jridge

Me too. I heard the problem was with the sensor indicating a fuel leak, and while they expected it to be able to fly out mechanically, they couldn't get a crew.

Anecdotally that seems exceptional. Most people are getting out tonight if the agent had any clue, and that includes people flying in J on awards. Connecting in SFO to QF seems like a popular backup option.

If people got these, they were very fortunate. Only 21 rooms blocked at MdR, and after that most people were being sent to Long Beach (including J pax).

JDiver

Are you on separate PNRs?

DiverDave

You are correct:

http://www.lawa.org/welcome_LAX.aspx?id=11483

David

inagaddadavida

No, same PNR, so we should be taken care of. Maybe if it is looking bad I'll ask at jfk to be routed directly to LHR.

Just struck me as odd that the same flight would be similarly delayed 3 days in a row.

Thanks for the info.

oysterhead43

Bummer for those pax. They deserve compensation.

cnyc

Hey all,

I've been lurking around these parts for a long time; I'm not sure where I initially noticed FlyerTalk, but I seem to recall pictures of 757's above the beach at St Maarten, difficult landing conditions somewhere in Nepal, expert discussions on past air disasters and pretty much any topic.

I finally registered because I had a question to ask. I was on AA 4176, which was diverted to IND, two weeks ago. [I don't see anything else on that flight when I search FlyerTalk.] The whole experience left me exhausted, and work kept me busy, so I'm finally writing.

I ended up furious at the airline, and then having to calm myself down in order to rent a car and drive 4 hours, arriving in STL at 3:30am.

What I was wondering was whether I might be able to receive any compensation, especially for the rental car and gas. [Would it be from American, or American Eagle?] Normally I would feel in a weak position here, but there are a few very interesting facts that might help out:

* They knew about the problem [broken weather radar] in NYC, but proceeded with the flight anyway, hoping to land at STL if the weather cooperated; it did not. How do I know this? First, the gate agent made a very weird announcement, that the captain was going to address the audience in the waiting area -- very weird, and it turned out they decided not to do that, and instead let us board the plane. But second and more important, they offered $300 vouchers and an overnight stay in NYC for 4 passengers because the airplane was overbooked.

Guess what? The plane was definitely not overbooked. It took until 2am or 3am, when upon discussing that, we realized that was the smoking gun: they wouldn't have made that offer if they didn't know this scenario was likely to happen.


It seemed to be at about 60% capacity. Clearly they did a cost calculation and determined it would be cheaper to get passengers off the plane. My question is here is, where does that cost come from? This is what makes me suspect they may end up compensating me, because they knew in advance what was likely to happen, and they did a cost calculation. I'll have a probability calculation at the end below.

It's probably on FlyerTalk, or maybe Jeff Masters' blog, where I remember reading about how we used to have plane crashes frequently up to 20 years ago due to downdrafts, but it doesn't happen anymore. So I see why they were unwilling to land.

* The first time the crew informed us of the diversion (which for some reason the flight attendant later insisted on not labeling a 'diversion', but she didn't use any other word) was immediately before the announcement about our descent into Indianapolis began. People were crying.

* I have no idea how difficult it is to fix a weather radar, but they seemed to be expert at pretending they're trying to fix it while using the time to delay until they can figure out what story to tell passengers.

* They offered to pay for hotel accommodations and put us on the first flight out in the morning. Unfortunately that would involve flying back to the east coast to Charlotte before coming back to STL. They mentioned the possibility of renting a rental car and they mentioned that we could submit the receipts to the airline afterwards while making it clear that they made no promises they would reimburse for anything other than hotel.

* I rented a car and drove together with another passenger who had a 10am wedding, four hours until arrival at STL. So we saved them the cost of two hotel rooms.

I am from the midwest and not very good at being demanding, which unfortunately seems to be a skill one needs as a passenger. Do you all have any suggestions for how I should go about this?


Ok, the calculation. Assume there is probability p, where 0 < p < 1, of landing in IND, and 1-p of landing in STL. Being generous, maybe p = 1/3 ... I have trouble imagining them doing this if IND seemed likely.

So ... the excess cost of carrying a passenger on this flight if it is diverted, let's make a variable for that and call it C. Then they would have calculated

C < (300+NYC hotel)*p

using p = 1/3, that becomes

C < 900 + 3*NYC hotel =~ $1200, assuming somehow they can get a great deal at $100, or $1500, if $200.

So where does that $1200 to $1500 cost come from? Part of that would be the cost of hotel booking in IND, but that's <$100. Is there any chance some of that could be recovered by me for the rental car and gas?

Thanks so much! Also, this site is awesome.

phlwookie

Judging from the flight track and weather radar here:
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/...255Z/KLGA/KIND

it would seem that your flight turned around to divert to IND after passing it, and while a line of thunderstorms was passing through the STL area. I believe the weather radar snapshot there is a point in time at when you landed, so it's tough to see exactly what it was doing in or near STL when you pushed back from the gate in New York. Thunderstorms being thunderstorms, they're hard to predict in exactly where they'll hit when and at what strenght, so it's possible that things worsened en route.

I'm going to guess that the offer to offboard passengers was one or more of 1) because the crew, knowing of the weather radar issue, wanted extra fuel reserve in case they had to do an airborne hold ("circling") for weather, 2) this is a long flight for the ERJ-145 aircraft that you flew (not in an unsafe way, but less weight = less fuel burn = more fuel margin to deal with bad weather that may pop up in en route, or 3) they had more cargo than usual causing a passenger/luggage weight restriction. #1 and/or 2 are most likely by far, and apparently by the time you got to Indiana, the cockpit crew decided that the safest thing to do was land in clear weather at a big airport (IND in this case) where it would be easier to reaccommodate passengers, versus a tiny one.

As to what to do, absolutely submit a customer service request to AA with a request for them to cover the cost of the rental car. Write something *very* brief, such as "I was on flight AA4176 on Sept 16, we diverted to Indianapolis due to a mechanical issue, and I incurred $xxx of car rental expense and request reimbursement. The gate agents in Indianapolis instructed me to submit that request here and I can provide a receipt." But leave out all the other extraneous stuff as it will confuse and discourage a useful reply and focus on what you personally did and want. Also, focus on the radar issue and not the weather, as airlines aren't obligated to compensate for weather delays.

Some others may have additional suggestions on how to interact with AA on this, who unfortunately aren't great at this part of customer service, particularly if they just write back with a generic form reply.

ty97

Welcome to (posting at) Flyertalk cnyc!

I heartily endorse phlwookie's feedback especially about the overbooking almost certainly being due to weight and balance under the conditions. You are giving AA far, far too much credit with the idea of the cost balance calculation. AA's not that smart and competent

And I'll also reiterate: Keep your submission succinct and unemotional. Stick to facts and only the necessary facts.

And good luck! Let us know how it works out please.

C17PSGR

Also, the cost to AA from diverting the flight to IND was significantly higher than if they had cancelled the flight in NYC or landed it in STL. Diverting is the most expensive option by far.

If they cancelled the flight in LGA, its very unlikely they would have had to pay anything to passengers. Airlines don't pay for hotel rooms in origination cities for flights that cancel so that couldn't be part of any calculation.

By cancelling in IND, they have a plane and crew that is in the wrong airport. The crew might not be legal again until they have had adequate rest. The plane may have to fly empty to another airport to get to get everything back in sync. There may be no one in IND to unload the plane or deal with the passengers, so they have to call in staff. Diverting the plane cost a significant amount of money and is done for safety reasons.

In terms of offloading, the pilot, in consultation with dispatch decided they needed some maneuver room in case they needed to fly around weather. Looks like they made the right decision to have extra fuel.

As a midwesterner, I'm sure you're aware of summer thunderstorms. Diverting for weather and going to another airport is a safety issue for AA and definitely not a cost savings issue.

As suggested by others, keep your email short. --- I was on a flight from LGA to STL. Unfortunately the plane diverted to IND and the flight cancelled there. Because I had to be in St. Louis and they wouldn't have been able to get me home until the next afternoon, I rented a car with another passenger. The one way car rental with gas was XX. I would appreciate reimbursement in that amount.

Don't be surprised if they say no or offer a voucher.

Weather happens. Be happy to you had a good crew that made good decisions.

cnyc

Extremely useful, thanks phlwookie and everyone!

Indeed, they would have been watching and hoping the weather would improve. That track explains the amazing 360 degree view of downtown Indianapolis as seen from the left side of the plane ... no one wanted to see that at the time, but it was quite a view.

Interesting, so they could have tried to obtain more fuel in the hopes of a hold over STL and eventually landing in STL. Hmm, I should have thought of that.

Thanks!!

justhere

It's not that they could have tried. They can get whatever fuel they want/need. The problem is the plane only holds so much fuel and while airlines only put as much fuel as they need plus required reserves, there are a number of calculations done to determine how much fuel to carry. Things like maximum take off weight of the aircraft. Maximum landing weight. The performance of the aircraft carrying more fuel than necessary (because of the extra weight of the fuel).

So in this case, AA may have decided to carry extra fuel and had to take some passengers off to do so otherwise the plane may have been over the maximum takeoff weight.

It seems you are implying that AA could simply have put more fuel in the tanks and circled for longer. It's just not that simple.

Airlines, believe it or not, do want to operate on schedule and get you safely from point A to point B. If they had just cancelled the flight then we would see complaints like "why didn't they at least try to fly and we could divert if necessary".

It really isn't a conspiracy and it sounds like the info the agents gave you seemed reasonable. I wouldn't read anything into the captain not speaking to you before boarding. And the FA's wouldn't know about the diversion until the captain tells them. And the captain was, I'm sure, very busy flying the plane and making whatever flight adjustments needed to be made to prepare for the diversion.

Lastly, I like your assumption about them pretending it's difficult to fix a weather radar which you admittedly know nothing about.

Diversions suck but they happen for a number of reasons. No one got out of bed that day and said "how best can we mess with cnyc. You are reading way too much into what happened. Good luck with getting the rental car reimbursed.

JDiver

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

As a former pilot, I'll concur pretty much with what has been said about aircraft weight and balance issues and why four passengers were selected for voluntary denied boarding. And as a former navaids - comm global troubleshooter, I can tell you radar units can be easy or very difficult to repair (and some specialized parts might have to be requisitioned and shipped from the specific aircraft's and company's maintenance base).

For you quest for compensation, I suggest reading at least the Wikiposts at the top of the page in the following threads:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...er-thread.html (link).

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...solidated.html (link).

(As your question is primarily about compensation, we will ultimately merge this into the campo thread to minimize information fragmentation and facilitate members' finding germane information when they search. /Moderator)

SpinOn2

Also on the weight and balance train for this. ERJ 140 and 145 can have this issue, and with likely the winds they'd be fighting heading towards STL and the weather around the area at the time, they likely weight restricted it due to the need of more fuel. Fair or not, they will remove pax before bags (or are supposed to) and thus, they likely found volunteers as they are supposed to, which was the plan before having to invol deny like they most likely would have done if they couldn't find said volunteers.

I'd be surprised to find that AA will reimburse you as they gave you a viable flight option to get you there safely. It may not be ideal or deemed fair in most people's eyes, but you chose to forfeit the rest of a flight on AA to get you there in this case, so they will likely at most give you some miles for compensation or a small amount voucher in good faith. Good faith in that they basically can retain you for profit later anyhow when using the voucher.

vrichard

Wonder if anyone has any info on where to find FLIFO translations now that all the links I can find on this and other FT threads are broken/non-existent -

The FLIFO info does not appear at the linked page on Flyerguide
The Wiki also has broken link on "here" in the ExpertFlyer line about flight status....

tia

AANYC1981

E145 DTW-LGA canceled last week and I got rebooked in full fare Y class and got 1.5 EQMs via Chicago and (upgraded on both segments) ....I'll take it.