DebitNM

Today, while flying ABQ-Dallas- LGA, we were informed that 45 passengers coming in from Austin to Dallas to get on our flight to LGA didn't make it to
Dallas. There flight was cancelled due to mechanical issues.

As it was, OUR flight was delayed due to some minor issue,but we didn't know.
We had preboarded (due to hubby's recently having had surgery) and were wondering where all the rest of the passengers were as no one was boarding.

There were perhaps 10 people on the plane at this point. Nothing was said to any of us.

Only after they loaded the plane was any of this announced IN the plane. By then, the doors were being closed.

So we detoured to Austin, 37 minutes flying time. Then load these 45 and their bags and off we went to LGA. We ended up being about 80 minutes late.

Apparently the 45 (high schoolers?)were all in a group and could not be accommodated on any other plane.

A first for me and a free drink ,although that was announced either.

Quite the day.

Yellowjj

Understandable. For that size they might have had 2/3 chaperon's. Definitely don't want to break the group up without someone supervising them.

NextTrip

I sat in LA traffic that long today! Hahaha!

BerenErchamion

So the one time I've been aggravated that a Southwest flight was late (usually I don't care that much, as I'm able to devote a full day for my travel anyway) was when I flew out to LA to househunt in the Inland Empire (I was moving there for grad school) (don't ask why I flew to LAX instead of Ontario).

I had specifically selected the flights I did to try and avoid having to experience LA rush hour traffic my first time having to find my way around. You have to understand, I grew up in a rural town in SW Indiana; the worst I had ever experienced was in Indianapolis after a Colts game, and that was manageable just because it was slow and on surface streets. Most of the time, something like "I have to merge and there are cars in the lane I'm merging in?" was a shock for me.

Anyway: flight was late, I didn't get out of the rental car lot until shortly after 5 PM.

ElmhurstNick

Beats canceling your flight and deadheading the plane to AUS and runing an extra section of AUS-DFW with those 45 people.

bgriz18

This happened to my Dad just a couple weeks ago. Flying from DTW to PHX they stopped at MKE to pickup additional passengers as the MKE flight was canceled or something.

I had never heard of anything like that before. It didn't add too much time for him and he was able to make his connection to LAX.

traveller001

It happens to get Customers where they have to be. Not exactly common. But Irops in low load periods it might occur more often.

It can also happen to switch crew that would have timed out on the full flight.

A whole lot of extra fuel to get things done...

bobbybrown

Wait, so Southwest violated perimeter rule and operated AUS-LGA nonstop?

Sorry for your inconvenience, but WN just got 45 young loyal customers.

ohange

sorry... what's the perimeter rule?

HankAAFlyer

There has been a long standing "perimeter rule" that limits flights from LGA to 1500 miles or less - there are exceptions for flights to Denver (as flights to Denver existed already at the time of implementing the perimeter rule, as well as flights on Saturday).

Austin to LaGuardia is 1520 miles, so 20 miles outside the allowed perimeter. So, just an interesting observation with regards to nonstop service between Austin and LaGuardia to accomodate the 45 passengers wtih the unscheduled stop

Deleted the Wikipedia snippet - just to address Allan38103's concerns about the validity of Wikipedia (I just copied/pasted the perimeter rule section for brevity) - the intent was to just describe the perimeter rule in the response to ohange's question.

here is a link to a USA Today article with some more context on the Perimeter rule.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayi...says/24012295/

ohange

Is there a loophole for allowing irregular ops though? I wonder if it's OK since that AUS stop was IROPS, and it was *scheduled* as DAL-LGA...

MSPeconomist

I'm sure they would violate the perimeter rule if an emergency landing were required.

Allan38103

If Wikipedia say it's true, I believe it.

I read that on the internet somewhere. You can't post anything online that's not true. (I read that on the internet, too.)

OPNLguy

The term for such an irregular operation is called a "flag-stop", at MKE in your Dad's example. IIRC, it's an old railroad term, carried forward into the airline realm. It's not accomplished all that often, mainly because the actual pax loads of the potential "rescue" aircraft have to be light enough (i.e. enough empty seats) to accommodate the number "stranded" pax.

In my early pre-airline life as a caterer back in the late 1970s, I catered a National Airline (v1.0) DC-10 that was about half full and watched it push for its IAH-LAS flight. On the drive back to our kitchen, I watched it taxi clear of the active runway, and taxi back to the gate with a MX issue that grounded it. National flag-stopped a likewise half full DC-10 MSY-LAS into IAH to rescue everyone, and off they went with a full boat, albeit delayed, but everyone got to LAS.

HankAAFlyer

MSPeconomist, good point - I have not personally experienced irrops / emergency landings too often when flying to New York - had forgotten that that was a possibility - such as a LAX-JFK flight diverting to LGA for weather, need to refuel, mechanical or other reasons.

My most recent diversion was on IAH-LGA flight on United - we had diverted to Albany to refuel after circling LGA for about an hour, so irrops / flight diversions are definitely possible and would result in an airline having operated a flight to LGA that originated from outside the perimeter rule. There were apparently some flights that had diverted to JFK, EWR and LGA, so things were a mess in terms of flights positioning where they needed to be.