I didn’t realise all US airlines had been to the BA school of customer service. I generally only fly short-haul point-to-point within Europe, and it’s not quite as bad as the US yet, but give it another few years…
Still, at least now I have a few more ‘it could be worse’ datapoints to keep me going for the rest of the year. Thanks 
Inexcusable, if you ask me. Unless there was a spontaneous outbreak of typhoid requiring quarantining of the workers or some similar freak occurance.
“Customer Service” is not your friend. It’s crowd control from an industry that refers to its customers (and I am not joking about this) as “self-loading cargo”. Which is why you’re treated like a box of rocks. Because that’s how the airlines see you.
My first reaction was “they still have flights with meal service???”
Lying is inexcusable here. Sure, people might be pissed, but at least “Folks, there was a fuck up and no one loaded the food - it was either take off on time or delay you all for hours trying to fix it.” is honest.
You betcha. As long as the wheels are on the ground cellphone use is legal. A particular airline may have stricter rules, but that’s the company’s decision, not the Feds.
Of course, if the open gate in question has no one to move the jetway it doesn’t do you much good, does it?
The problem is, by fueling the airplane the pilot missed his take-off window. Yes, an hour wait isn’t unusual, because when he misses that window the plane goes back to the end of the line. On the other hand, that’s probably better than taking off with inadequate fuel. At least your pilot caught it and made the right decision. This becomes frightening when you realize that the airlines would very much like to entirely automate passenger flight and eliminate human pilots entirely.
Actually, that’s bullshit - they DO have legal obligations but count on the general public being ignorant of them. And they certainly will do their best to keep you in the dark.
And people ask me why I got my own pilot’s license.
Which, honestly, wouldn’t help me if I had to go to another continent, or even California. But it does take care of the short haul flights. This sort of bullshit is also why the Other Half and I will drive for two days rather than fly - we love to fly, it’s the fucking airlines we hate.
Drive for two days? Jim and I have a series of car trips planned for the next decade that will see our Corolla hitting every coast, from one end of North, Central, and South America to the other. We’re going to see every damned thing there is here. 
Yes, but I doubt your spouse is disabled, which vastly complicates ANY trip by any vehicle.
I know that, for cryin’ out loud! What I meant was, I understand New York was still landing aircraft even though they weren’t letting them take off. My question stands: If the weather is too bad to take off, how can it be safe to land at that airport?
Takeoff minimums are seaparate from landing minimums. I don’t know the numbers but on some Kennedy runways there is doubtless automatic instrument landing capability. In such a case I think the landing minimums might be lower than the takeoff minimums.
It’s also possible that the JetBlue planes’ delays were a result of weather at their destinations. As I understand things now, if you don’t have a slot in the landing pattern at your destination you can’t take off from your departure point.
Sorry, slightly misunderstood your question.
Remember, what goes up MUST come down (sooner or later). Although this is never supposed to happen, it is conceivable to be in a situation where you don’t have any choice but to land. If the fuel is running low and the weather system extensive enough that you can’t reach clear air the pilot might have to choose the least evil looking place to land.
For the same reason - airplanes do not stay up indefinitely - a higher priority will be put on flights landing in severely bad weather than on taking off, because in lading your moving from a potentially hazardous situation (flying in bad weather) to being safe on the ground instead of leaving the ground to move into a potentially dangerous situation.
As demonstrated at Chicago Midway airport in December 2005, landing in a snowstorm presents hazards - in that case, the airplane in question was not able to stop and not only slid past the end of the runway, it crashed through the airport perimeter fence and wound up in an road intersection, crushing two cars and killing one person. So sometimes, even when the pilot thinks he can land safely in foul weather Bad Thing Happen.
And what Mr. Simmons said - if you don’t/can’t obtain a “landing slot” at your destination airport the current practice is to simply not let your airplane take off.
If it helps, I once had a 30-minute wait after arriving at Frankfurt because no-one could find the keys to the airway. :rolleyes:
They shared that little gem with us, deplaned us by stair, and then left me sheltering under the wing from the rain for another 15 minutes while the bus dropped off its first load and returned for the rest of us. Just what I needed at 2230. By the time I got to the hotel they’d closed the kitchen and I had to sweet-talk the staff into finding me some left-over cold soup and microwaving it for me.
The eternal glamour of business travel, eh?
Former flight attendant here. Most of the time the pilot is just as frustrated as the passengers. Unless the delay is due to a mechanical problem with the plane, the delay is 99.99% of the time due to air traffic control: ATC has to clear each and every plane to each and every inch of the airport. The reason the airlines want you seated with seat belts fastened, etc? They get a ‘window’ from ATC to move. If they aren’t ready to move, they lose that slot and get pushed to the back of the queue. At a big airport, that could be a long wait.
Anyway - most ATC delays are related to weather, but are ultimately related to traffic. In other words - suppose a flight is going from NY to Chicago. Suppose the weather is really bad in Chicago, and delays are piling up. The weather might be beautiful in NY, but it looks like by the time the plane gets to the Chicago area, the area will be too congested to get the plane on the ground safely without running out of fuel while it circles. So they’ll hold the plane in NY while they wait for Chicago to straighten itself out - the idea is that other airports hold off on sending planes to Chicago for a bit so the congestion eases.
Once a plane pushes back, there is no guarantee a gate will be open. Obviously going back to the gate, and letting people off, etc, essentially means the plane will have zero chance of making any new ‘window’ that opens up, so most of the time they don’t risk it.
Other times, ATC can manage to create complete and utter gridlock at the airport. I spent over five hours on a plane - I was working the flight as the chief pursor, no less - when a snowstorm in the morning at JFK resulted in congestion. They had planes pushing back and were parking them out of the way while planes landed. Before too long they had planes all over the place, and getting planes moved around was a nightmare. 747s don’t exactly move on a dime. That was a rough night; but we were lucky in that we had pretty good-natured passengers.
Pilots obviously have no clue what sort of time frame is involved. Trust me, what they know, they tell you. And the only thing they know is what ATC tells 'em. There is no 'grand conspiracy", they aren’t not telling you just to be mean - trust me, they don’t know.
Another little-known factoid: flight time for flight attendants is only counted from the time the doors are closed to the time they open again. I.e., that entire boarding and deplaning process? Not considered flight time = not paid. So be nice to your likely very poorly paid flight attendent next time.
Unless she’s one of the insanely fat wide-bodies working the international flights at the US airlines. 99% have the work ethic of an eggplant and are so big, I have serious doubts as to how the rest of the passengers would evacuate the plane if they were blocking the aisle or exitways. Ugg.
I found your post very informative, but I wish you’d left this part out.
Well eventually you reach a point where that flight attendant is blatantly abusing authority and passengers during some unreasonable delay sitting on a closed up, stuffy plane for hours on end and being screamed at that you’ll be arrested if you even attempt to go to the bathroom so you don’t piss in your seat.
It’s really not the passengers’ problem that the flight attendant only gets paid while the door of the plane is closed. We did not negotiate that with the airline, nor are we pawns to be used in an effort to get more money out of the airline by keeping the plane back from the gate with the door closed for 10 or 11 hours going nowhere.
Every so often, you hear stories about people on airplanes being treated in such a way that if we were actually cattle, would be considered cruelty to animals. Dogs and cats are supposed to be given enough room to comfortably stand up and turn around. Can you imagine the fury if a prison denied water and use of toilets to inmates for 10 solid hours, and forced them to sit in an 18" wide chair, belted in for the duration?
At some point, it starts looking to me like those threats of jail are really promises of an environment where I have human rights.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that all flight attendants are bad people, or that the ones who go overboard with the power trip when you’re sitting on the tarmac for hours are bad people. It doesn’t take much for otherwise good people to abuse power, as evidenced by the famed Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971. Nobody’s asking for the right to abuse flight attendants. What we are aghast at is the ‘self loading cargo’ treatment that gets out of hand.
I’m a good natured person. I deal pretty well with airline delays and such as long as I am shown some human decency by those who are ‘in charge’. The manner in which things are handled goes a long, long way to making an unpleasant situation as bearable as possible for everyone involved. Threats of jail for things like needing to go to the bathroom would be a bad way to handle it. Now, if someone said to me ‘This is what’s happening, and if you think you can wait, that would be better because of the need to make a very brief window when one comes up.’ I have the chance to respond to that with ‘Yes, I can wait.’ or ‘I’m nearing the point where I might pee in my pants. I will make it as quick as possible.’ and we don’t have to resort to ‘If you get up you’re going to jail.’ and ‘Fine, I’ll piss in my seat and you can deal with it.’ tactics.
Everyone in that situation is stressed, the passengers, the flight attendants, the pilots. There is no reason to add to it by denying the use of a toilet or forcing people to sit still for 11 hours, which is actually medically unsafe.
It really is possible to treat people better than what happened on Una’s plane. Not only that, it should be expected.
And not only that, but the travelling public, through the invisible hand of the market, have REWARDED the airlines for this. The public has told the airline industry that unexplained, unexcused delays and cancellations, 3-hour lines, luggage restrictions, luggage loss, unrefundable tickets, tight seat pitches, no food, no amenities, extra fees and charges for everything; underpaid, overworked, micromanaged, de-motivated staff; no compensation for failures, impossible connections, being routed through 3 stops in directions opposite or orthogonal to that of your destination, with departures and arrivals in the wee hours of the morning, etc., etc., … are all worth it if it means the fare is $189 rather than $209.
The frustrating part of it is that someone like myself, who could eagerly take my fare, plus a premium, to where it would get me better service, end up not even having that choice because everyone is in a race-to-the-bottom.
FWIW, any REAL Air-Passenger-Bill-Of-Rights should include an imperative that the airline MUST inform the passengers immediately and truthfully of the fact, nature, and cause of a delay. Not “need to know”, but right to know. We may be more willing to abide by the crew’s instructions if we have some assurance that they are not lying to us.
Proof that most fucking airlines not only didn’t learn from the mistakes, but they just don’t give a shit about the customers - and proof that we need a passengers bill of rights.
From: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/03/17/stranded.flights.ap/index.html
“You can’t keep your passengers on the plane for 9 1/2 hours” - sure you can, if you’re an airline in this post 9-11 world in which we and our children now live. Don’t like it? Then you must be a terrorist. Why do you hate America?
More cases of passengers being held prisoner for insane lengths of time, and somehow nobody’s doing anything about it. Excepting JetBlue:
While canceled flights suck, imagine sitting as a prisoner for 9.5 hours, after the rigmarole of probably spending 2-10 hours in the terminal, and THEN having your flight canceled.
And the situation will only get worse.
From: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/03/16/crowded.skies.ap/index.html
Frequent travelers - expect frequent receipt of the wrath of Cornholio.
Last time I mesured Southwests seats, I came up with 17"
I just need a shoehorn for my wide rear end.
Flying days, I don’t take Lasix…
Sure you should! It’ll shrink your derriere and you’ll fit into your seat better. Just use a stadium pal!
Why would a new law protect you any better than current ones? Maybe it’s time to repeal some laws instead, specifically whatever laws they are that make this particular case of being held against your will something other than kidnapping.
You know, I’m actually kind of optimistic about that–it sounds like airlines might return to using larger planes. Why fly three commuter flights when you can fly one big plane once?
I hate commuter airplanes.
What law currently says that there is a time limit to being held prisoner on an airplane out on the tarmac?
Don’t know. You’ll have to ask a lawyer type person. But if there is nothing that prevents you from walking away from a situation in which you are being held against your will, then what’s all the fuss about?
How does one walk away from inside the sealed airplane with no jetway when you’re on the tarmac?