Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time.....

[Blackhawk]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

when something like this happens, i try to think what i would have done in that situation. In this case, theres nothing else that could have been done. Jtrain is right. From a 121 stand point, the best outcome are some pissed off pax. Once the pilot asked for police, there was nothing he could have really done other than start the plane and ram it through the terminal.

Not to rip on the pax, but do you go to a two star hotel and expect five star service? You wont get a limo ride to the bag claim for a 300 dollar ticket.

Exactly. For those who say "Evacuate the airplane", I really wonder if you have ever worked a day in your life. We had some sayings in the military. "An OPORD (Operation Order), never survives first enemy contact." "Always brief to the lowest common denominator."
The idea that a group of passengers, a group that probably includes infants, toddlers and elderly; one or two smart people but some really, really dumb people, can be safely and methodically evacuated down emergency slides from an airplane in a driving blizzard without hazard borders on the ludicrous. I really wonder about the ability of some of you to handle the decision making necessary to be a pilot. At a minimum a pilot doing something like that would face some very pointed questions from the FAA.

 

[Blackhawk]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

Well, you can always tell when someone's on the losing end of a discussion. They have to resort to something such as this.

Okay, we're done. I don't "partake" in discussions when it heads toward the personal.

Just calling it as I see it. I lived in El Paso for a number of years and saw how the city dealt with cold weather and snow. To suggest that a city that shuts down if there is just a hint of possible snow could handle a blizzard dumping 32" of snow and numerous airplanes diverting in at the same time... well, what would you call it? Logical???:insane:
BTW, how many snow plows DOES KELP have? (I think one). How many deice trucks (I think I counted two)? But yeah, you're right. They could handle it.

 

[Bandit_Driver]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

It doesn't sound like it!

I'm not sure how long I could or would just sit. That emergency slide would start looking pretty good after a very short time period.................

Some planes have slides on the over wing exits, and the E170/190 doesn't have owever wing exits. Just be sure grab a beer from galley before going out the door.

Cracking down on whom? Should we punish the airlines if the airport does not have the proper facilities to support unusual operations such as this? I don't know all the details, but it sounds as if Hartford Airport got overwhelmed, not JetBlue. It was the airport that lost power, not JetBlue. It was the airport that did not have the stairs to service remote airplanes, not JetBlue. An airline can only put an airplane in a spot that is available, they can't crap the spot or make it out of thin air. I'm reminded of seeing a bunch of international flights diverting into Augusta, Georgia. The place was not made to handle a large number of international flights. Heck, the FBO did not even know how to fuel some of the airplanes and the airport did not have the facilities to deplane the pax. Was it the fault of the airlines that the pax were stranded for hours or the airport's fault?

Going to an Alternate isn't normal but then I think the Airline should shoulder some of the blame for following its flights close enough and selecting better suited alternates.

Time to start putting built in airstairs back in the plane (727, some 737's, DC-9's). If it got bad enough the E word is always an option.

 

[BobDDuck]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

I'm guessing they are going to point some fingers at the FAA as well. Both EWR and JFK were having problems with some of their ILSes around this time, which probably contributed to the number of diverts.

 

[jtrain609]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

I'm guessing they are going to point some fingers at the FAA as well. Both EWR and JFK were having problems with some of their ILSes around this time, which probably contributed to the number of diverts.

One of Newark's glide slopes also bit the dust while this was going on.

The FAA has been out checking the approaches at EWR and TEB over the last few weeks in their Lear.

 

[Blackhawk]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

Some planes have slides on the over wing exits, and the E170/190 doesn't have owever wing exits. Just be sure grab a beer from galley before going out the door.



Going to an Alternate isn't normal but then I think the Airline should shoulder some of the blame for following its flights close enough and selecting better suited alternates.

Time to start putting built in airstairs back in the plane (727, some 737's, DC-9's). If it got bad enough the E word is always an option.

Oh, so you have a time line available that shows when the airplanes diverted and when the problems started at the airport? I have not seen this. Could you give me a link? Or are you just assuming that the problems occurred prior to the diversion? Or that the dispatchers should have known that the alternate airport, which was still open, might lose power and not be able to support the airplanes that were inbound?
As for declaring the "E" word... so that would have done... what? No power, no airstairs, no fuel, driving blizzard. Shoot the pax including infants, todlers and elderly, down the chutes into a driving blizzard. Maybe get the pax in the terminal where there is no heat, no lighting. Good plan.
Installing airstairs in the airplanes? That is weight. Weight=higher cost aquisition, higher operating cost, lower profits for everyone. Another brilliant idea.

 

[derg]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

Blame Newark, a major international airport and hub of the northeast and New York City, for causing flights to divert. The USA needs to improve its infrastructure, or this will continue to happen.

That... that.... that costs money though!

 

[Blackhawk]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

Again, I want to emphasize that I am not defending JetBlue, I'm just tired of this lynch mob mentality of wanting someone to hang before the facts are out. If this were an aircraft accident we would all state that we should wait for the investigation to come out with the facts before laying blame on someone.
Also, some of you need to really think through (or "war game"), possible solutions before taking action. Think of sending your 80 year old mother down a slide into a driving blizzard where you have no idea where she will go next. If you were not at Bradley Airport that evening in a position to see what was going on, what was available, then your "solutions" are worthless. The pilots in this case did the right thing. People were inconvenienced, but no one was hurt. That is the number one goal.

 

[BobDDuck]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

Again, I want to emphasize that I am not defending JetBlue, I'm just tired of this lynch mob mentality of wanting someone to hang before the facts are out. If this were an aircraft accident we would all state that we should wait for the investigation to come out with the facts before laying blame on someone.

That's all well and good, but the issue people are raising, is why was it 6 JetBlue aircraft that violated the DOT 3 hour rule that night and NOT ONE OTHER COMPANY had that problem... not even for ONE airplane.

 

[Blackhawk]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

That's all well and good, but the issue people are raising, is why was it 6 JetBlue aircraft that violated the DOT 3 hour rule that night and NOT ONE OTHER COMPANY had that problem... not even for ONE airplane.

Not true. Get your facts straight. AAL and Swiss International, also at Bradley, were stuck. Again, was the problem with Bradley or JetBlue? Where is your proof that the problem was with JetBlue and not Bradley, or are you just running at the mouth? Present actual facts about the conditions at Bradley and what JetBlue actually could have done differently instead of speculation. For example, some have said the airplane should have refueled and taken off. It's come out that the airport initially refueled five aircraft, then could not refuel any more airplanes so that was not an option.
It has come out that part of the problem was that Bradley was running a skeleton crew as they had sent most people home early to avoid the blizzard. The airport also did not have a plan in place for passengers who were stuck at the airport.

 

[BobDDuck]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

An airport's job is to keep the runways and taxiways clear and to provide ATC services if applicable. Also they are sometimes responsible for the jetways (although sometimes the airlines own them outright). The airline is responsible for their ops otherwise. If that airport couldn't support that number of diverts, they should have changed the alternates to someplace else. I agree, once the planes were on the ground, there wasn't much they could do about it, but the situation should never have gotten that far.

 

[inigo88]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

It's funny.

Some years ago (approaching 8 years), I was operating a scheduled flight for, well, We'll call them "Codeshare X", into BDL. As luck did had it, I had a whole flight crew of "Airline X"s in back scheduled to take a plane out. It was a pretty rough snowstorm, much like in the B6 situation.

Well, Airline X had 2 gates in BDL, both occupied by Airline Xs metal. My chariot required a jetbridge or external stairs.

Now, the following ordeal was about 3 hours on the ground. I was remotely parked to get all this sorted out. After calling into OPS, they said they WOULD NOT remove Airline X's plane (which the outbound crew for was on my airplane, mind you) off the gate since it was to depart prior to me coming into the gate. After my epic facepalm, I was in contact with my dispatch. We used ACARS and cell phones to try to get this straightened out. This was the last flight of my day too, so one of my colleagues was inside the terminal working on the issue as well.

At this point, we're in contact with Airline X's station, dispatch and everyone. I kept Airline X's crew informed through the FAs, who were calling their airline SOC too. The station refused to move the one plane off the gate so I could park.

Eventually, as we were also a codeshare with Airline Y who operated the same fleet type, they stepped up and let us park on their gate to deplane.

Needless to say, I was not a happy guy. Of course I filed the appropriate reports, and there was never any feedback to me.

It's not just B6.

THANK YOU for breaking this down! From the outside looking in it's obvious that airlines have the necessary means of communication to sort these types of situations out. And when it comes to calling in a favor from another company, I wasn't sure how much of the time they actually stepped up, or tried to throw you under the bus to steal your customers for next time.

 

[Blackhawk]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

An airport's job is to keep the runways and taxiways clear and to provide ATC services if applicable. Also they are sometimes responsible for the jetways (although sometimes the airlines own them outright). The airline is responsible for their ops otherwise. If that airport couldn't support that number of diverts, they should have changed the alternates to someplace else. I agree, once the planes were on the ground, there wasn't much they could do about it, but the situation should never have gotten that far.

REALLY??? Wow. I did not know you have visited all the airports in the world. Let's see.... deice is usually run by the airport. Fuel is sometimes run by the airport, sometimes run by a third party, on very rare occasions run by the airplane. Oops. So much for that part.
Upkeep of the terminals... almost always run by the airport authority. Oops. So much for that part as well.
Your last point, once again, shows your ignorance about airline operations unless you have an actual time line for when the airplanes diverted and when the problem was recognized on the ground and information was passed to JetBlue operations. Since you made that allegation on a public website, I do assume you have that, right? Or are you making unsubstantiated accusations against a company on a public forum? Yeah, lynch 'em. Let's grab a rope and have us a good hangin'.
BTW, the captain involved apparently initially told the pax as they were holding to go into Newark that they only had 30 minutes of fuel left and Bradley was an hour away. Pax panicked until he got back on the PA and corrected himself.

 

[SpiceWeasel]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

REALLY??? Wow. I did not know you have visited all the airports in the world. Let's see.... deice is usually run by the airport. Fuel is sometimes run by the airport, sometimes run by a third party, on very rare occasions run by the airplane. Oops. So much for that part.
Upkeep of the terminals... almost always run by the airport authority. Oops. So much for that part as well.
Your last point, once again, shows your ignorance about airline operations unless you have an actual time line for when the airplanes diverted and when the problem was recognized on the ground and information was passed to JetBlue operations. Since you made that allegation on a public website, I do assume you have that, right? Or are you making unsubstantiated accusations against a company on a public forum? Yeah, lynch 'em. Let's grab a rope and have us a good hangin'.
BTW, the captain involved apparently initially told the pax as they were holding to go into Newark that they only had 30 minutes of fuel left and Bradley was an hour away. Pax panicked until he got back on the PA and corrected himself.

At larger airports, it may be the airport in charge of deicing, but in many places, the ground service personnel run it. Fueling is usually run by a third party contractor. I don't think I've seen a fueler with an airport operations labelled fuel truck in a while. At smaller places, like Des Moines IA, FBOs handle airport fueling. Why are you getting personal with Ethan by sniping? Who has airline experience and who doesn't?

 

[Blackhawk]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

At larger airports, it may be the airport in charge of deicing, but in many places, the ground service personnel run it. Why are you getting personal with Ethan by sniping? Who has airline experience and who doesn't?

Yeah, I get bent out of shape when groundless accusations are thrown around before facts come out. Something like the Duke lacrosse scandal- "Let's hang 'em!!" Oops. They didn't do anything wrong. So much for Mike Pressler's career along with the innocent players. So for the 10th time, let's wait for the facts to come out before throwing around accusations or trying to Monday morning quarterback. So far everything I have read since the initial report has been very negative about the Bradley airport management- but I'm willing to let things work out and see where they fall.
Just about every airport I operated out of as an airline pilot took care of de-ice. Even the smaller ones you talk about usually have a third party (such as the FBO or a ground support company), not the airline that takes care of it. I can't remember the last time I saw airline owned de-ice equipment... though I'm sure there is some around somewhere.

 

[SpiceWeasel]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

Who the heck did you work for then? Every outstation I've been to has practically been "Regional Elite" plastered on the side of the de-ice truck.

 

[jtrain609]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

REALLY??? Wow. I did not know you have visited all the airports in the world. Let's see.... deice is usually run by the airport. Fuel is sometimes run by the airport, sometimes run by a third party, on very rare occasions run by the airplane. Oops. So much for that part.
Upkeep of the terminals... almost always run by the airport authority. Oops. So much for that part as well.
Your last point, once again, shows your ignorance about airline operations unless you have an actual time line for when the airplanes diverted and when the problem was recognized on the ground and information was passed to JetBlue operations. Since you made that allegation on a public website, I do assume you have that, right? Or are you making unsubstantiated accusations against a company on a public forum? Yeah, lynch 'em. Let's grab a rope and have us a good hangin'.
BTW, the captain involved apparently initially told the pax as they were holding to go into Newark that they only had 30 minutes of fuel left and Bradley was an hour away. Pax panicked until he got back on the PA and corrected himself.

You a pilot at JetBlue? Or are you a flight instructor...like the one in your signature?

 

[Blackhawk]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

Who the heck did you work for then? Every outstation I've been to has practically been "Regional Elite" plastered on the side of the de-ice truck?

Must be pretty small airports.

 

[SpiceWeasel]

Re: Even pilot blames JetBlue for 7 hours of tarmac time....

Must be pretty small airports.

Like my example, sure, Des Moines is a small airport, but not that small. Small airport, Sioux Falls SD. Buffalo NY (not so small?).

 

[Blackhawk]

Like my example, sure, Des Moines is a small airport, but not that small. Small airport, Sioux Falls SD. Buffalo NY (not so small?).

When we went to Des Moines de-ice was provided by a third party I think through the airport. Is KBUF third party contract or actually airline provided?