Originally Posted by
WebTraveler
I get it. Alaska has no operations whatsoever in Buffalo. And domestic partnerships are all gone. The one who failed immensely is the pilot. Sorry, but this man should have been the last to leave the airport, it was his ship, and his dart of town was sad. Captain was thrown into the wolves and lacked any resources whatsoever to do anything. Captain should have simply told people to grab a hotel room for the night and wait for further instructions that would be posted on the website and reservations call center.
Flying everyone back to Boston did nothing to solve anything. Should have just loaded up that same plane and took them to LAX. period
Crew rest is federally regulated and contractually mandated. If the pilots and flight attendants stayed in the airport, it is possible that the passengers would have been stuck in BUF for even longer.
Returning to BOS was inconvenient but provided everyone with more options. There are additional crews and aircraft that could be used to operate a flight to LAX. There is also AS (contracted) staff that should be able to help. It's also possible that there were BOS-originating passengers that would prefer to cancel their trip and go home.
Originally Posted by
WebTraveler
and this may have been the best ticket to get home. By the time you add up hotel costs, etc, might as well have done what you suggested.
Alaska call center should be working this too. Get them somewhere - anywhere - on any carrier close to home....
There were no departures from BUF between the arrival of the flight and the departure of the new aircraft to BOS. I'm sure AS was looking at reaccomodations, but it is hard when there's no flights.
The only option would be to rebook passengers on another flight the next day. It's unlikely that'd get them to LAX any faster than re-routing through BOS (excluding the 90 minute ground delay, which was inexcusible).