No A/C while sitting at the gate
 

On both 6/29 (EWR) and 7/7 (SJU) I sweated my butt off while sitting on flights before they closed the doors and powered up the engines. What exactly is CO's policy pertaining to providing us A/C on planes parked at the gate?

Pilot's discretion. Some guys are all about saving fuel and don't like to start the APU at the gate until 10 minutes prior to push. Others have the cockpit window's open and frankly don't realize that it's sweltering in the cabin because the cockpit is getting a breeze. Speak up next time. Ask the flight attendants to talk to the pilots or better yet, pop into the cockpit if you're at the gate and ask them to crank up the APU and get some A/C going because its too hot in the cabin.

Pilots are not supposed to forgo onboard air for the sole reason of saving on fuel cost. (Keep in mind, there are several reasons why onboard air may not be used at the gate but cost alone should never be one of those reasons)

When at the gate, the policy is:

1 Safety
2 PAX comfort
3 Cost

In that order.

Report it.

Considering it was 90+ degrees at both locations I think it is disgraceful that they didn't provide air as it felt like 100+ degrees onboard.

BTW, my girlfriend recently had an AA flight at ORD canceled by the pilot because they couldn't provide A/C in the cabin while sitting at the gate. They were told that it was canceled for health concerns due to the severe heat on the plane. Apparently AA has a proactive policy regarding this issue and CO doesn't.

Hang on now, don't condemn them just yet. Like I said, there are many reasons why the captain may not have turned on the onboard AC. Unless you know for sure the reason, it's not fair to say it was disgraceful.

Now, canceling a flight is a valid choice when it's not possible to cool the plane to a safe temp but was your flight bad enough to warrant that?

At most airports there are A/C units on the jetways for plugging into the aircraft. Some planes just aren't going to get cool enough when the outside temps are high, no matter what they do.

Almost all the CO jetways at IAH have attached air conditioner units to drive cold air into the cabin through a hose - I can't remember EWR, but I'd think the jetways there have the units and I'd be surprised if the SJU gates do not.

When these units are used, the APU can be off and the cabin can be kept cool.

Assuming the jetways had these units - why weren't they being used?

On both flights the FA's remarked that everyone was complaining and asked us to close the shades on the windows to help keep the temperature down. I am not sure about SJU but surely EWR has units they could have plugged into the plane.

The problem is that those jetway units vary greatly in their ability to cool the AC. Bottom line though, is that there ARE units capable of cooling an AC to a 'fridge, in some of the hottest places. Some examples, and good reasons why there should be no excuse for crappy ground air: LAS, PHX, RNO, and for the humidity excuse, some of the FLA stations have excellent ground air. For some reason, the portable units tend to do a better job too.

So go ahead and complain about it. I'm getting tired of sitting on hot airplanes as well.

+1 :rolleyes:

I have been seeing that during the summer, little attempt to cool the plane is made at IAH. And (off topic) the last few trips I've had sometimes multiple gate changes as well at IAH. Previous summers not so much. And today, at the end of boarding, we had to de-planne to offloaf fuel due to a plan swap. By the time we reboarded (back on-topic) it was getting fairly warm (and with the shades down).

These are just my observationns, but ground ops at IAH seems to be a bit more disorganized lately. And most the planes I'm on in IAH are hot, but that's really nothing new.

fp

Sorry to suggest the obvious but did you ask any of the crew why the A/C wasn't on and/or if it could be turned on? I'm a pilot and often we don't know that it can be sweltering back there because the cockpit is shaded or the windows are open. If you don't speak up, you can't really complain. If you do speak up and don't get a reasonable explanation or solution, then you've got a gripe.

Flew AUS-IAH-EWR last month - as I got to IAH, FlightTrack Pro notified me of a gate change to the north side of Terminal C; as I walked to the gate, I noticed that none of the other gates in this section were in use, but some gates had aircraft parked (presumably overnight). When we boarded the IAH-EWR flight, the aircraft was extremely hot - apparently this was the first time the aircraft was used that day, and naturally the ramp air wasn't turned on until the GA arrived.

Obviously it's not practical to keep the ramp air running all night, but you'd think Ramp Ops would start up the ramp air at a set time for each aircraft (T-2?)