Trapped on a jetBlue flight

[T-Bird76]

Looks like this is the new trend...inprison passengers aboard planes. While I'm not big on Congress telling the airlines how they should handle customer service this is something that needs to end and there should be huge fines when this happens

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?se...cal&id=5432598

[HPNPilot1200]

Looks like this is the new trend...inprison passengers aboard planes. While I'm not big on Congress telling the airlines how they should handle customer service this is something that needs to end and there should be huge fines when this happens

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?se...cal&id=5432598

Looks that way. What bothers me besides the insensitive flight crews is the fact that the airlines, public, and media seem to blame "air traffic control delays" while failing to state why the influx of "ATC delays" are occurring. The ATC staffing crisis is directly causing this backlog in the NAS, yet most pax haven't even heard of such a situation. Though unfortunately that is the nature of this industry to the general public. Sigh.

[USAF Pilot 07]

All there needs to be is some sort of Legislation forcing airlines to offload pax when they've been sitting on an airplane for X amount of hours... This whole "no gate space" excuse is generally BS. All you need is to park the aircraft, somewhere somewhat safe, bring up some stairs and have a bus run pax from the aircraft to the terminal. Leave the pilots and crew on the plane for all it matters; the pax are the #1 priority in such a situation...

[hiss srq]

All there needs to be is some sort of Legislation forcing airlines to offload pax when they've been sitting on an airplane for X amount of hours... This whole "no gate space" excuse is generally BS. All you need is to park the aircraft, somewhere somewhat safe, bring up some stairs and have a bus run pax from the aircraft to the terminal. Leave the pilots and crew on the plane for all it matters; the pax are the #1 priority in such a situation...

Well when you miss your slot on a flight because we need to spend 20 minutes reloading tha tough luck find your own way to your destination. They want the whole cherry pie and that just is not happening. And no gate space is not an excuse because regulations sometimes prohibit the plane. Passengers need to get a grip in my opinion. If the plane is expecting a release anytime soon than the best bet is to keep em onboard. I agree passengers are important but if they ever want to get there they should just do as operations tells them and that is that. The other side of it is if the crew is running close on time and because of enplaneing the flight has to cancel because a crew time out issue than the passengers still complain. As long as you have an APU and ample beverages on board deal with it!

[MORS-AB-ALTO]

Just saw the clip and now realize they weren't stuck on the plane for 22 hours so this is my edited post. I think Jet Blue acted fairly considering the circumstances.

I've been stuck on plane a few times and it's not fun. The first few hours it's more anxiety and disappointment than anything else. Fortunately I have not spent more than 3 hours on aircraft during a delay, but I can see where anytime past that can turn into a real problem. I was fortunate enough to be able to deplane after spending almost 2 hours at the gate on a Air Tran flight few years back. We were allowed back into the terminal while they made the repair to the DC-9. About 90 minutes later everyone boarded and we were off. Granted there obstacles to be overcome with time slots and gates etc, but it can be done.

[USAF Pilot 07]

Well when you miss your slot on a flight because we need to spend 20 minutes reloading tha tough luck find your own way to your destination. They want the whole cherry pie and that just is not happening. And no gate space is not an excuse because regulations sometimes prohibit the plane.

Huh???

Passengers need to get a grip in my opinion. If the plane is expecting a release anytime soon than the best bet is to keep em onboard. I agree passengers are important but if they ever want to get there they should just do as operations tells them and that is that.

I agree. But there is no excuse for passengers to be sitting on a plane for more than 4 hours on a taxiway, or tarmac or wherever... I realize that sometimes departure seems imminent and keeps getting pushed back, but in many cases, the airlines don't want to unload passengers because it will ultimately create more chaos trying to get the pax reloaded and loss of time/MONEY if they do so. It is much easier for the airline to have everyone on board, and have the plane go sit at a holding spot for hours on end until it can finally take off.... What's so hard with either the airline or airport purchasing several mobile stairways for use in loading and unloading passengers from holding spots, and then busing them back to the terminals? You can keep the crew and the F/As on board...
Have the F/As give pax airline tags or some sort of ID for when it becomes time for re-boarding, and make an announcement that if you aren't present for reboarding, you won't get on the flight and may be SOL. It's just easier for airlines, crews and staff to have people cooped up in very limited space on-board airplanes than to let them return to the terminal and have them scattered.


In this JetBlue case though, it seems that everyone expected B6 to have an answer as soon as the plane was diverted, and that B6 didn't have anything to give them. JetBlue appears to have tried real hard to accomodate passengers, but fell short. I think a lot of it still comes down to money, and JetBlue was only willing to spend a certain amount on their passengers (which is understandable).

[hiss srq]

Not true, it is an operational decision not a money decision trust mer. I get paied the bucks to make these decisions on a daily basis. Monetary valuer plays zero role in anythingf we do in rgds to things like that.

[T-Bird76]

Passengers need to get a grip in my opinion. If the plane is expecting a release anytime soon than the best bet is to keep em onboard. I agree passengers are important but if they ever want to get there they should just do as operations tells them and that is that.

Ryan you should never work with customers....That is the kind of statement that will put a company under. Sitting on a plane for 10 hours because operations tells them to....sorry but I'm going out an exit if that's the case, I'll risk the fine.

[hiss srq]

Reality is sitting on the jet may make the diffrence in them getting where they need to go and not. That is why I state that because if the crew times out while waiting for the window Tommy than the passengers are going to throw a gasket when it cancels due to time out on flight deck crews. AZnd also to add to it as far as crew request if a reccomendation by the crew is made to offload than it will be taken into account based on our data on a release time or an ETO time. It is an issue of time and the FAA and the ATC desk at airlines work closely together to get planes going. Bottom line is that passengers need to do as is said. I agree that 10 hours is excessive but 3 and push 4 sometimes may be the norm. Espesially when dealing with ZNY.

[skipper]

This is a problem. Returning to the gate to offload passengers makes you lose your slot. At COA they utilize what they call CPR where they will bring the a/c to a remote area in EWR to offload any pax that want off rather then returning to the gate. They implement this after 2 hours of waiting for take off clearance.

[USAF Pilot 07]

This is a problem. Returning to the gate to offload passengers makes you lose your slot. At COA they utilize what they call CPR where they will bring the a/c to a remote area in EWR to offload any pax that want off rather then returning to the gate. They implement this after 2 hours of waiting for take off clearance.

This should become more common practice at other airlines, whether it's by voluntary acceptance or by a regulation mandating it...