Sun Country stranded PAX at JFK-3 hour limit???

JEP

Does It Really Matter....?
Staff member
Stranded pax in the news once again here in MSP. The CEO has come out with a hard line of when they will (attempt) to head back to the gate. Couple of questions - Principle is great, but how would this effect a carrier with more than a few planes. Being stranded would suck indeed, but what kind of further delays will this 'solution' create?

Interesting fact from the news last night...In June alone, 278 flights hit the mark of three hours 'stuck' on the tarmac.....

Sun Country sets time limit for holding flyers on board

By Herón Márquez Estrada, Star Tribune
Last update: August 24, 2009 - 6:00 AM

Days after 154 of its passengers were stuck on a New York tarmac for about six hours, Sun Country Airlines said Sunday that it is changing its policy on extended delays and establishing a deadline for when people and planes will be returned to the terminal.

Sun Country CEO Stan Gadek said he believes his company is the first to establish such a deadline — in this case, a maximum of four hours.
“To the best of my knowledge, I think we are” the first to set such a deadline, Gadek said Sunday. “I don’t know if other airlines will follow ... but I think it’s high time that airlines stand up and commit. It’s a common-sense thing. The flight delay on Friday was unacceptable. We do not want a repeat of what happened on Friday.”

Gadek also said four hours is a maximum, and that the airline could return passengers to the gate sooner than that it appears that the delay — such as the one that occurred at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Friday — will last longer than four hours.

“It will be done case by case,” said Gadek, who also said he supports passengers’ rights legislation now before Congress.

Gadek’s announcement drew the immediate support of Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who has been pushing airlines to establish a three-hour deadline for tarmac delays.

“I would rather have three hours instead of four, but I appreciate that he is taking responsibility for what happened on the flight Friday,” Klobuchar said Sunday night.

Gadek said he pushed for the four-hour limit because there are so many three-hour delays at JFK and New York airports that to go under that could mean even longer flight times because of the constant boarding and unboarding.

Lawmakers have said that 52 percent of extreme U.S. delays are flights coming in and out of New York City-area airports.

Klobuchar said that as far as she knows, Sun Country is the first airline to establish a firm deadline for waits.

Airlines have been resisting such a move for years because they believe it could lead to more cancelled flights and even longer delays as passengers are taken off and then re-boarded on flights.

“I hope that this starts the discussion going,” Klobuchar said. “I still think we need a national standard.”

The Sun Country announcement comes as national support is heating up demanding that airlines compensate passengers for extended delays, or at the very least that they establish a deadline for when to return planes to a terminal.

Federal records indicate that in the first six months of this year, 613 flights were delayed for three hours or more. In June alone, that number was 278, according to the New York Times.

“That is unacceptable,” said Klobuchar, who is among those pushing hardest for the passenger bill of rights. “It seems to be getting worse.”
In recent weeks, such extended delays have received a great deal of attention, putting pressure on airlines and lawmakers to do something. Earlier this month, a Continental Express flight sat at the Rochester (Minn.) Airport for six hours, just 50 yards from the terminal.

Then, on Friday, 154 passengers on Sun Country’s morning flight to the Twin Cities got stuck for about six hours. Once they got off, the passengers complained not only about the delay, but also about that they had been required to buy their food and water from the airline, and that even so, provisions quickly ran out.

Gadek, who on Sunday continued to apologize for the problem, said those passengers would be reimbursed for their ticket prices and that the food policy will be changed. Although food and drinks will still be sold on flights, he said, if a flight is delayed more than an hour, such items will be free to its passengers.

He said food and water was still being sold because the airline and pilot kept being told that departure was imminent.

“Pretty soon we went from a two-hour delay to a four-hour delay to a near-six-hour delay,” Gadek said. “We didn’t expect a six-hour delay. We think we know what 'Minnesota nice’ is, but on Friday we certainly didn’t demonstrate that.”


Herón Márquez Estrada • 612-673-4280
 
Last week we spent 3 1/2 hours on the ramp in EWR (I was a passenger). A woman stopped one of the flight attendants and said, "I'm not feeling so well, can I get some water?" When the F/A brought it, she said, "I'm not feeling so well, can we go back so I can get off?" The F/A abruptly said, "NO." and walked away.

Luckily I was not in uniform, nor did I have my ID showing. In my "incognito" state I got to hear some very interesting perspectives from the passengers on board.
 
Stranded pax in the news once again here in MSP. The CEO has come out with a hard line of when they will (attempt) to head back to the gate. Couple of questions - Principle is great, but how would this effect a carrier with more than a few planes. Being stranded would suck indeed, but what kind of further delays will this 'solution' create?

Interesting fact from the news last night...In June alone, 278 flights hit the mark of three hours 'stuck' on the tarmac.....

Was really hoping that the airlines would self-police themselves instead of having laws being enacted, oh well. I would say that paying for the drinks & food during a long delay like that is just icing on the cake.

I myself was stuck on an Alaskan Air flight right in front of the terminal with the doors closed, no engines (APU only) for a 2 hour rolling maintenance delay. Thankfully, it was on a cool day so the internal temp. inside the aircraft was not that bad.

The Flight Attendants were great and made sure the passengers were as comfortable as possible, had the delay gone on much longer, I think there would have been a mutiny:eek:
 
Last week we spent 3 1/2 hours on the ramp in EWR (I was a passenger). A woman stopped one of the flight attendants and said, "I'm not feeling so well, can I get some water?" When the F/A brought it, she said, "I'm not feeling so well, can we go back so I can get off?" The F/A abruptly said, "NO." and walked away.

Luckily I was not in uniform, nor did I have my ID showing. In my "incognito" state I got to hear some very interesting perspectives from the passengers on board.


WoW...To just blow her off like that....:eek:

I am just thinking....what kind of porblems would there be at a place like EWR for Continental, JFK for Delta, or any other huge hub where if people HAD to go back to the gate at three hours.....Can't imagine it would be pretty.
 
I assume these are weather and volume delays, but 6 hours is extreme. Of course if the crew is being told that their clearance is expected soon, I understand not wanting to return to the gate. There is obviously a breakdown in communication somewhere. I would be interested in hearing what the experienced guys have to say.
 
Last week we spent 3 1/2 hours on the ramp in EWR (I was a passenger). A woman stopped one of the flight attendants and said, "I'm not feeling so well, can I get some water?" When the F/A brought it, she said, "I'm not feeling so well, can we go back so I can get off?" The F/A abruptly said, "NO." and walked away.
Wow.
 
Here's the kicker, if you're stuck on the taxiway, in sequence for more than a few hours, it actually might be a few hours until you're able to get back to the gate IF you even have a gate, for ground control to move aircraft around to make space for you.

I'm thinking about JFK.

So it's take another hour to takeoff or take another hour to move planes on taxiways and runways in order to make a path for you.

We've really got to use common sense and I think an actual rule created in DC is going to make things a lot worse for passengers.

So you go back to the gate and let 214 passengers out. Well, it was a circumstance beyond the airline's control and you're on your own to find hotel accomodations or even sleep in the terminal. The next days flight from JFK to say BCN is booked full so you need to either (a) find another flight to get your passengers on or (b) run an extra section.

If you run an extra section, well, that's cool, but that's going to cancel another flight because that aircraft was due to fly to say, SVO. Now you're reaccomodating the SVO passengers thru another hub, which may or may not be able to absorb the extra passengers.

International, it may end up being an abject nightmare.
 
Just remember guys, if we all stop flying our 172s and PA28s these problems will all go away.
 
I assume these are weather and volume delays, but 6 hours is extreme. Of course if the crew is being told that their clearance is expected soon, I understand not wanting to return to the gate. There is obviously a breakdown in communication somewhere. I would be interested in hearing what the experienced guys have to say.

Whenever I've seen massive delays it's usually that ATC will shut down one of the departure gates, like "All traffic over RBV, shut your engines down. 20 miles in trail."

(and this is all from a pilot's perspective so the ATC guys will probably laugh at my perspective of this! :))

So either we'll wait until the gate is open or we'll try to get flight control to file us over another fix, or ATC may even reroute you.

Traffic keeps building and building as aircraft aren't departing, so when the departure gate is open, you're #50 in line, but the line is moving slowly because of spacing over the departure fix. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel because the line is slowly moving. If you go back to the gate, the flight will cancel and oftentimes, if you're trying to coordinate a gate return, it may take longer to get back to the ramp than it would to stay in line and depart.

I think it really boils down to communication, but that's just my humble opinion.

A lot of guys go to the cockpit and keep their mouth shut for three hours when you're on the ramp with no information. I don't know if they're playing their iPods, reading the paper, or just sitting there arguing about loading bags on the last leg.

Others may give milquetoast information like "FAA's got us on the tarmac, traffic jam, blah blah blah" or "we're noombah fitty in liiiine". WTF does #50 mean to a passenger? Two minutes per departure (approx) maybe 90 minute delay once traffic starts moving... it's a universally-understandable timeframe.

I think the best PA's are generally the ones that are honest and unafraid to tell the real story. If the route is shut down because of weather, if ATC is requiring more separation, if the airport is shut down because of a thunderstorm, talk about it. Flight crew indifference to the situation at hand is what drives passengers to lose their minds.

You care, you want to get there too, you're also headed to Barcelona and want to get the show on the road. You're working with ATC about options, you're working with dispatch to see if there are any alternatives, you're actively monitoring the weather, aircraft are starting to move, blah blah blah, as we get information and updates, you'll be the first to know, blah blah blah.

All of that was 'stream of consciousness' so I hope it made sense. :)
 
All of that was 'stream of consciousness' so I hope it made sense. :)
Makes perfect sense to me. So they have their clearance, and have taxiied out as normal and are just waiting to depart. For whatever reason, be it weather, volume, or something else the normal flow has been interupted and things snowball causing massive delays. Returning to the gate will be a logistical problem and may take as long as the delay to takeoff anyways. This is of course provided you even have a gate available, which happens often.

I agree that honesty with the Pax will probably help some, of course most people don't really understand the process and just wanna get to where they are going.

I do not believe for a minute that the carriers or crews are trying to screw anybody or make things unpleasant, so any legislation would be useless and written by people that don't know Jack about how things work. So I agree that legislation is a bad idea.
 
I think a large part of the problem is the failure of the hub/spoke system. The thing is, I don't have an adequate solution, either.
 
I don't normally comment here but I feel it's appropriate to because I was lucky enough to be stuck at JFK too (sarcasm). Specifically, I was there with a client in his Mooney Bravo and even more specifically we were the guys stuck right behind the Sun Country flight being referenced here on Quebec. At this time all of the departure gates except for WAVEY were shut down and they were doing something like 30 miles in trail over WAVEY. We stuck it out for about two hours before doing a 180 on the taxiway and taxiing the 50 feet back into the ramp.

I don't know what it was like before we got on the freq but from what ATC was telling us and almost everyone else, it didn't sound like anybody going westbound (or almost anywhere for that matter) was going anywhere anytime soon. Please don't take any of this the wrong way as I'm not second guessing anyone's decision. I just thought I'd chime in since I spent some quality time breathing some of this Sun Country's Jet-A that day.

Take care,
Greg
 
The only time I've flown into JFK, we were stuck on the taxiway for 3 hours taxiing in. Like others said, it's not always happening while trying to depart. I think if we're going to continue with the hub-spoke system, congested airports are going to have to come up with better contingency plans. IMO the airports need to save taxiways and ramp space for times like that and come up with a whole new system for handling pax. The current system does not allow for congestion in an adequate way. If it weren't so darn difficult to get in and deplane and get back out in line, then the system wouldn't lean towards "hurry up and wait" on the taxiway in a minimally equipped airplane.
 
Last week we spent 3 1/2 hours on the ramp in EWR (I was a passenger). A woman stopped one of the flight attendants and said, "I'm not feeling so well, can I get some water?" When the F/A brought it, she said, "I'm not feeling so well, can we go back so I can get off?" The F/A abruptly said, "NO." and walked away.

Luckily I was not in uniform, nor did I have my ID showing. In my "incognito" state I got to hear some very interesting perspectives from the passengers on board.

Glad it didn't proceed to a medical emergency. I wasn't there but if I was sitting left seat, I would want the FA to ascertain facts concerning the well being of a passenger and pass that information to the captain. I guess as a passenger you always can use your cellphones in an emergency. I've seen a FA collapse from heat exhaustion in the summer, so frail people can get in trouble...
 
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