Originally Posted by
lehms
My Family of 5 traveling yesterday. Push back on time. After push back slight leak noticed in galley. Return to Gate. 45 m later they fix the leak and we push back again. Get to the runway bigger leak. Back to gate. Maintenance returns. After another delay we push back. 3 hour and 15 m after orig departure time.
No one allowed off the plane. No food/ water handed out during delay.
And the kicker is once on the air they had only loaded 12 sandwiches for coach passengers. So 95% of passengers were out of options if they didn't plan ahead especially after they didn't allow anyone to deplane during the delay
We were on award tickets. People were fuming.
Does this violate the 3 hour rule? Any thoughts?
No. Plane originally left on-time, however returned to gate due to mx. Not knowing how long mx would take, everyone was asked to remain on-board, item was 'fixed'. Now, the plane pushes back again, yet the problem comes up again. Again, not knowing if it would be a quick fix or lengthy, allowing pax to deplane, but the fix would be taken care of in 10 minutes, let's say, then you have to wait for all the pax who got off the plane get back to the plane and reboard.
Sounds like it was a rolling delay. It's unfortunate, however the plane was catered for it's original flt/departure (with the '12 sandwiches') so the 95% of pax wouldn't have gotten anything on the original departure.
It is a shame that the FAs didn't use the provisioning of Granola Bars to satisfy the needs, but it would be good to write to AA.COM/Customerrelations to let them know of your disappointment in how things were handled.