kwflyer

Anyone know if this is true, I thought AC had a rule in place that they had to return to the gate after a certain amount of time.

If even half of these stories are true, all I have to say is WOW

cavitron

Delays/cancellations occur. Keeping people on the plane forever is torture. Is there any regulation about this in Canada?

arf04

No regulations in Canada, unlike the US. There are downsides to the US regs but the bottom line is that once things go awry, US airlines (when in the US) are motivated to get people off their planes to stay withing the time limit. That seems not to be the case in Canada, given the recent reports about long ground delays. What is particularly troubling about some of these reports is how people are kept on planes due to lack of gates and/or ground crew. The US regs have basically forced airlines to find workarounds to such problems or face stiff fines.

I was on a UAX flight into YQR last year that arrived late in the evening. The bridge wouldn't work and the ground folks were saying there would be a lengthy delay. The captain, a brash Texas type guy, got out on the ramp, looked at the stairs that led up to the bridge and then told the ground agent, 'open the door up there as we're all getting off now.' I'm not sure it was strictly speaking correct to do so, but it probably saved us quite a bit of time and I sure appreciated it. I always wonder when on planes like the CRJ that have their own stairs built in why we have to wait around for the bridge to be fixed or sorted (happens fairly often in my experience) when we could just deplane and be done with it. You'd think in a situation like last night that they could have some air stairs handy to get people off the aircraft even when there wasn't a gate open. It wouldn't take long or many ground staff to make sure everyone was safe and it would save people hours in some cases.

Troubling in the news report--if everything is accurate, of course--is that pax were denied accommodations and food vouchers once the flight was finally cancelled. Is it truly weather-related when the crew times out?

yyznomad

The metal can't return to a gate if there is no gate to be had. Curious what kind of AC rule this is.

yyznomad

just a side note

GTAA is one pathetic org... a bunch of stupid pathetic monkeys.

'nuff said.

todare

we need to have the european system of flying rights in canada. Air Canada would correct a lot of things if they had to pay !

kwflyer

Airstairs and buses seemed to work fine on an empty spot on the tarmac for how many decades, and still done in many countries.

If you cannot take off in a reasonable amount of time( i.e. less than 3 hours) than the aircraft should proceed back to a gate or offloading area.

Threatening people with a yellow card for speaking up, is not the way to go

yyznomad

Not in disagreement here. Was curious about said "rule".

Dorian

GTAA <--------- this is the problem

Tangoer

Sounds like a case of VBITs!

Disorderly and scared. I've never seen the attraction to Sun destinations. What fly all that way to hang out with a bunch of drunk Canadians in the fenced-in resort?
Getting away from it all?

YYZFlyboy

How do you figure? Let's find out what happened and base it on facts as opposed to your wild conjecture or opinion. I can tell you that with most of the problems I've had at airports (many not run by GTAA) the problem was most often the airlines bad planning or management of the problem. (I can give you many examples just from AC).

I can assure you that if an airline WANTED it's passengers off an aircraft it would happen touts suite (save and except maybe if there's a state of emergency). That applies especially for AC at YYZ where it has all it's resources and doesn't have to rely on contractors or anyone else for assistance. (By the way I'm talking from my long experience and inside knowledge of working in the industry)

yyznomad

GTAA sucks in general. That's a fact on its own.

Dorian

Lol.

Ya, GTAA is amazing. Pffft.

The de-icing nightmare is most of the problem there. I was thankful to only wait 1.5 hours in the de-ice queue last week (3rd in line when arriving at the central pad). Every story out there about long tarmac delays are all about de-icing and re-de-icing and then fuel issues due to the wait.

Then GTAA lets YYZ go gridlock and actually broadcast that status to the planet. Embarrassing as he*l if you ask me. You think AC gridlocked YYZ. Laughable.

yvr76

Canada needs a tarmac rule as they just instituted in the States. Here's another one from this winter: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-c...armac-yvr.html

You can't do much about a disruptive pax, but you can certainly handle a bad situation better:

For those who purchases on premium card cards, travel insurance would kick in at this point.

I'm sure that passengers were happy to hear that AC was voted a 4* airline as they deplaned.

todare

amusing saying it is de-icing as 1) they are late all year 2) they are late out of YVR even without de-icing...


no we need european bill of travelers rights...no more 5 percent discount coupons. give me cash up front