MW147

I'm booked on flight 969 from LAS to JFK today. The inbound from JFK was diverted to ORD, apparently because of an ill flight attendant. The were supposed to be on the ground for 40 minutes, of course it turned into 2 1/2 hours.

So once it got back in the air our new departure time was 1:48 PM. OK, inbound arrives at 1:00 and deplaned. Pilots go on, almost ready to board. Until......they announce that they are "looking for 2 flight attendants" or else we have to wait for them to come in from LAX. And.....another 2 hour delay.

They had all day to make sure they had crew here. And only now they are scrambling? I'm not impressed.

MW147

And now delayed again to 4:15 PM!

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Exec_Plat

Annoying.

They lost an attendant in ORD...then when they get to LAS, now they need two?!?

Plus, its not like it would be a surprise. You'd think when the plane left ORD (or even when it got diverted) they would plan for crew and flight needs the rest of the day. It almost seems like they dont think about it until they get ready to board...




During IRROPS, I can look at inbound equipment, track tail numbers, etc, etc...but the whole crew thing is a black box.

nismo240ssx

the club or a good phone agent can also tell you where the various parts of the crew are coming from. Learned long time ago having a plane is only half the battle.

Stripe

You don't know that they waited for the plane to arrive at LAS before they tried to organize another crew. It sounds like the crew was OK to go from ORD to LAS but probably timed out and was unavailable for further work from there. The earliest AA could have started fixing all this was about 6 hours before they landed in LAS. More likely, it was probably not obvious until they actually left ORD that they would have a crew issue in LAS. I doubt any medical diversion can turn around in 40 minutes at ORD or anywhere else, but conditions at ORD were particularly difficult today. As noted above, LAS is not an AA crew base so the replacement crew would have to be flown in from somewhere else. Not only would they have to find the spare crew but they had to get them to LAS on a scheduled flight that had open seats. I would guess that is especially tricky the last day of the month when many potential subs had already maxed out their hours for the month. The fact that they got all that done in that time actually was kind of impressive. You'll remember that all this started when a crew member fell ill on your inbound flight, which was hardly a planned event.

As usual, however, the real preventable problem from the customer's standpoint is the poor communication. Not only do the extra delays seem to pop up from nowhere, there is never any real explanation of the process or reasons. IME BA does a great job at this. I remember sitting in WAW waiting for a delayed flight to LHR. The pilot came out to the gate area, took the mic and gave a detailed presentation of the weather and flow control issues that were creating the delay.

Overall I do think AA runs one of the sloppier operations among the major carriers, but I don't think this incident is evidence of that.

AggieNzona

There were over 700 weather related cancellations not to mention all the delays and overtime FAs.

MW147

Yes, that was what I was upset about. Stuff happens, I hope the ill FA is OK, I am sure they don't divert easily. And even the further delay at ORD did not really bother me, it was not much of a surprise. BUT they knew all day they had to staff this flight, and it appears they dropped the ball. But I don't really know. The whole thing was a little strange.

It appears they don't even keep their own people well informed. The incoming flight finally landed in LAS at 1 PM. At about 1:25 the pilots boarded, and the ground staff opened the door to the gate. They appeared ready to board. Then all of a sudden the stories start about "looking for 2 flight attendants". They said they were looking in LAS but worst case was that they would have them come on a flight from LAX that was due at 3:25. So even the pilots and ground staff didn't know? That seemed very strange. Then they post the new ETA as 3:45. At about 3:00 they announce "we have good news". 2 flight attendants are coming from Phoenix! That flight arrives about 4PM. What happened to LA? Anyway, they did come from Phoenix and we finally got out at 4:45 PM, just under 6 hours late.

And just to add insult to injury, the wifi on the flight did not workd. Then, we landed at JFK a little early, about 12:20 AM, only to have no gate crew waiting. We had to wait short of the gate for about 10 minutes.

All in all not a great day.

TWA884

Two comments.

It is possible, however, quite rare, for scheduling to reassign cabin crews from other flights at a non-hub airport.

Depending on the situation, deadheading crews may have priority over revenue passengers. They could have asked for volunteers or IDB'ed passengers to get replacement flight attendants to LAS.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Remember reserves are being dispatched for sick call outs and FAs going over legal time limits. It's a dynamic and fluid situation as FAs (and pilots) are being pulled as needed. As previously noted there is an additional exception of month end and FAs being at their legal monthly limit. Having a FA get sick inflight is a very unusual situation. Again I'm not sure why they would be looking for FAs in LAS unless operations thought there were FAs living in LAS (and reserving from home?) or maybe two FAs in a hotel with the plan to have them on night flights (assuming they had gotten their proper rest period) but able to fly now.

There may have been FAs in LAX available but then pulled for staffing a LAX flight. While the communications could have been better it's operations is being hit upon with multiple needs, again particularly with crew hitting with monthly legal limits and unable to fly again until the next day.

C17PSGR

Could also have been swapping crews in Vegas and missing FA's from that crew because of sickness or otherwise.

Keep in mind that a Hawaiian had an FA pass away while working recently. I suspect crews of other US airlines think about that. Plus, its the end of the month and extreme weather. Things happen sometimes.