andrewk829

I understand that Alaska has no infrastructure and no ground personnel in Buffalo, so it's not like there would be people to handle issuing hotel vouchers and such (and it seems unlikely that flight attendants could be pressed into such duty).

But, what they perhaps COULD have done is that the flight crew could have made this announcement: "This is the captain. A sincere apology for this inconvenience. Unfortunately Alaska Airlines does not have any operations at this airport, and it's late on a Saturday evening. So, do this: Get yourself a hotel room here in the Buffalo area. Save all receipts, including for food and ground transportation to/ from your hotel. Alaska Airlines will reimburse you for all reasonable expenses, and you can bet that they'll give you something substantial on top of that. And if you need to buy a toothbrush or a change of socks and underwear, we'll pay for that too. Alaska Airlines will call you tomorrow morning (or you can call Alaska if you prefer) with information on how we're going to get you to LAX as soon as possible."

In any case, every airline should have a contingency plan for handling diversions to airports where they have no or limited operations, including when it happens at odd hours of the day.

JacksonFlyer

There are a lot of pieces to this story (which I read in the ST) which are missing. I wonder what the 2 hour delay in BOS with passengers on the plane was about? ATC issue, mechanical....what? The time line is also missing; 2 hour delay prior to take off puts that around 8 PM or later, 90 minutes in to the flight there was an "emergency" requiring landing at the nearest facility which I assume took some time to route or prepare so given that, the plane "probably" landed at 10 PM or sometime after. Then getting to a gate that is not assigned and then off board. It sounds like a rescue aircraft was sent fairly quickly and the the crew emptied out the galley for the passengers and it most likely took some time to figure out what was going to happen next so I am guessing that when it was apparent a plane was on its way it most likely was around 11 to midnight. There is no way passengers were "detained" in the waiting area, I am sure they were free to leave, however as some have mentioned here, they may not have gotten back. Not sure how TSA (during a government shut down) is working at 2-3 AM in Buffalo. So only as a gestimate you would have about 3-4 hours if you were planning on taking that replacement plane. Sure, there are options, but for 150 passengers I guarantee that none of the options would have been optimal. Of course, there was the luggage issue and I am pretty sure there were minimal ground crew that would have moved luggage from one plane to the other. Again, this is only supposition.

There is a lot Alaska can learn from this and I agree, you need to be careful on these transcons where there is no Alaska base and you are at the mercy of the contract staff. No doubt I would have been greatly annoyed by this, but I travel with a carry on, an experienced traveler, so I know what options I could have. I am looking forward to see what compensation AS will have for these passengers. It also brings up the question if having a varying fleet played any role in this. When AS had MD-80s there were always issues about replacement crews when there was an equipment issue. MD-80 pilots could not fly 737s and vice versa. AS aligned the fleet for that reason as well as aligning maintenance to one type of aircraft. Now we have Airbus and Boeing; would things have gone quicker if this was a 737 with regards to replacement aircraft and crew? Probably not.

Often1

Hopefully there will also be a DOT review of AS's capacity to deal with what should have been a relatively simple issue. It gives the feeling of a carrier stretched too thin and which has not thought through the implications of running TCON's with few facilities along the way.

The days when massive ground crews were necessary are in the past. Having the ability to activate a dedicated phone line with agents who have authority to act is a simple and cheapish solution. Having announcements pre-packaged to be delivered by a crew member is also a simple solution. And, having someone on duty (doesn't need to be sitting at a desk given that people do have cell phones these days) who can authorize an announcement regarding hotel and food reimbursements, all seems simple.

When DL recently had to divert a widebody TPAC flight to Shemya Island in the middle of the Arctic, the rescue flight it dispatched included customer service agents. One can't expect DL to staff an Air Force base in the Aleutians, but the fact that there was an operational plan which could be executed and included all aspects shows a business operation which can be trusted.

Safety is always first and if that means landing in a cow pasture, so be it. It is what comes next that matters as well.

Boraxo

The diversion was at 7:30pm PST which is 4:40pm PST. Even if there was no ground support at Buffalo there should have been personnel and a contingency plan (since this is not the first diversion to BUF as reported above). Certainly AS had ops center, call center and incident management working at that hour.

My guess is that Passengers were told to wait for further instructions as crew did not know when/how plane would be repaired. The "wait" then stretched longer than anticipated but everyone is kept in limbo as they are told it could depart at any time. However when the crew left the airport - that was the point at which AS clearly knew that the delay would be several hours or more - they should have offered passengers a hotel and rebook tomorrow option. That was the big fail.

Presumably that would be the case at 10pm or later (after last scheduled flight) but not at 5pm.

s0ssos

I don't know why people worry so much about bags. Remember, your bags can fly WITHOUT you in the US. No biggie. Bags seem to make it better than passengers as well (sometimes when passengers misconnect bags don't).
And AS didn't try to proactively book people on other airlines because they actively try not to book people on other airlines.

JacksonFlyer

That is not what is listed in the ST article:

Passengers boarded Alaska nonstop flight 1367 from Boston to Los Angeles on Saturday at 6 p.m., and waited almost two hours on the ground before takeoff in an uncomfortably hot cabin. Then just 90 minutes into the flight, they were diverted because of an electrical burning smell to Buffalo Niagara International Airport in New York.

If you follow the time line as stated by the ST, they did not depart until 8 and if at 90 minutes they made the diversion then that would be 9:30 PM....assuming this was the case and the times were accurate. It does appear that they scrambled quickly to get a plane and a crew to BUF within 5 hours so they were doing "something". I am still interested in what the delay was before and the actual timeline, the ST was more into pushing the story of the college student, enraged mother and elderly couple that packed their meds in their checked luggage.. Bottom line, curve ball of events thrown at AS and I think we all agree they probably will do a root cause analysis to find out where they have broken procedures. I feel bad for the passengers on this flight but I do not think anything that could/would have been done would make them less angry. Thank God this is a rare happening with AS.

Often1

Poor ;leadership and management.

"What do we do if we have an aircraft full of passengers stuck somewhere we don't have a presence?" Seems to be something a carrier providing TCON service ought to have a contingency for.

s0ssos

In a year it will have changed to was

DCP2016

This is why they need to merge with B6 now, so they can have all the planes they desire both on the East and West Coast. They'll just be screwed when they have to divert to a Midwest airport.

pbelmore

Then they can just buy Sun Country!

fly18725

s0ssos

Why not fly that plane to LAX?

jrl767

beckoa

Glad the pilots got the aircraft down safely.

RRDD