dgoedken

I was on a flight, from IAD, last night that was seemingly delayed for no reason. The doors were locked AND "armed", but there we sat at the gate for 20 mins (with doors closed), which was 10 mins past take-off.

When suddenly the FA disarms both doors (jet bridge 2nd, and the opposing one first). I'm thinking "crap, something bad happened, we're getting deplaned." Well, thru the door passes a solitary trench coat with a nice lining, and then as quick as it was opened, the door was again closed and armed the jet-bridge door and then the opposing door....hands the coat to another FA who briskly walks it to the rear, assumably to hand to some DYKWIA individual. Which, immediately after doors were armed, the safety video commenced and we pushed back from the gate.


So, my questions are:

Is this against FAA regulations? As they NEVER open the door for a late passenger

Should this be reported to the FAA?

Should this be reported to United?

Am I over-reacting?

OR Am I just angry that the same FA also turned off the VOD tv show as we were about 9 mins from landing at, quite literally the VERY seconds, as they were trying to stop a nuclear reactor meltdown and weren't sure if it was in-time or not.

Also, my apologies if the wrong forum...

aacharya

Nothing to write to anyone about in either instance.

dgoedken

..but I thought it was a breach of security protocol if the doors were armed and were opened?? Or is that just a line they feed to the paying customers who are seconds late? and the door at the gate area is closed, but not the airplane door?

BB2220

When a door is armed all it means is the slide is engaged. If it was armed and then opened the slide would blow. It has nothing to do with security.

exwannabe

"Armed" refers to the automatic slide activation being enabled. The only thing that matters is that the flight crew has very strict rules on how to open the doors in order to insure they do not accidentally deploy the slide.

There is nothing security related to the door being armed.

fastair

Why would the FAA care? why would there be a regulation prohibiting opening a door after it was disarmed? What if someone needed to get off or emergency personnel needed to get on?

phospho

I don't have an answer to your question, and I have no idea if it's a security breach or not. But I would be pretty pissed off too. Ended up waiting ~12 hrs one time at EWR because I missed my flight by literally 1.5 minutes, and that was because my United flight was more than an hour late arriving at EWR.

What blew my mind is that the plane hadn't even started to push back. And I was first class and 1K. I didn't say anything and just took it like a man. They rebooked me on economy class and I still took it without opening my mouth or complaining to anyone (I had paid for an F fare).

I feel like there's a lot of subjectivity.

Personally, I'd just let it go if I were you. It just isn't worth your time.

JBord

Doors are opened all the time to let maintenance or emergency personnel onboard, or to deplane passengers - sometimes even voluntarily for long delays.

exwannabe

So because they did not let you on after the doors were closed, you would pissed off if they let some other pax on in the same situation?

Ignoring the reality of how the situation could be very different, why be pissed off for the other guy?

Zip

I know this one! They DID stop the meltdown just in time!!

Seriously, what a weird situation over a trench coat. Enjoy the mystery. Had to be an extra special FA (they wouldn't do this for a coach passenger, would they?).

HMPS

maybe the coat contained the pax's passport or other valuables ?
Or maybe was a standard issueCIA trench coat ?

mduell

No, no, no, and yes.

rmadisonwi

In before the link to the least substantive UA-related complaint thread.

emcampbe

Exaggeration much?

It's true it doesn't happen often, but never is a pretty strong assertion, considering we do have occasional reports of it happening. The problem is re-opening the door to put another pax on is rarely just as simple as opening and closing the door. When the door is closed, presumably the numbers have already been run, etc., and allowing them on means they have to recalculate these (fuel, weight/balance, etc.).

I've never had it happen to me personally (though had a couple of instances where I made it just before), but i would never suggest it hasn't happened.

If you think it might be against FAA regulations, then yes, you should probably report it. I would suggest if you do that, you be very clear in your report on which specific reg was violated. Also, yes, perhaps you are overreacting about the IFE thing.

bocastephen

The only FAA regulation violated would have occurred had the door been opened while still armed - and that would have delayed the flight even longer while they searched the other side of the airport for the missing gate agent.