Originally Posted by
Robert Leach
That's a bit of a time consuming system, but I sorta understand it (since these sort of rules were probably written 40 years ago). Seems to me it would be better to push one button and send out a text to every pilot on the ATL-base MD-88 roster and give them 15 minutes to call back if they want to do the trip.
Having said that, in the name of communication and customer service, all the airline had to do was make an announcement when it became inevitable that this process would occur:
"Ladies and gentlemen, here's an update. Because of new federal requirements, the plane in Newark just returned to the gate. This means that by the time the flight finally gets here, the pilots will time out for their duty day and won't be able to fly you to Kansas City. Our process is to start calling every MD-88 Delta pilot here in Atlanta to see if we can get a crew here to fly you. This can take hours, or we might get lucky and have a crew here in a couple of hours. In the worst case scenario, it will be tomorrow before this flight operates, or it could still cancel, and we apologize for that. If you want to go get some sleep at a hotel and fly tomorrow instead, we'll be happy to rebook you at no charge. The hotel will be at your expense, but we've got some special rates at local hotels that won't cost an arm and a leg. Once again, we're trying to locate some pilots to do this flight, but we don't know how long that will take or if we will find any at all. If you want to rebook for tomorrow, step up to the podium and we'll do this for you."
+1. One of the very weak spots within Delta is the appalling lack of training of GAs on how to communicate to pax when irrops occur. Many of them are literally clueless - they simply don't know what to say to pax, how to say it, how often to say it and how to phrase it for maximum mitigation of passenger anxiety.
For my 3-hour return to the gate ATL-LAS last night, the pilot provided good info about the return but virtually no info on what we should do once the plane was back at the gate. Should we deplane? Should we take our stuff? Were there timeout issues?
As it ended up, there WERE timeout issues among the FAs, but it took a good 15 minutes after returning to the gate before a GA finally got on the PA and told everyone "everyone needs to get off, but you can leave your carry-ons. Take valuable items with you." The problem with this announcement was that it was made ONCE, and inevitably 50% of the pax were saying "What did he say?"
It's all basic, simple communications training, and DL people aren't getting it.