Originally Posted by
WebTraveler
Regardless, employees are representing the company and they need to step up and deal with it - each one of them. It's not a great situation, but it is what it is. Pilot needs to communicate with Alaska's HQ staff and then communicate that. It may very well be for each to "call reservations, or please get a hotel for the night.....we are working on a contingency plan and we will post that info on our website and it will be available to reservations shortly. We have no services at this airport, and its late and we know we have a bad situation..." A captain, even in the most generic situations, includes taking charge and going down with the ship. Look, it sucks, period.
I'm hopeful and pretty certain the crew did as much as they could with the resources they had available. We don't know if they made announcements or updates either on the plane or in the terminal. At some point there's nothing left for them to do, since they can't rebook people or do anything other than provide basic lip service.
Originally Posted by
WebTraveler
Flight rules on rest do not play into this at all. The flight was on the ground and that pilot was not going to fly outside of his period. But that does not prevent him from doing other things.
Yes it does. The rest period starts when they get to the hotel. If you need a minimum of 10 hours of rest to be "legal," the airline needs the crew in the hotel ASAP. Their plane is already stuck there, so getting them to a hotel expeditiously is important.