Originally Posted by greenery
On a recent Northwest Airlines flight out of Memphis, we waited to take off on the tarmac for almost two hours. That alone would not be an uncommon story but the extreme heat inside the plane made the situation memorable- to say the least. Someone near me showed me a device that had the time and temperature. It showed a cabin temp of 102 degrees. All the while, the flight crew reported we would be cleared for take off very soon as we waited and waited in the heat.
Some of the passengers started to get ill. There was talk about suing the airline and false imprisonment. (Of course the high powered attorneys working for the airline would stop that in its tracks.) Many people told the flight attendants to turn on the air conditioning but they were told that this was impossible until we were airborne. Finally, we did take off and the plane cooled down.
I wondered if someone would have gotten real sick could the airline be held liable due to the 100 degree temps in the cabin?
Write a letter to NWA using the on-line "Contact Us"
The above was an issue I encountered multiple times a few years ago on NW 31 and other AMS-US routes on the DC-10. One time in particular it got really bad - it was a hot summer day in London, we had a delay in departure and just cooked in the aircraft. I finally gave in a wrote in to NWA after that episode.
I got a personal response from the Chief Safety Officer (also held a VP title, IIRC) at NWA apologising about the INOP APU's. The letter really just explained it happens every once and awhile, but as a general rule APU's are functional on 99% of our aircraft.. blah.. blah.. Letter was cc'd to Hector Adler (used to be VP Inflight Services IIRC - no longer with NWA) and I was given some bonus WP miles or something.
This type of thing needs to be brought to their attention. I was NW Plat at the time and flying trans-Atlantic twice a month back then, which is probably what prompted the personalized letter.
I don't know what kind of a/c you were on, but I've had INOP APU's on countless DC-10 flights and several of my last 757 flights. I know NW is in a squeeze at the moment, but fix the bloody APUs!
SDF_Traveler