What happened at O'hare?

Chris_Ford said:
If a hurricane hit PBI, would you want them to land there amidst the storm? Or would you be willing to wait a week (it's a hell of a hurricane)? Do you fault the airline for selling tickets during hurricane season to Florida? If it took a week and wasn't their fault, they shouldn't have to pay. This is incredibly ironic coming from someone who wants to be a pilot. You're asking for a hotel room on your $150 ticket to Toronto... That's (even at crew rates) probably $60+, and then you'll go over to the next thread and talk about how pilots shouldn't have to take pay cuts... Well, if mgmt has to start paying for hotel rooms, you can guess whose salary it will come from.



Yes it's unfair. Life is unfair. Yes, you're not use to this air travel thing :)

Paying for my hotel is not what's gonna cause pilots to take another paycut. Management taking huge bonuses will.

Your hurricane argument is not that good. There is no such thing as "telephone crew cuts ATC cables" season. Hurricanes can be tracked and people can work around them, while these things happen without notice.
 
BCTAv8r said:
Paying for my hotel is not what's gonna cause pilots to take another paycut. Management taking huge bonuses will.

So let's take YOUR hotel room, multiply it by an average 100 people a day (due to various weather phenomenon, throughout the whole system) and multiply by an average of $60 for a crew rate hotel room (again, not sure if this is fair), then multiply it out for a year.
$2.19 million dollars. Out of the goodness of their heart. Because of a problem someone else caused? Management won't give pilots an extra $1/hr, why would they do this?

Your hurricane argument is not that good. There is no such thing as "telephone crew cuts ATC cables" season. Hurricanes can be tracked and people can work around them, while these things happen without notice.

Actually, what you're saying reinforces my point. It was unforseen and the airline had no control over the situation. Why should they be punished? Would you rather them have gone into the radarless ATC environment and run a higher risk of a midair?
 
How am I re-inforcing your point? One can get a somewhat accurate Hurricane prediction within about 4 days of it affecting anyone. If we had this long to plan for what happened at O'hare you ca be certain we would have changed our plans.

Also, I am not complaining that we sat on the ground for 2 hours. I am grateful we were on the ground and not in the air. But after the crew told us that everything had slowed down at ORD and that the connections were re-scheduled, they even went as far as giving us flight numbers and gets for each connection, but when we got there the flight had left a while earlier.

Perhaps the gate agent was right and the flight crew had no clue what they were talking about?:whatever: :sarcasm: ?
 
I am not sure why you keep going back to the crew? UAL has an auto rebook thing if it sees people are going to miss their connections. Apparently they arrived in the gate later then expected and you missed the last flight of the day. The CREW has very little to do with it, and they fact that they even spent to worrying about it is a bonus.
 
Allright, nevermind. I thought it made sense yesterday from a passenger's point of view. :)

To change the subject a bit, my flight from YYZ-ORD was the first 737 flight I've ever taken. From what I've heard, the 733 is supposed to be more shaky than the A320. Not in this flight though. I'm very impressed with the airplane and the crew.:)
 
Goldmember said:
To get back to the question of the post, a phone crew working in the area cut a feed so the tower at O'hare couldn't contact approach at Elgin. ATC backup systems kicked in but for safety procedures, ATC separated approaching aircraft an extra five miles which of course, causes mad delays. This has been all over CLTV so you must consider the source when reading this...cheers.

Look at what happened today. 15 mile separation around New York airports due to Radar Failure... http://www.wnbc.com/news/7783675/detail.html
 
BCTAv8r said:
Paying for my hotel is not what's gonna cause pilots to take another paycut. Management taking huge bonuses will.
wrong...and right...paying for your hotel will cause the airline to lose money - hands down...mgmt taking huge bonuses will cause the airline to lose money - hands down...

the thing is take your hotel cost and multiply it by 120 (assuming that's how many folks are on the plane) cuz heck knows you are not hte *only* person/family on that plane!

The airline isn't responsible for weather conditions, ATC problems etc...now, if something happens, they put you on the next available flight.. and bump others off of that flight and put them on the next available flight...until everyone gets to their destination.

the fact that you and your family choose to be on a flight that took the last possible connection to PBI is your families fault.. should have planned ahead *just in case*. now you know better...that's just how it works.

similar to if you book your connection flights too close timewise - if you miss it by 15 minutes, that's still your fault..not the airlines.
 
BCTAv8r said:
But after the crew told us that everything had slowed down at ORD and that the connections were re-scheduled, they even went as far as giving us flight numbers and gets for each connection, but when we got there the flight had left a while earlier.

Perhaps the gate agent was right and the flight crew had no clue what they were talking about?:whatever: :sarcasm: ?
the flight crew receives directions thru the computer...apparently they weren't updated before the flight landed. it's not the crew's fault they didn't get updated in time. it's the dispatchers fault on that one.

plus, you should never *really* trust the data the crew gives during the flight - as far as gates go - because they often change by the time you get on the ground anyways.. that's why you want to check the computers when you get off the plane.. confirm for your own validation.
 
There was our flight to PBI and then another flight. We took a long time to to get to ORD so both our flight and the next were gone.

And we bought a vacation package so it wasn't an option anyways.


Thanks for the replies though. I just wanted some in-depth info on what happened.
 
BCTAv8r said:
Also, I am not complaining that we sat on the ground for 2 hours. I am grateful we were on the ground and not in the air. But after the crew told us that everything had slowed down at ORD and that the connections were re-scheduled, they even went as far as giving us flight numbers and gets for each connection, but when we got there the flight had left a while earlier.

Perhaps the gate agent was right and the flight crew had no clue what they were talking about?:whatever: :sarcasm: ?


If you ever work for an airline, you'll quickly learn about the disconnection between what the flight crew knows, what the ramp crew knows, what the gate crew knows, and what the company knows. For example, today I flew a flight with 26 people booked on it. We had 22 on the aircraft (no big deal, people don't show up all the time). The paper work we got from the ramp agent said 20. The flight attendant counted 22. The gate agent told the ramp guy there should be 21. Operations had no clue what was going on . This seemingly trivial numbers snafu caused a 15 minute delay while we got everything straightened out.

The logistics of running an airline and making everything work smoothly is an extremely mind-boggling thing. Sometimes s**t happens. Believe me when I say that in all likelyhood, no one in the plane or at the airport was out to screw you. It just happens that the flight crew may have gotten word from dispatch about the re-scheduling of the connections, and no one at dispatch actually told the people at ORD about it.

And for the record....the airline cannot and should not be responsible for events that are out of their control. It leads to safety decisions being made by economics, and not common sense......not a good situation. I'd eat the cost of that hotel room rather than having that flight crew put you and your family at risk over 60 bucks.
 
From a customer service agent the rules are simple. If its a natural cause (weather) its not the airlines deal to pay your meals..if they do its a pure courtesy. They are only responsible if there is a mechanical (there fault). You may not like it but thats they way it is right or wrong.
 
Just curious Brian, but if there was another 9/11 and the US airspace system was shut down for three days stranding thousands of passengers, do you think the airlines should pay for hotel accomodations and food vouchers? Seems like the same type of thing, missed connections and cancelled flights due to something that effects the airspace system completely out of the airlines control.

By the way, airlines don't like delays any more than passengers do. Delays and missed connections cost major dollars to an airline.
 
launchpad said:
If you ever work for an airline, you'll quickly learn about the disconnection between what the flight crew knows, what the ramp

Ding ding ding ding!

If I had a dollar for every time:

- A flight attendant asks, "So how long is the maintenance delay?" when I didn't know about any mechanical problems.

- A passenger asks, "So are you guys going to bus us from Twin Falls to Boise?" "We're going to Boise" "No, you're going to Twin Falls because the weather is bad" "News to me!"

Heck, we're on a re-route tomorrow, the captain gets to go home six hours earlier and instead of flying a DEN turn, I'm flying an OAK turn and I have no idea why. The maing says fly to OAK and back, so I fly to OAK and back, no questions asked! :) Mechanical? Crew availability? Impending snow storm? Who knows.
 
FlyChicaga said:
By the way, airlines don't like delays any more than passengers do. Delays and missed connections cost major dollars to an airline.

Delays mean crew rest problems, calling in reserves IF you have reserves available, hotel transportation problems, COMAT and freight problems, etc. Commuting pilots coming to work are delayed which snowballs the problem bigger and bigger...

Delays are a killer to operations.
 
When I was flying PHX-SAN-LAS for NJC we were on a hour ground hold in the penalty box in PHX for weather in SAN. I love this..Several pax were getting angry and it looked like a riot was about to break out. They kept looking out the windows pointing and talking loudly to themselves saying. "What are they talking about there is no bad weather look it is a blue cloudless day."

Not sure if this is at all relevent to the conversation but pax stupidity/reasoning is madding/hilarious and insane all rolled up into one.
 
Well airline employees know that most passengers dont have clue except they want a seat, their bags, and to depart and land. You will never make one understand that just because its great here in ATL that the weather isnt sucking big time in BOS.
 
on time and holding the plane...

Brian, if you have bump into the following story you might get hotel room.
<hijack>
Due to work condition, I fly between work and home at least once a month. This particular flight had been delay at DTW due to mechanical problem for about an hour. Most of passengers on this flight had connection flights out of DTW. Therefore, gate agents asked us to stay around the gate area and be ready to board. Ground / Ramp crews were ready for this particular flight.

It was totally amazing to see about 180 people deplane, boarding and baggages loaded within 20 minutes or less. Crews flew the plane as fast as they can. During the flight, a lady who sat next to me that were on the same connecting flight as I was. Flight landed at DTW early then expected. However, we could not get in because gate is occupied. Once gradma(78 years old) and I deplaned, I asked grandma run to gate first. I will take care of her and my bags right behind her. Well, new NWA terminal and regional gates at DTW are about a miles apart. We ran as fast as we could (we had about 8 or less minutes). Finally, grandma had to stop. I promised her I would try to stop the plane anyway I can. When I got to gate, flight was already boarded, but still connected with jetway. The lady and I stood there for good old 5 minutes before plane being push back. I spent a night at hotel by using airline vouchers.

Just wondering why airlines can't hold the plane especially last flilght of the day to particular city? Beside on time record.

<End of Hijack>

adreamer
 
Maximillian_Jenius said:
When I was flying PHX-SAN-LAS for NJC we were on a hour ground hold in the penalty box in PHX for weather in SAN. I love this..Several pax were getting angry and it looked like a riot was about to break out. They kept looking out the windows pointing and talking loudly to themselves saying. "What are they talking about there is no bad weather look it is a blue cloudless day."

1) Why did you fly from PHX to LAS ... via SAN?

2) Yes, people make comments like that all the time. You'll also hear "I just got off the phone with my insert name of acquaintance here and he/she/it said that the sun is shining, birds are singing, and there's no reason why you can't go.
 
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