VS25 technical problems

I imagine in that situation the pilot has many more important issues that he has to sort rather than to pop to McDonalds and order 300 Big Macs.

Once the aircraft is on the ground safely it's difficult to see what issue could be more important than the wellbeing of 250 people who beleive they are stranded in the middle of relative nowhere, mind.

That said if somebody had ordered 250 pizzas the media would simply have carried stupid stories about 'STRANDED OVERNIGHT AND INSULTED WITH TAKEAWAY PIZZA' or something - whatever they tried to do if it wasn't a room at a holiday inn and a slap up meal for each passenger, somebody would have complained it wasn't good enough.

That said surely something is better than 'Whatever, sleep on the floor'.

[Neil]

I imagine in that situation the pilot has many more important issues that he has to sort rather than to pop to McDonalds and order 300 Big Macs.

Once the aircraft is on the ground safely it's difficult to see what issue could be more important than the wellbeing of 250 people who beleive they are stranded in the middle of relative nowhere, mind.

As I posted above, while the well being of the pax is important, it's an issue for the ground agents that VS will pay to sort, not something the pilot will ever get involved in. The pilots will have to secure the aircraft, liaise with the ops dept in the UK and the on ground maintenance teams, and ultimately his main job is to get his a/c back in the sky as soon as possible.

[Darren Wheeler]

That said surely something is better than 'Whatever, sleep on the floor'.

1. I don't think anyone said that.
2. Like what? There were no hotel rooms available. The airport has no accommodation. As some book said, no room at the inn, kip in the stable.

A lot of the press reports equate runway capacity with airport facility capacity.

It landed around 23:00 local so pretty much everything would be closed, and could the Gander McDonalds have even fed 270 people at that time?

That said surely something is better than 'Whatever, sleep on the floor'.

But what was the alternative??

I did a google search and there are 7 hotels in Gander and the DM report says they were already all full - backed up by this CBC report. So the safest place for people would have been to stay at the airport.

Was it ideal? No of course not but there really was no practical alternative to what actually happened.

This is getting trivialised. VS knew that the plane was diverting and while I totally agree that it is not the cabin or flight deck cc's responsibility to handle on the ground arrangements, and it is right that they are separate from the passengers, VS had a dut of care to the passengers. I don't know the detail but VS managers should have found any airline's ground crew to assist, in any way possible and especially so if no hotels could be found.

Darren, I'm also interested in whether the passengers were kept airside, I imagine that would be very difficult to police. I know that I would have gone landslide and found a hotel without expecting VS to do it for me.

I don't know the detail but VS managers should have found any airline's ground crew to assist, in any way possible and especially so if no hotels could be found.

I can't honestly see what more VS - or any airline acting on their behalf - could have done.

As far as I can make out Gander is a small provincial airport with about 9 pairs of flights a day, the last departure being mid-afternoon so there wouldn't have been many ground staff on hand. And if there were no departures for 6 hours before the VS flight landed, presumably catering options at the airport were very limited.

In a situation like that, asking the passengers to sleep at the airport with the promise to refund food and drink expenses seems pretty much all they could have done. As you say, VS has a duty of care and while far from ideal, keeping them together in a safe airport strikes me as far more preferable than turfing them out into a small, remote Canadian town in the middle of the night with no prospect of finding a hotel room and expecting them to fend for themselves. That really would be neglecting their duty of care.

I know that I would have gone landslide and found a hotel without expecting VS to do it for me.

That's assuming you could. Would Canadian customs and immigration even be open at that time of night? Toronto this ain't.

Taking this incident aside, it is the contingency planning that seems to be poor. Its not just VS that get caught out when the wheel comes off but it is how the industry handles things going forward. For instance airlines can soon form alliances, or code share or interlining agreements when it is revenue driven, so why can't they draw up ground staff, emergency panning management/assistance agreements so that when an airlines aircraft is stranded away from an operating base the passengers an be cared for.

I've no doubt they do have contingency plans. And I imagine that, in the event of no hotel rooms being available, that plan involves keeping passengers where they'd be safest - the airport. Which is what they did, with a promise of a refund for meals and refreshments.

What do you suggest? Booking hundreds of hotel rooms near every airport in the world every night and keeping them on standby just in case?

No-one would choose to sleep on an airport floor but that, it seems, is all there was in Gander that night. What would you have done?

Taking this incident aside, it is the contingency planning that seems to be poor. Its not just VS that get caught out when the wheel comes off but it is how the industry handles things going forward. For instance airlines can soon form alliances, or code share or interlining agreements when it is revenue driven, so why can't they draw up ground staff, emergency panning management/assistance agreements so that when an airlines aircraft is stranded away from an operating base the passengers an be cared for.

Quite. It was 90 minutes from JFK and presumably even closer to BOS. No Delta aircraft available for a same night pickup...?

If this had been Ryan Air or BA then perhaps we wouldn't have been defending terrible customer service. This is not a dig at VS but at an industry that fails to pan for these unavoidable invents where aircaft have to divert to airport where there is no dedicated ground staff. v( v(

It's not something you can isolate to a specific airline

[Darren Wheeler]

Quite. It was 90 minutes from JFK and presumably even closer to BOS. No Delta aircraft available for a same night pickup...?

Or more accurately, No plane and crew. No good having one without the other.

So from another point of view the possible alternatives...

- Push on to a bigger airfield, risk running out of fuel and crash on the approach. You fancy that option?
- Have the cabin and flight deck crew take care of the pax - but they are working and guess what they just used up their flight duty time. Want to spend another night without a hotel room waiting for their legally required rest period to end?

This was an EMERGENCY diversion. The only reason they coped on 911 is because the residents took people into their homes. Bit much to ask them to do that for every diversion.

PW

[honey lamb]

This was an EMERGENCY diversion. The only reason they coped on 911 is because the residents took people into their homes. Bit much to ask them to do that for every diversion.

PW

And it lasted for several days as opposed to hours.

If the options were given to me at 35000 ft I think I would gladly have taken the sleep at gander airport one every time !

If the options were given to me at 35000 ft I think I would gladly have taken the sleep at gander airport one every time !

I agree
These things happen and I'm pretty sure the airlines do have procedures in place but I agree with what has been said up thread that it was a small provincial airport, practically the middle of the night, I think the best and safest option was keep pax airside. Which is what VS did.
I don't think there is much more that could have been done tbh. Also it was a "few" hours delay.