GreerApproach

Mon 8/8/05...I was on DL 1203, ATL-LGA. The first leg of this flight# is BNA-ATL.

Early in the afternoon...it already had "diverted" in the flight status...before it ever took off from BNA. The diversion showed it landing in HSV.

Later, in ATL, I heard someone mention the flight had to stop in HSV to pick up some 50 pax and bring 'em over to ATL.

I know this was common for CO in the 80s...I read about it in Gordon's propaganda...I mean book..."Worst to First". Is this still a common practice for DL today? How do you explain to the BNA pax that they have an unscheduled stop to make?

Just wonderin' is all...

--GA--

pentop

I had it happen about a year ago -- LGA to RDU on DL. Somewhere in flight we hit a bird and suffered a cracked cockpit windshield. Although, according to the pilot, only 1 of the 3 layers of windshield cracked and it really wasn't a true safety hazard, we had to fly below 10,000, and as a result, did not have enough fuel.

We landed in IAD, and then sat around while they figured out what to do. They finally realized that a mostly empty plane was leaving LGA in 30 mins and it had 20 seats available. There were almost exactly 20 of us, so they diverted the plane, picked us up, and we finished the journey. I asked one of the passengers how they broke the news -- that they were making an unscheduled stop. He said the pilot said politely "put yourselves in their shoes" and btw, "there isn't much you can do about it -- we're stopping." I think it worked because most of the people were sympathetic when we boarded. All in all, I think the others were only about 30 mins late, and we were grateful that we didn't have to sit in IAD all night (it was late, and as anyone who has been there late knows, that place becomes a ghost town after about 8 p.m.

indufan

I wouldn't call it common but I think it happens from time to time. I have experienced it once, on a non-stop from Spokane to SLC and we stopped, unscheduled, in Pasco/Richland/Kennewick solely to pick up passengers from another flight.

DLfan

I have been on the receiving end of this. It's been over a year ago, but one of my LEX-ATL flights was cancelled. Within an hour of the scheduled departure time of that cancelled flight, a CVG-ATL flight made an unscheduled stop at LEX to pick us up. I don't think anyone who boarded in CVG or the late boarding LEX pax missed a connection (at least the FA annouced that all connections were fine). It was strange to board a flight that already had people onboard and settled in.

As an aside, I received the proper amount of mileage credit for the flight and it posted correctly with the flight number of the CVG-ATL flight (but, listed as LEX-ATL).

JS

This is just an educated guess, but I don't think "flag stop" is the correct term.

A flag stop is a stop on a regularly scheduled route that will be made only if someone actually wants to get on or off the plane.

With almost every flight these days being non-stop, the concept of a flag stop basically does not exist. Having another flight stop to pick up stranded passengers is called ... ? I don't know, maybe "flag stop" includes that, too.

I don't understand how the question of what people think on the original non-stop flight came up. Have they never been delayed before in their lives? Do they not understand that the airplane in which they are sitting does not personally belong to them? Or are they just flat-out selfish and don't give a damn about their fellow stranded passengers?

On the railroad, there are still a few flag stops. On Amtrak, very small stations that are little more than a sign are often flag stops (I think Danville, Viriginia is one). In the least populated part of New York City, the southwest area along the Staten Island Railway, there are a couple of stops that are designed as flag stops in the middle of the night. In the rest of the NYC subway system, trains stop at all stops, presumably because even in the middle of the night, frequently enough, there is someone getting on or off that trying to make them flag stops would be difficult.

One time I took US Airways from PIT to JMS with a scheduled stop in BFD. It was late on Saturday night with few people on board, and it turns out that everyone was going to JMS (and not surprisingly, no one in BFD wanting to fly to JMS), so they said that we will be flying non-stop to JMS. That made me very mad, because the purpose of the trip was to add both of the obscure airport codes BFD and JMS to my list. Luckily I was able to stand by for a different flight on the return that was going to stop in BFD (I had a ticket on the non-stop to PIT), and there were plenty of people getting on in BFD.

Ted Striker

DL (not sure about other carriers) does call this flagstopping. There are lots of reasons to make an unscheduled stop (for example, JAX-JFK may stop in RDU because there was not enough fuel in JAX to fill the plane up all the way).

However it becomes immediately obvious if any delays as a result were the fault of the airline or force majeur. I doubt DL would ever flagstop a flight to pick up 20 stranded passengers if it was going to cause more than a few misconnections in the terminal station.

There is an episode of "Airline" where WN decides to put an unscheduled stop to drop off about 20 stranded pax. Boy were the passengers upset ...

JS

I saw that episode. I think it was MDW-PVD-ISP to drop off people in PVD rathe than non-stop to ISP.

Since there is no way anyone is connecting in ISP (unless to another airline, in which case you have to give yourself a huge layover), I don't understand what their problem was. What a bunch of BAL.

SPN Lifer

BAL?

keithguy

I had this happen on song. It was this January when there were problems with ATL. We were sitting on the lightly loaded JFK-TPA, but waiting for the pilots to show up (who were flying in from ATL and weren't scheduled in for three more hours). Meanwhile, at a couple of gates down, a JFK-FLL was all ready to go except it had a mechanical. It took a while to sort out, but they moved the passengers and luggage onto a third plane and made it go JFK-TPA-FLL. They had the JFK-TPA folks in the first ten rows and JFK-FLL folks at row 11 or higher. The stop in TPA looked to be just under 25 minutes.

My miles posted as JFK-FLL (although booked as JFK-TPA) as well.

RSSrsvp

BAL is a term coined by JS to describe people that complain about DL & other airlines. For a more detailed description, I suggest that you send him a PM.

The irony of this is that JS has been caught posting BAL's himself.

NYBanker

On one of BA Concorde's last runs, they lost an engine (more common than should have been) and had to fly subsonic for a portion of LHR-JFK. Subsonic uses more fuel on Concorde, so they had to stop early (somewhere in northeastern Canada). BA had the 8pm 777 flight LHR-JFK stop to pick up the stranded Concorde pax. I can't imagine anyone was happy...that 8pm flight doesn't arrive till 10:30pm, assuming no stop... plus, I can't imagine two many Concorde pax siting in middle seats in Y.

Thankfully, I had made the 6:30pm departure that evening out of LHR!

Presumably, BA had to fly in special technical staff to repair the engine.

Evan!

What is the definition of "non-stop"? I don't know how you can say that almost every flight these days is non-stop.


Now who is being selfish?

JS

I don't know of one flight that starts in a Delta hub and makes a stop along the way to another destination. I think the last one was SLC-EKO-RNO and that has also been cut (now SLC-EKO and SLC-RNO non-stop).

I just wanted US Airways to fly the plane according to their published schedule.

USCGamecock

Many times an a/c from CAE would drop by AGS if a flight was cancelled. The ones of us getting picked up sure are thankful. However, that was in the good old days when we actually had DL jets.

DLfan

ATL-HNL
ATL-OGG
CVG-ANC
CVG-PDX
CVG-SJO
CVG-GRU
CVG-SMF
SLC-GDL
SLC-PVD
SLC-SAV

To name a few...