land a flight which isn't booked to arrive during the curfew is a pretty herculean task - though it's not unheard of for one airline which does have an authorised pre-6am landing slot to swap it between the flight which is supposed to land before 6am, and another of their flights which should land outside of the curfew - usually because the 'permitted' flight is late and will not arrive before 6am, and the other flight is early.

The Captain and FSM were nothing short of appalling, the JFK ground staff even worse.

There's nothing worse than having no information, or wrong information, is there? I think regular communication during these sort of events goes a long way to relieving any tension that might exist.

From what you said, it sounds like some of the crew didn't want to be there and wanted to cancel the flight much sooner. It's a shame that Ops seemed to place a priority on getting the aircraft back to London, rather than being concerned about pax welfare. Ironically, this backfired, as they couldn't operate the flight until the next evening, even then it was quite late, so they didn't get the aircraft back for about 24 hours.

With a bit of forethought, the sensible thing to do might have been to stand the crew down as soon as it was realised that the weather was going to be a significant problem, rest them overnight in a hotel and operate the flight first thing the next morning.

One of the problems with JFK is the transatlantic 'rush' is so huge, and if something goes wrong, the delays mount up very quickly, and it's not just ground delays, but a 'flow control' exercised in the air. It seems you're fortunate that the Captain was able to work out a routing that wasn't subject to the same flow restrictions and managed to get to jump some of the queue.

Sitting on the ground on a taxiway not going very far often belies the activity that might be going on in the flight deck - the crew will be working on alternate routings to escape delays, talking to company operations, checking that the fuel onboard is still adequate if you've been stuck on a taxiway with your engines running for ages, that sort of stuff. Even so, there should still be enough time to communicate with the cargo![}:)]

One thing I like on United is that they have 'Channel 9' which is a hookup of the active flightdeck radio into the IFE system. Once during a ground stop, the Captain said 'Feel free to follow along with the chaos, ATC communication is available on Channel 9 of the entertainment system, and you'll find out about stuff at the same time as we do on the flight deck'. Of course, understanding all the jargon helps with this, but it's often great fun.

Let us know what you hear back from VS regarding the happenings with your flight.

Mike

[Neil]

Originally posted by mike-smashing


From what you said, it sounds like some of the crew didn't want to be there and wanted to cancel the flight much sooner. It's a shame that Ops seemed to place a priority on getting the aircraft back to London, rather than being concerned about pax welfare. Ironically, this backfired, as they couldn't operate the flight until the next evening, even then it was quite late, so they didn't get the aircraft back for about 24 hours.

With a bit of forethought, the sensible thing to do might have been to stand the crew down as soon as it was realised that the weather was going to be a significant problem, rest them overnight in a hotel and operate the flight first thing the next morning.

Mike - you have hit the nail on the head. According the the SCC member who was sat opposite us, the Captain had a massive argument with the JFK Ops guy and VS Ops in London as he know there was no chance of us getting off the ground, but was told that he HAD to make the flight happen until legally not possible. If they canceled the flight at 12pm then hotels would have been available because loads more flights got canceled/called back within the 4 hour period we taxied round!

[HighFlyer]

Neil,

What a shambles [:o] I cannot believe how the situation was handled, especially the seemingly absent care and advice to all those passengers who were forced to bed down in the Terminal. What a note to finish an otherwise great trip away on.

Thanks,
Sarah

Neil

Thanks for the extensive, detailed and well written TR. Shame it was related to a cr*p experience rather than the good'un you'd obviously been looking forward to.

Paul

Interesting read....
Thanks for the level of detail and also for the fair trip report. VS really need to sort out how they deal with these types of situations - there should be a routine in place. It will be interesting to hear what kind of response you receive to your letter.

Thanks for the informative & very interesting TR but, at your expense. Your poor luvs.

Originally posted by starsVS really need to sort out how they deal with these types of situations - there should be a routine in place.

Indeed. There probably are procedures in place, but they might not cover every eventuality or offer any additional guidance, leaving the staff to think on their feet.

Unfortunately, staff under the sort of pressure that the VS staff will have been under (i.e. there's 330 of them and only 25-30 of us), can't always be relied upon to make the right decisions - indeed, what was experienced was the staff becoming invisible, running away from the likely Pythonesque mob of angry villagers with pitchforks and flaming torches.

In my company, whenever we've experienced a fairly serious incident such as the above, we're not allowed to chalk it down to 'weather' (or the equivalent), we have to hold a 'post mortem' investigation, so that we learn from the experience and can suggest changes to our processes to try and handle the situation more smoothly.

I don't want to sound like I'm rabble rousing, but it was pretty obvious that the bad weather was coming in this case as it had been forecast, and there were several options of dealing with this a little more gracefully - some of which I've already mentioned elsewhere.

Mike

Ok. I may get into quite a bit of trouble, but I will attempt to answer (or rebuke) some of the questions/concerns in this post. I am JFK ground staff and was there for this flight. Pretty much the *entire* duration of it. I'll try to keep this in order.

at about 11:30 the Captain announced we had still not yet re-fueled and that at about 12am the Flight Deck Crew were going to be out of hours and he would keep us informed

An innaccuracy on the part of the flight deck.

Virgin Ops had told him he had to stick with it until it was not legally possible.

Standard procedure. If all crews were allowed to cancel flights due to their impressions on the part of working hours, many more flights would never take off.

it also stated that no hotels in a 200mile radius could be found, even if they did have some there was no buses to take us to them

Many people in general (and especially passengers on this flight) seem to gloss over this point. We had absolutely NO options for hotels or any other accommodation starting at around 3PM local time. Believe me, we looked. The closest one was in Connecticut able to provide only about 100 rooms (for over 300 of our pax) and was also 2 and 1/2 hours away from JFK. An option, had we been able to actually get any sort of transportation - which we couldn't. Anywhere. The best we were able to come up with was ONE van, able to accommodate 11 people.

I eventually found the ops guys who had made our 1 announcement hiding in a corner and managed to ask him if everything was still as planned

Please don't belittle my colleagues. I know exactly of whom you're speaking about and believe me that hiding in a corner is an incredibly inappropriate thing to say.

A fact most pax didn't know about: the majority of the staff (including the gentleman you're referring to here) had been working for over 20 hours straight. Forgive them if they seem a little distracted or loopy. I myself pulled an 18 hour run that day (3PM to 9AM), got 5 hours of sleep and came back for more.

but due to a huge mistake by JFK ground staff the crew had no idea who was and who wasn't on board. Rather foolishly they had transferred all of the pax from the original VS10 onto the VS110, but some of the pax did not come back for the new flight, plus they checked us in again and added some people from other missed flights so basically it was chaos.

The discrepancy only included about 14 passengers and was handled in about 45 minutes. I will not get into details (because I can't) but I will say that, yes, it was the station's fault and we apologize for it. Certain 'procedures' were addressed to ensure this does not happen again.

Eventually another announcement was made saying that the Captain had negotiated very hard with ATC and a new route had been agreed meaning we could take off straight away, which we did.

Glossing over the various ways the ground staff tried to persuade ATC to even talk to him in the first place. [:w]

the JFK ground staff even worse

Does it make a difference if I again emphasize the fact that the JFK ground staff worked a ridiculous amount of time... some pulling as many as 22 hours on a single shift in order to come up with the organized chaos you witnessed? Probably not, but keep in mind we don't run out of hours on the ground.

the staff and procedures/practices they had in place to deal with it were severely inadequate and something that needs to be addressed

And here I'll post my coupe-de-grace. Our local operating procedures are pretty solid when faced with lengthy disruptions due to unforseen events, such as weather. However, I will admit that this one caught us 'with our pants down', simply because we had absolutely no options at our disposal. There weren't any hotels, there wasn't any transportation and most of the staff that didn't elect to stay left because they had to be back not 12 hours later for yet another day.

On top of all that went wrong, the VS25, inbound from London diverted to Boston and then cancelled there due to crew hours as well. That flight was meant to take out the VS26, our lovely 7am departure, leaving us (a handful of exhausted staff) to now worry about an *additional* 300 passengers that were meant to leave at 0730 local time but never did.

All in all, I will not claim that this disruption was handled well, or even anywhere close to it. I will not say that all the factors that went into making it a hectic time absolve us of any responsibility for the way things were handled. I merely ask our passengers to keep in mind that we're not actually *trying* to screw things up - actually, quite the contrary. Believe me, we have nothing against you [:)]

Oh, and one more thing:

Mike - you have hit the nail on the head. According the the SCC member who was sat opposite us, the Captain had a massive argument with the JFK Ops guy and VS Ops in London as he know there was no chance of us getting off the ground, but was told that he HAD to make the flight happen until legally not possible. If they canceled the flight at 12pm then hotels would have been available because loads more flights got canceled/called back within the 4 hour period we taxied round!

And if this sort of precognitive talent was had by anyone, we'd be living in a perfect world... which we're not. Not to mention that 2 flights before the VS10, the VS4 and VS46 went off without a hitch, albeit a little later than scheduled. How do you expect us to justify cancelling our 3rd flight over nine hours ahead of time while 2 earlier flights departed? I'll let your own imagination deal with that paradox.

[Neil]

Virj - first thanks for replying to this and trying to put forward how the situation was for you guys. I reported the events of the day as they were from the pax point of view. I spoke with a good number of people from the flight and all were of the same opinion on the handling by Virgin.

I am sure you will have gathered from my TR that the biggest problem we all had was misinformation whilst on the a/c (not JFK ground crews fault), and then complete lack of information once back in the terminal. One announcement, and that which half the pax couldn't hear because of the baggage belt sirens, in over 14 hours is indefensible in my opinion.

Please don't belittle my colleagues. I know exactly of whom you're speaking about and believe me that hiding in a corner is an incredibly inappropriate thing to say.

I am not trying to belittle this guy, and I know he was there from before the original flight until after the new flight left, but he WAS stood in a corner for over 2 hours, I saw him, he was dealing with the very small number of pax who actually found him, like I did and he seemed more the comfortable dealing with the few, rather than the 'mob' shall we say.

Our other alternative to massively tranferring all those people would have been to ask every one of those passengers to queue up again and check in again. Besides, the discrepancy only included about 14 passengers and was, in fact, handled quickly. Your claim doesn't line up with your times. If it occurred around 6:45 and you pushed at 7:30, I only count 45 minutes and not over an hour. Still an inconvenience, but better than having everyone wait another 2+ hours on queue with the other 900 passengers checking in for that days' flights.

But we did all queue up and check in again! I know, I did it, we were allocated new seats, had new boarding cards printed, new luggage tags put on, everything we did the first time around. We were told to do this by the guy mentioned above. Every pax did this so what you are saying still does not make sense.

My timings are correct, the time the Captain made the announcement does not mean this was the time the problem had started to be dealt with, just the time he told us about it, and in keeping form with all his other announcements, it will have been well after the event started.

Like I said, thanks for posting, and I know the situation can't have been easy for you either, especially with the amount of connecting flight pax that needed sorting. I still feel overall the ground staff at JFK were very poor in the handling of the problems and a few small changes could and would have made things a lot easy for both the pax and you. Hindsights a wonderful thing I guess!

Neil

Neil,

Sorry about that... my initial post was inaccurate - it has been edited appropriately, as I've forgotten certain details (like the fact that you did have to check-in again). Again, sorry and I have edited it appropriately.

My apologies also on lashing out about my colleague. Initially, I thought that was a jab, but you've cleared that up and I see you understand why he was in fact hiding from the mob [:)]

I agree about the lack of communication to the passengers from the ground crew.. it could've been better handled, but things were literally being done on the fly and it only tends to further irritate already disrupted passengers if what we say becomes more and more inaccurate. No excuse, though and believe me that that particular night/day is on extensive review at JFK station.

I've also fixed the reply regarding the pax discrepancy on board. Whether your times were accurate or not doesn't matter, as apparently I cannot recall it all clearly.

To be perfectly honest with you, I do appretiate your perspective (as well as everyone else's) and it does make a difference!

My original intent with this post was to lend some insight into our station's ways of thinking and dealing and not to patronize any of our passengers. However, sometimes I do let loose and will keep in mind that it is your perspective that matters, not ours [:D]

And yes, hindsight is always 20/20 [:I]

Thanks for your input!

Originally posted by Virj
On top of all that went wrong, the VS25, inbound from London diverted to Boston and then cancelled there due to crew hours as well. That flight was meant to take out the VS26, our lovely 7am departure, leaving us (a handful of exhausted staff) to now worry about an *additional* 300 passengers that were meant to leave at 0730 local time but never did.

Shame that the VS46 wasn't booked for an Airbus that day. The Airbus off the 46 could have then gone out as the 26, I suppose?

I wonder if, when it was known the VS26 would be cancelled, the VS people somewhere in the world could ring pax on their contact number (usually, one of the contact numbers is supposed to work when they are en-route, I always give my mobile for that reason), and tell them of the delay on the VS26. This will have been known about midnight EST, when the crew timed out at BOS. At least this would cut down on the number of people the JFK ground staff would have to worry about, and more station staff could get some rest?

I remember coming back from HKG years ago and the flight was going to be heavily delayed (like 10 hours). BA phoned us up earlier in the day and told us not to come to Kai Tak (giving you an indication of how far back this was) at the normal time, as the flight was running late. The added advantage of phoning people up was that the station at HKG could be given an idea of how many people had been reached, so they would know what sort of numbers they were dealing with that would still turn up and expect the flight to operate on schedule.

And if this sort of precognitive talent was had by anyone, we'd be living in a perfect world... which we're not. Not to mention that 2 flights before the VS10, the VS4 and VS46 went off without a hitch, albeit a little later than scheduled. How do you expect us to justify cancelling our 3rd flight over nine hours ahead of time while 2 earlier flights departed?

It's commonly known that JFK becomes unglued very rapidly if severe WX hits during the evening rush hour, when the departure sequence is normally something like 20-odd aircraft long and they've got flow controls in place. By your own admission, you said that both the VS4 and VS46 got off late, likely due to the WX and metering?

The 'precognitive talent' you speak of is exactly this, recognising ahead of time and adding up the situations that influence something like this - weather forecasts, local influences, crewing, pax loads - and trying to second guess the situation you're put in, and have more options available to you other than 'run the flight until it's illegal'.

I'm talking about having options such as delaying until early the next morning, or bringing forward the departure time to try and get underway sooner, ahead of the weather, though I guess that's a challenge with VS10, because you're dependant on the inbound aircraft which doesn't arrive until about 7pm. Just something which minimises pax inconvenience, and stress on aircrew and station staff. You already commented on the phenomenal hours worked by people that day. A touch more foresight might have avoided some of it.

Even if it had got to the point where everyone had checked-in, and then there was the thunderstorm and the lightning strike, it should have been pretty obvious to more people than just the flight crew that there was very little chance of getting away that evening within crew hours because of the metering that was no doubt taking place at that point, right?

Would it have been better to admit defeat at this point, if it was almost certain there was no way of circumventing the metering and jumping the queue? At least then VS could have aimed for an earlier pushback time for the VS110, to try and get out before the rush starts in earnest on the next day, even if not being able to stand down the flight until the next morning.

I think that was what I was trying to get at. I know there's something in the British psyche that usually makes us flog the proverbial dead horse, but there's a time to admit defeat, right? [;)]

Maybe it should be a three-way decision between station management, flight ops, and the aircraft crew, as to what chance a flight has of actually operating in such a circumstance, rather than sticking to 'standard policy' of trying to force the flight to run until the crew run out of hours.

Anyway, thanks for decloaking, and being forthcoming about the unenviable situation you were in. It's really hard to place a value on the contribution of people such as yourself, but it's very high.

Ground crew are often the unsung heroes of the whole thing, and considering we spend up to 12 hours at a time with the aircraft crews, while we only spend a handful of minutes with the people on the ground, the ground staff normally only have a short time to make an impression, be it good or bad.

I'm really glad to hear there is a review taking place of what happened to see if anything could have been done better or differently.

Thanks for taking the time to contribute.

Cheers,
Mike

I wonder if, when it was known the VS26 would be cancelled, the VS people somewhere in the world could ring pax on their contact number (usually, one of the contact numbers is supposed to work when they are en-route, I always give my mobile for that reason), and tell them of the delay on the VS26. This will have been known about midnight EST, when the crew timed out at BOS. At least this would cut down on the number of people the JFK ground staff would have to worry about, and more station staff could get some rest?

I remember coming back from HKG years ago and the flight was going to be heavily delayed (like 10 hours). BA phoned us up earlier in the day and told us not to come to Kai Tak (giving you an indication of how far back this was) at the normal time, as the flight was running late. The added advantage of phoning people up was that the station at HKG could be given an idea of how many people had been reached, so they would know what sort of numbers they were dealing with that would still turn up and expect the flight to operate on schedule.

FWIW, I have been called by VS before when returning from Orlando regarding a 5 hour flight delay. Was quite impressed, but was travelling UC. I always wondered how far down the flight list they went.

There are plenty of airlines that have the facility to send a text message to update on flight status - if VS were to invest a little to do this it might help ... however I think UC and Au's should get a call if there is likely to be a substantial delay, just as you experienced.

Shame that the VS46 wasn't booked for an Airbus that day. The Airbus off the 46 could have then gone out as the 26, I suppose?

Bingo. But then agian, the VS46 is very rarely an A346.

I wonder if, when it was known the VS26 would be cancelled, the VS people somewhere in the world could ring pax on their contact number (usually, one of the contact numbers is supposed to work when they are en-route, I always give my mobile for that reason), and tell them of the delay on the VS26. This will have been known about midnight EST, when the crew timed out at BOS. At least this would cut down on the number of people the JFK ground staff would have to worry about, and more station staff could get some rest?

This is actually standard procedure for us. However, due to the nature of the disruption, along with the time that it happened, it wasn't all that possible. Pax contact is handled by our reservations department, which is pretty much a 9-5 op and the airport doesn't have the resources (i.e. staff) to do it themselves.. not to mention that there was no time with the events of the VS110.

I always wondered how far down the flight list they went.

Every passenger (in every class of service) with a contact number is called in the event of a disruption. Many pax either don't have a contact telephone number (only e-mail), while quite a few others never receive our messages. A significant number do, though, provided we know about the disruption quite a bit in advance.

The 'precognitive talent' you speak of is exactly this, recognising ahead of time and adding up the situations that influence something like this - weather forecasts, local influences, crewing, pax loads - and trying to second guess the situation you're put in, and have more options available to you other than 'run the flight until it's illegal'.

I'm talking about having options such as delaying until early the next morning, or bringing forward the departure time to try and get underway sooner, ahead of the weather, though I guess that's a challenge with VS10, because you're dependant on the inbound aircraft which doesn't arrive until about 7pm. Just something which minimises pax inconvenience, and stress on aircrew and station staff. You already commented on the phenomenal hours worked by people that day. A touch more foresight might have avoided some of it.

There were certain other factors at work. Believe me, if we were absolutely convinced the flight was not going to go, this is precisely the course of action we would have taken. I won't get into details here, but the major contributing factor to the disruption (other than the root cause of weather) was the late fueling of the aircraft.

Our sheer bloody-mindedness at having to try to depart the flight was purely the result of knowing that we could not accommodate the pax by any means... a scenario that inevitably did happen. Left with no options, we *needed* for that plane to go. And it didn't. The resulting frenzy... you've witnessed it.

Even if it had got to the point where everyone had checked-in, and then there was the thunderstorm and the lightning strike, it should have been pretty obvious to more people than just the flight crew that there was very little chance of getting away that evening within crew hours because of the metering that was no doubt taking place at that point, right?

Yes and no. Considering we base our operations on the word of ATC and the experiences of other airlines in the terminal, we were actually pretty convinced that the flight would depart. There were departures going on. Come time for VS110 to go, we ran out of time.

if it was almost certain there was no way of circumventing the metering and jumping the queue?

Jumping the queue was discussed at length between JFK ops and ATC, but certain other forces hampered this request.

but there's a time to admit defeat, right?

Neva! [:p] Only kidding.

Maybe it should be a three-way decision between station management, flight ops, and the aircraft crew, as to what chance a flight has of actually operating in such a circumstance, rather than sticking to 'standard policy' of trying to force the flight to run until the crew run out of hours.

It typically is, provided we have the proper resources and accommodation to deal with a cancellation.

Anyway, thanks for decloaking, and being forthcoming about the unenviable situation you were in. It's really hard to place a value on the contribution of people such as yourself, but it's very high.

Thank you and anytime [:)]

Originally posted by Virj

Shame that the VS46 wasn't booked for an Airbus that day. The Airbus off the 46 could have then gone out as the 26, I suppose?

Bingo. But then agian, the VS46 is very rarely an A346.

...and I meant the VS9/10, which I think you probably guessed. I meant 'whichever aircraft overnighted at Kennedy that evening'.

This is actually standard procedure for us. However, due to the nature of the disruption, along with the time that it happened, it wasn't all that possible. Pax contact is handled by our reservations department, which is pretty much a 9-5 op and the airport doesn't have the resources (i.e. staff) to do it themselves.. not to mention that there was no time with the events of the VS110.

Understood, you've already got jobs to do. It's a shame that given VS is a 24x7 operation with outposts all over the world, that there isn't better provision for this. However, I know it's been this way a long time before VS had operations all over the place, and it's saddening that it's still the case today.

Our sheer bloody-mindedness at having to try to depart the flight was purely the result of knowing that we could not accommodate the pax by any means... a scenario that inevitably did happen. Left with no options, we *needed* for that plane to go. And it didn't. The resulting frenzy... you've witnessed it.



Considering we base our operations on the word of ATC and the experiences of other airlines in the terminal, we were actually pretty convinced that the flight would depart. There were departures going on. Come time for VS110 to go, we ran out of time.

Jumping the queue was discussed at length between JFK ops and ATC, but certain other forces hampered this request.

Backed into a corner, your team didn't really have much choice. The best result was a departure that evening, however late it was. Understood.

The only way it seems that the sequence events would have been averted would have been moving the departure time back to say midnight, as a planned delay, much sooner in the day, and before the crew pickup was scheduled - to prevent the crew timing out, and that would only work if enough was known about the thunderstorm in advance, and I've no idea how accurate the TAF for Kennedy was that day.

Mike