"Air passengers condemn plane wait"

http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/articles.aspx ... =153888476

Just seen this story on MSN.

Also in the Daily Mail now!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldne ... hours.html

Some of the comments left in both pieces are ridiculous.

Its a bit hard for an airline to have a contingency (as per the last para of the DM story) for things like this happening if it is forced to land at an airport it has no control over or contacts at or history with !

Nor could VS really do anything else. It was a plane landing at a strange airport and in the hands of US officials.

And some of the US passengers will be better off trying to get some common sense into the regulations than going to the press.

Should have just told the complainers to get off and take their chances with gun weilding security.

I really don't understand some people's need to immediately go to the press. VA should just say 'sorry, we had to do what we were told - out of our hands' and left it at that.

I am surprised they didn't divert to JFK, or was the weather bad there too?

And some of the US passengers will be better off trying to get some common sense into the regulations than going to the press.

I agree that the press is bad form on the part of some of the passengers however I fail to see what showed a lack of common sense on the part of the US authorities. If we break down the events, rather crudely, it becomes clear that the US authorities/VS did the best given the situation.

So plane lands at an airport with part time immigration officials. ATC direct the plane to a remote stand as this assists with the handling of the aircraft and keeps it "sterile". Local authorities (normally a law enforcement officer of some sort) visits the aircraft. VS/ATC work out if EWR will re-open. At the point of realisation that EWR wont re-open, the local authorities ask part time staff back. Part time staff arrive back in c. an hour and set up. They then de-plane the aircraft. THis doesn't even take into account the paperwork and so on that will be required (you can bet that the people at Bradley would not handle the plane until they knew VS could pay!).

I dont really see any better way to handle the situation on the part of the US authorities. There goal is to keep the plane sterile and the passengers in one location in order to process them. They will also be mindful that a) the plane could end up going to EWR anyway and b) that de-planing etc will cost the airline money something which it may not wish to do if they just get them all back on board to fly down to EWR.

Having been on a plane that has been diverted due to bad weather, it is a royal pain in the backside, but there is nothing that can be done. In my experience after a three hour wait we were on our way, one would be shocked at just how much time even the most brief divert takes up.

Was that the on the day of their 26th birthday too and VS001 being the first flight (From Gatwick then I know)? A pointless comment I know but it made me smile.

[Darren Wheeler]

Bradley International Airport = Toronto and Montreal. Not quite my definition of International

I'm sorry but 4 hours with no air con is criminal.
Why didn't the captian keep the engines on so he could keep the aircon on? Had he no fuel left? Why didn't he refuel? To save money?

I'm sorry but VS do have blame to take for this too.

If you really care about your customers you do everything possible to make them comfortable and if your're penny pinching by keeping the engines off then that's not on.

I wonder how efficient the air-con is just running on the APU - when we boarded our return flight from MCO back in May, the plane had been baking on the tarmac in MCO for 3hrs (with window blinds on the sunny side closed) - the aircraft was warm! Admittedly, this was a 747, but it was a very warm 747.

James

[Darren Wheeler]

The APU is designed to run the A/C at a very minimal level to cover the boarding period. Full A/C only kicks in when the engines are running above idle.

You can't have the engines spooled up while static for long due to risks of Foreign Object Damage and they are simple not designed to do so. It's not a matter of cost, but sucking anything into an engine can cause a lot of damage and is risky.

I'm sorry Darren I just don't buy that at all

First of all it sounds like there wouldn't be much to suck in at that"airport"

Secondly if you want to turn the engines on and are worried about stuff getting sucked in you warn ground operations and the tower

Thirdly you can always taxi to a remote area where there is nothing to suck in

Airports are designed for planes with running engines, lets not defend VS to the extreme even when it's clear they could have handled things much better

I guess I should be thankful. I was on VS01 to EWR the day before (Monday) and it was perfectly on time. Phew! No stopover in Canada for me.

[Darren Wheeler]

I'm still at a loss to see how they could have handled it better.

An A340-600 with 300+ passengers and crew arrives unannounced at an airport that VS don't have any ground staff at. They are then in the hands of local staff who, on the face of it, have sent the aircraft to a remote stand and made it clear that until all the immigration and customs officials arrive to complete the legal niceties, on-one is getting off the plane.

The International part of BDL is limited to flight to Canada using Beech 1900 and Dash-1 aircraft, hence the immigration/customs not being able to cope.

willd

I'm not saying that proper security / immegration procedes should have been done away with but there does need to be a little commeon sense. All the pax and crew had been security cleared at LHR and the staff at the airport too - so what was to stop the pax being off loaded into an empty gate area or water etc being taken out to the plane if a gate was not an option?

I know these issues are tricky to handle but it seams to me that some of the current procedures need to be revised.

Francesco

yes airports are designed to deal with planes with running engines but only for specific purposes - essentially take off, taxi and landing. Engines are not designed to be run for long periods on the ground - not only for fuel efficiency but also for polution / noise reasons.

There is plenty for an engine to 'suck in' at an airport even a small one.

Airports are not sterile places they are essentially industrial complexes and bits do fall off planes, get blown in from outside or things can fall off the many vehicles that are used at an airport - thats why there are regular runway checks.

There are also plenty of birds who seam to find airports to be ideal homes so there is a risk of sucking in a bird or two and even a small bird can cause a great deal of damage. I have yet to see a bird read let alone take any notice of a no entry sign.

Jeffers
JFK is 36 miles by car and probably 20 miles as the crow flies from EWR.

[honey lamb]

I guess I should be thankful. I was on VS01 to EWR the day before (Monday) and it was perfectly on time. Phew! No stopover in Canada for me.

Bradley is not in Canada - it's in Connecticut, which when I went to school was in the USA

Bradley International Airport = Toronto and Montreal. Not quite my definition of International

Darren, while I would agree with you in principle, flights from Montreal and Quebec, albeit on dinky aircraft require Customs and Immigration and therefore have International status. There are probably larger and busier airports in the US which have only domestic flights but do not have that status.

[Scrooge]

Its a bit hard for an airline to have a contingency (as per the last para of the DM story) for things like this happening if it is forced to land at an airport it has no control over or contacts at or history with !

Nor could VS really do anything else. It was a plane landing at a strange airport and in the hands of US officials.

And some of the US passengers will be better off trying to get some common sense into the regulations than going to the press.

I'm still at a loss to see how they could have handled it better.

Actually I have to disagree with you both, the really simple answer is/was not to divert to Bradley, but to Boston instead, Boston was open, it has the facilities to handle the flight, there really isn't a good reason to go to Bradley except...oh hang on....Landing fee's.

Sorry, but VS is going to get pie on their face for this one and IMHO rightly so, with the way the American/ Uk traveling public is now days, spending this amount of time on the tarmac just isn't in the cards.

[honey lamb]

Its a bit hard for an airline to have a contingency (as per the last para of the DM story) for things like this happening if it is forced to land at an airport it has no control over or contacts at or history with !

Nor could VS really do anything else. It was a plane landing at a strange airport and in the hands of US officials.

And some of the US passengers will be better off trying to get some common sense into the regulations than going to the press.

I'm still at a loss to see how they could have handled it better.

Actually I have to disagree with you both, the really simple answer is/was not to divert to Bradley, but to Boston instead, Boston was open, it has the facilities to handle the flight, there really isn't a good reason to go to Bradley except...oh hang on....Landing fee's.

Sorry, but VS is going to get pie on their face for this one and IMHO rightly so, with the way the American/ Uk traveling public is now days, spending this amount of time on the tarmac just isn't in the cards.

You can't argue with that

+1. I'm also still wondering why VS 1 was not diverted to BOS or even IAD, where VS has facilities at both airports and all of the international airport stuff (customs, immigration, etc.) are all there.

Jeffers
JFK is 36 miles by car and probably 20 miles as the crow flies from EWR.

napamatt

Thanks for the info but I am aware of where the two airports are. I was querying why the VS01 didn't divert to JFK or was the weather bad there too?

JFK is not acceptable as a planned alternate field due to the phenomenal levels of rush hour traffic that field experiences. Add in to this that JFK currently has one runway out of operation for reconstruction, and is likely to have a shared destiny to EWR in terms of weather and related delays.

Pretty much the same as the authorities frown on folks filing Heathrow as a planned alternate for anything landing in the UK.

Bradley and Newburgh/Stewart are both reasonable choices for diverts in the New York area, in terms of runway length and ground handling ability for heavy jets, this despite being "secondary" airports, and possibly not having full-time CBP presence.

Diverting to BOS may seem sensible, but BOS could have already been backed up with existing diverts from the NYC area. As for IAD, that tends to share it's fate with EWR and PHL during summer thunderstorms.

Quite why there wasn't ground air conditioning provided, I don't know. I'd be very surprised if the ground handler at BDL didn't have a suitable ground air conditioning unit.

From reports, VS seem to be particularly poor at activating what other airlines would consider standard contingencies during ground delays.

"Excuses" about VS getting "no service until the airport know they will get paid", while it might be true for transient aircraft, is just utter BS for airlines such as VS. VS have accounts with large global handlers such as Servisair and Swissport for exactly this reason.

There are things that can be done to ease ground delays, and if these reports are to be believed, they were not done. Typical false optimism of "Oh, we'll be going soon.", "Oh, we'll be getting off soon." Why do us Brits practice such optimistic denial?

Mike

I spent an hour and a half sitting on the tarmac in EWR on Tuesday night as departure was delayed because of weather. I had watched the storm from the Presidents Club, but it had long passed before the flight was boarded on time, around 20.45. The subsequent delay was due to the weather system still lingering in the flight path and I think all other flights heading east were similarly affected. However, I think I'd rather spend significantly longer stuck in a VS plane than have ever have to endure one second longer than necessary on board a Continental aircraft. I have never encountered a crew which showed so much disdain, bordering on the openly hostile, towards their passengers. It was a jaw-droppingly, unbelievable experience and one I hope I never have to repeat.

Boston was open, it has the facilities to handle the flight, there really isn't a good reason to go to Bradley except...oh hang on....Landing fee's

I am curious about this--would it really have made sense to make international news by doing so? Bradley is my closest domestic "home" airport in western Massachusetts, and actually a very good one despite some fierce veteran TSA staff.
We have had some very violent storms the past few days--including a tornado in Bridgeport, CT which might have been directly in the normal flight path of a plane coming down through Canada to Newark. It has also been extremely warm-well in the high 30's and I imagine it was miserable on the plane with no circulating air as well as being sat on a hot tarmac in humid weather.
What makes Bradley international are Canadian, Mexican and Caribbean flights along with KLM's brief AMS showing. Most intl pax shuttle to NY or Philly. Jet Blue, which does a lot of DR and PR trips will be at Bradley soon as well. Virgin America, not.
I think people are pretty touchy about being trapped anywhere, these days.