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My suspicion about deplaning is that once that has started, it's going to be at least 30 minutes before the plane takes off. Because once we get off the plane, and we all walk around the terminal (even close by) and hit the head, it's going to take at least that long to get us all back on the plane. Granted, at 3 hours and counting, I'll want to get off the plane myself. Just remember to take your really personal stuff off the plane with you.
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Deplaning is a really tough issue. It may seem simple, pull up to the gate, open the doors, and let them off. But there is a LOT more to it.
The obvious one is checked luggage. When someone deplanes, are they off for good or coming back? Who keeps track of which ones are which? If they're off for good, they have to open the cargo hold and send someone in there to track down the deplaned passenger's luggage.
Then there is the issue of scheduling gate assignments, both within and between carriers. Some gates are shared between carriers, and in those cases, before an airline can put an unplanned plane at a gate, they have to have an agreement worked out to pay for it.
I'm not saying it's impossible, this is all stuff that an each airline has a staff to handle. But it does make that job far more complicated and expensive, which is why the airlines are pushing back against the deplaning rules.
But yeah, bathrooms? Water? Even food? Yeah, if an airline wants to sit on the tarmac because they don't want to issue refunds on the slight chance that they might get clearance to take off, that's their problem and they should pay for it.
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@humphrmi: if a plane delays so long that i have to get off it and not get back on, i am perfectly willing to wait a couple of days for them to return my luggage to me. anything important is in my carryon.
@catastrophegirl - manic first time home buyer: That's very generous of you. You should be named specifically in the law as \"someone who won't complain when their luggage isn't waiting for them at the gate.\"
@humphrmi: well last time i volunteered something for an airline and was polite and patient about it, i not only got a free round trip voucher but i also got the next flight out [2 pm instead of 6 pm] and an upgrade to first class, while the yelling angry people got sent out cattle-class on the later flight and no vouchers.
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Deplaning? NOT a tough issue.
There is no REASONABLE EXCUSE for having a plane sit on a taxiway for THREE HOURS OR MORE.
How this thing happens and it is \"UNFORESEEN\" BEFORE THE PLANE LEAVES THE FRAKKING GATE is beyond my comprehension. Weather? Just 'happened' ??? Riiiiight.
Pull the plane back to the gate AND PUNT.
Delays I can see... a half hour or 45 minutes, fine. Three hours is RIGHT OUT.
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@doctor_cos: I can see no reason how a multi-hour delay is completely unforeseen. What legislation like this may do is actually keep the airlines from loading passengers in the first place when they know they won't be able to take off on time.
Of course, if this doesn't address flight time rules for the crew, then that's a whole other problem to deal with.
@doctor_cos: What if there are no gates available? What if the gates that are available don't have a taxiway equipped for that particular type of aircraft?
@humphrmi: The point I was trying to make through all the caps and such was I do not see why the planes even leave the gate in the first place if they're just going to sit on the taxiway.
Although zyphlar does make the point that once a plane leaves the gate, it has 'departed' even if it does sit on the taxiway for oh, 9 hours or so. So it doesn't hurt the bogus 'on time departure' numbers.
What happens that delays a plane for three hours that 'popped up' between the time the plane left the gate and the time the plane was supposed to leave the ground???
@doctor_cos: We don't disagree. My only point (since we're stating our only points here) is that it's not just as simple as \"OH NOES! The airlines hate us, and won't let us deplane!\" There is a cost involved, airlines have to adjust their operations to make it work, and sometimes it simply won't work. You can't legislate good business practices. Safety - sure. But good business practices will only come from customer demand.
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@humphrmi: What if the airlines actually considered these possibilities and included them in their emergency contingency plan?
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@mythago: The airlines don't do ANYTHING to support the passenger. Their bottom line is always going to be about their ability to make more money. So I've learned to assume the airlines will never do anything to help make air travel more pleasant, even if that amounts to a plan to account for delays and providing passengers basic rights during that delay.
As for purchasing the \"all-boarder,\" if the airlines don't have one already at every airport they service, standby for a new fee. Maybe they'll start charging a not-flying fee, like the Onion says.
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@humphrmi: Most planes (excluding the largest) could be deplaned with the use of some rolling stairs and a bus to take everyone back to the terminal.
This would leave the airline in a bit of a bind with the A.D.A., but that's just a market for someone to invent a (passenger) rolling elevator.
@Wombatish: Which I'm SURE exists. Worst case they can drive up one of those food/beverage trucks which ground crew uses to get onboard all the time.
I think the problem is that upper mgmt of the airline companies says \"the plane will leave the gate on time, no matter what\" which causes bureaucratical breakdown when the \"no matter what\" is 9 hours of weather & equipment delays that could have been anticipated.
I've always said that bathroom, etc, are inalienable human rights, and can't be denied for any reason-- elementary schools, prisons, long lines, and airplanes all must permit people to perform their biological functions, and leave the area if safe to do so. They might say that such a thing would cause lots of trouble, to which my response is \"more trouble than me taking a piss where I stand?\"
@zyphlar: you are correct, here's one called an 'all-boarder' [with pictures and an optional flash demonstration]:
[www.agefla.com]
@humphrmi: \"What if there are no gates available? What if the gates that are available don't have a taxiway equipped for that particular type of aircraft?\"
Hey logic isn't allowed here!
We all know airlines do things for no other reason then to stick it to their customers. /s
It's really tough sitting on a plane for even half an hour while it's on the ground, let alone three hours.
A few weeks ago I went to Arizona with my family. We flew Continental from Bradley (Hartford, CT) to Phoenix with a connection in Newark. We sat in the plane on the ground for an hour in Bradley, missed our connection, and then on our re-scheduled flight sat on the ground for two hours.
It's really difficult especially for small children. The noise of the engines helps them to fall asleep when the plane is in the air. On the ground, they just start screaming after about 20 minutes and the parent will either yell at the child, creating more of a disturbance, or they just let the child keep going. I'm surprised no one punched out the kid or the mother.
There's no way that the airports don't know that there will be an issue. If it looks like there will be an issue within the next few hours, don't board the planes. I'd rather sit in the terminal than on the plane for three hours.
Also, the water and food thing - Continental feeds you, even in coach. They normally feed within the first hour. Well, if the flight leaves at 5:30-ish on time, when it left at 7:30 people were really hungry. And thirsty too. It's one thing if you can buy it from somewhere (like in the terminal), but if they just won't give it to you at all it's a problem.
The airlines need to figure out the logistics of finding an open gate before 3 hours have elapsed. If one isn't going to be available at the 3 hour point, and they expect a delay of at least that long, then they need to be looking for an available one earlier.
It's about time the airlines have to treat their passengers better than cattle during a wait. I've had to sit for hours in planes with intermittent A/C, condensation dripping all over the place, no food, and no regular updates on when we're going to depart. Some better planning on the airline's part may make the new laws relatively easy to implement.
@Shoelace: To your point about better planning: They need to learn the 6 P's: Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.
I don't see what the airlines' beef would be with having a mandated period. They'd all be subject to the same rules so there would be no competitive disadvantage.
Also, as a businessperson or an engineer, you have to make contingency plans for a reasonable level of failures. If the people running the airlines and the airports are running so close to capacity or the thin edge of profitability that they can't deplane their passengers after three hours, they are incompetent and need to turn the reins over to somebody who knows what they're doing.
There definitely needs to be a reasonable human law on things like this-- other, more socialist societies have already dealt with this, I think, because public systems (like transportation, health care, whatever) have been a part of daily life for so long that their failure is effectively a failure of government to its people.
Here in America though, government washes its hands of private business, and these capitalism says that businesses can do whatever they want as long as people will pay. And so some public systems can treat its customers like cattle. The joke's on us, not the socialists.
Yes businesses, being decent and treating your customers (and employees!) as human beings is a necessary part of your existence. Far from shrugging your shoulders and waiting for a bill in Congress to force you to be human, you should be on your knees begging your customers to forgive you for your failures, even if the circumstances were beyond your control. This is the level of social responsibility I witnessed during my recent trip to Japan; it's a shame that as an American I was surprised to see it.
You need to read salon's Ask A Pilot segment for a good answer to your question.Returning a plane to the gate is not as simple as pulling a bus over to the curb and dropping a few people off. There are security issues to deal with, fuel, flight plans, air traffic control slot times (which are prone to change without warning), and a host of logistical challenges (gate availability, gate staffing, etc).
When we discussed this issue back in 2006, I painted a possible scenario to illustrate why this was a bad idea. It went something like this: Imagine you are on a delayed airplane going from New York to Chicago. You have been parked on the taxiway for the past two hours. Your assigned wheels-up time is only a half-hour away, but because the new, federally mandated time limit has just elapsed, the crew is required to ask if anybody wishes to get off. Imagine now that one person raises his hand.
There are 150 people on the plane, but only one of them wants to leave? Well, the rule is the rule, and so the pilots ask for clearance back to the terminal. Using portable stairs won't work because the guy has two suitcases somewhere below, and security regulations require they have to come off.
There are no vacant gates at the moment, and waiting for one to open takes half an hour. Then, the ground staff needs to locate the correct luggage bin in order to pull the guy's suitcases. Twenty minutes there.
And because taxiing to and from the terminal will burn 2,000 pounds of kerosene, the plane must also be refueled. (The weather in Chicago is foggy; en route and alternate airport minimums have put things right at the legal limit, so there's no way around this.)
Together this will entail a new weight-and-balance manifest, and possibly, because the flight will miss its wheels-up time, a whole new flight plan. And, oh, missing that time means you're assigned a new one, and lo and behold it's another hour away.
What initially was less than a three-hour delay has now become a five-hour delay. Throw in the need to de-ice, or the possibility of the crew's running up against duty time limits, and it’s easily worse.
A Passenger Bill of Rights? In some respects it's a good idea, but be careful what you wish for.
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2008/11/21/askthepilot299/
Getting off the airplane that has left the gate is more often in the control of the airport, not the airline. If the airport control won't let you move the airplane back to the gate then who is at fault? Will we start penalizing the airport authorities who refuse to let you get back to the gate?
What happens when one person out of 300 wants to get off the airplane, but the result is a canceled trip due to crew duty times? Is there a vote? I would be pissed if I did not get to my destination because a few whiners can't handle a delay.
Yet another bill with a massive loophole
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@Possinator: Of course, that is so the politicians can say they fixed the problem, but nothing really gets fixed.
Somehow I have a feeling the bottom feeding, blood sucking attorneys will find massive loop hol;es the airlines can fly through.
RT
www.real-anonymity.pro.tc
Last winter, I flew home to Minneapolis from Pennsylvania on United Airlines. The flight was uneventful until we were planning to land, and ended up circling the runway for about an hour. The pilot decided that we wouldn't have enough fuel to continue circling, and flew us to a tiny airport in Appleton, Wisconsin to \"refuel\" and return to Minneapolis. He promised us it would take \"no more than half an hour.\"
After arriving at the Appleton airport, we were refueled within half an hour and were allegedly waiting for confirmation we could land in Minneapolis. After two hours of sitting on the ground with excuses that were becoming increasingly implausible, somebody had the presence of mind to call the Minneapolis terminal only to discover that they had CLOSED the airport and cancelled all flights. Many of us on board felt that was a good of a reason as any to de-plane, especially given that we had now been on the aircraft for over five hours early in the morning, had been given zero food and had run out of all beverages (including water) hours ago. The pilot and crew disagreed and refused to let anybody deplane. Appleton refused to send us any refreshments. We ended up sitting on the plane for over nine hours before given confirmation to land at Minneapolis. At no point were any of us given an opportunity to leave, and many of us (including myself) had not had a single thing to eat or drink for nearly ten hours. One passenger claimed he was a diabetic and complained of low blood sugar, asking to be deplaned for medical reasons. The crew responded by offering him medical assistence at our gate of arrival, whenever that may have been.
A passenger bill of rights is absolutely essential, and long overdue. It's sickening to me that our tax dollars bailed out these corporations in 2001, only to be repaid by treatment that quite frankly should be illegal. I refuse to pay for the privelege of imprisonment, and until this bill of rights is passed, will continue to do so.
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Makes me not want to fly anywhere. I have a small bladder, you idiot airline people; you want me to pee the seat, go ahead and trap me in it for hours at a time!
Then it's your problem!
Is anyone else bothered by the fact that it requires an act of congress to get the airlines to provide better service to their customers?
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Sounds like a good start. However, I think it's deplorable airlines don't treat passengers well, the very people who keep them in business. It has to take the House to create a Passenger's Bill of Rights. What a fucking mess \"big business\" has made of this country.
Two smiple words by the flight crew would solve everthing.
FREE BOOZE!
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If a plane is 3 hours late, everyone should have their money refunded and fly free. That sort of delay is inexcusable. It's surprising that all people are clamouring for in case of severely delayed flights is a chance to stretch their legs.
A lot of this bullsh*t would be solved if all the airlines were required to enter a lottery for departure times. But thanks to effing Chuck Schumer, that won't happen.
Hmmm. Basic human rights. I can't imagine the rest of the bill is going cause the industry to be shaken to its foundation in how it treats its customers.
@rpm773: So who pays for the food and water? I assume the airline which isn't exactly fair.