Why were the departing planes sitting for hours on the tarmac?

Factual Questions
1

Yes, this is about Jet Blue’s meltdown. (Full disclosure: I was stuck at JFK airport for eight hours on Thursday, though fortunately in the terminal, not on an airplane.)
Anyway, my FIL and I were discussing this morning why airplanes full of passengers were pushed away from the gates, only to sit for eight or more hours on the tarmac before they could take off. Specifically, we were discussing why Jet Blue decided it would be a good idea to push the airplanes off, rather than have the passengers wait in the (relative) comfort of the terminals until there was a realistic chance that the airplanes could actually take off. We came up with two possibilities.

First, the FAA considers a flight to have departed “on time” if it pushes back from the gate at the scheduled departure time. Thus, Jet Blue pushed these airplanes back just to get an illusory bump in their on time departure statistics, even though it knew the airplanes weren’t going anywhere.

Second, in order to “get in line” for take off, an airplane must be pushed back from the gate. Thus, Jet Blue had to push back the airplanes in order for them to have any chance of actually taking off.

Those were our educated guesses, but we had problems with both scenarios. For the first, it seems more than a little bizarre and bureaucracy-run-amok that Jet Blue, in the midst of an epic meltdown of its entire system, when just about every one of its flights were either delayed or cancelled, would push back a few flights ridiculously early just so it could say that 1% of its flights departed on time, instead of 0%.

For the second, it assumes that the problem was overcrowding on the runways and significant delays in take offs. But other airlines use the same runways, so at least some of them should also have had full planes sitting on the tarmacs for hours. But that didn’t happen; only Jet Blue suffered from this (or, at least, there haven’t been news reports about such instances with other airlines).

So, given that both of our theories appear to have flaws, does anyone know the Straight Dope?

Sua

2

In situations like these, I’ve often wondered why, having pushed back from the gate, airlines are so averse to letting the passengers off after it becomes evident that they aren’t going to be taking off any time soon.

I’ve heard that the problem is that the gate that they were at was tied up with another plane after they left the gate, but I don’t know understand why they don’t just use those portable staircases on wheels like they used to use.

3

As I understand it, planes were able to land, but not take off. It’s possible that JB took a gamble on the weather getting a little better and wanted try and get its passengers home, instead of stranding them in the terminal. Obviously, they lost the bet.

As to why they didn’t use stairs, I’m thinking like a lawyer. Forcing folks to walk through a snowdrift when a jetway is theoretically available is a goldmine waiting for twisted ankle.

4

My understanding is that they where REALLY REALLY hoping the weather would break long enough to get some planes off the gound, and they wanted to be ready for it. The problem was that once they decided it wasn’t going to happen, all the equipment for pushing the plane around (and the movable stairs I would imagine as well) where frozen to the ground and now nothing could be done until they could unfreeze everything.

5

Lawsuits? What about people with medical conditions such as bad backs or blood clots who could manage a 2-3 hour flight without danger, but, if forced to endure 8 hours canned up in coach, would also have a tasty tort?

In fact, after a hours of so on the tarmac, I’m pretty sure I could come up with a plausible life-threatening condition (based on a family history of something or other), and see if that might convince them to return to the terminal.

6

The problem was that the plane was actually frozen to the ground, they couldn’t move it if they wanted to.

7

If only they had a treadmill…

8

:eek: Sounds like that was an even better reason to let the passengers out…

9

The crew was stuck on the planes too, so it wasn’t a picnic for them.

It wasn’t that they didn’t care that people were stuck on the planes, it was that they didn’t know how to get them off. The CEO of Jet Blue said in a TV interview last night that both the planes and the support vehicles were frozen to the ground, so they were neither able to move the planes back to the gate nor take passengers off by staircase.

Compounding the problem was the fact that because of the weather, the airline was understaffed, and they didn’t have appropriate procedures in place for decision making in such a situation. Finally, they called the Port Authority and asked for help, and the PA dispatched busses.

And I think the OP is right as to the root cause. Jet Blue pushed back a lot of planes at a time when nobody else did, hoping for a break in the weather.

10

Unless they wanted to jump down to the ground or take the emergency slide, they didn’t have much of a choice. Everything (planes and equipment) where frozen to the ground.

Other airlines have said that the problem lies in them [jet blue] wanting to get back on schedule ASAP instead of being patient and waiting out the storm.

11

Hmmm. I was in a plane which sat on the tarmac at JFK on Wednesday night for over three hours, after landing. And this wasn’t Jet Blue, but British Airways. The captain hadn’t got a clue what was going on, and from the tone of his voice as he gave us updates on his lack of information, he was clearly getting very pissed off with the airport authorities. Such as when, after two hours, he finally got told that there was a broken down vehicle blocking the taxiway we were sat on.

12

But why were they allowed to board in the first place
and
how long were they on the plane before it froze?

-inhabitant of place where snow is what you eat in a cone-

13

Through optimism and back luck, they ended up with all the gates full of planes and some planes not at the gates. The only solution in that case was to find a stair car, and they waited too long to do it.

14

Remember to that the game is stacked against the airline in terms of gate availability. From what I heard JB was betting on breaks in the weather that didn’t happen. But gates are a scarce resource and other planes are coming in to use that gate once the plane pushes back. Sure many of those flights didn’t arrive, but it only takes one to make it in to block the plane from returning. So the longer this went on, the worse the odds get. An I don’t imagine there are very many safe places where one can discharge passengers. It isn’t like the plane can just pull off the taxiway and open the doors. Having hundreds of people hiking across the active terminal ways isn’t going to do anyone any good. As was stated, eventually they got buses, but airlines don’t have fleets of buses standing by for emergency evacuations. Too bad it wasn’t Dulles, they wouldn’t have had this problem (in the old days)! So, JB has a system that is cheap to run, and it shows when trouble hits.

15

Why the hell weren’t they diverting incoming flights, then? I’ve heard nothing about Newark, so I presume they were coping OK?

16

Some of us in the Pit thread were asking why the passengers didn’t use the emergency exit. Now I wonder if it, too, was frozen shut.

17

Nah. Federal agents don’t stop at zero celsius, and I’d rather a few hours in a plane to a few weeks in intensive questioning…

18

What would happen if someone got so agitated that they freaked out and demanded to be let off, or tried to use the emergency doors, or claimed to have a bomb or gun or something?

19

Did the smooching help at all?

20

Snow? What’s that?

I suppose it could have been worse. The planes could have taken off without the passengers like United Express did.

Yaknow, if there’s a blizzard in Dallas when I fly to Texas next month, I’m gonna be PISSED.