MSPeconomist

IIRC in the beginning the person took the package of documents to the gate and the GA handed them to the lead FA or purser. Now airlines wouldn't want to give you a gate pass for this, nor would TSA like all these few nonpassengers going airside to fetch and deliver packages.

AFAIK for documents or a very small package, you drop it at special services or a regular check in or ticket counter. I would guess pickup would be in the baggage office, but larger items might fly as air cargo, which would require pick up at a different location.

justhere

You realize that what you said makes no sense? If Amazon pays $8 or $10 for a box and an individual customer pays $60 for the same box, why wouldn't FedEx, or any business for that matter, want the higher margin?

WestSideBilly

Small possibility something was wrong with the plane, limiting performance, though it seems unlikely to fly it away from a hub.

OP - did the FAs shuffle people around to balance the plane out (e.g. make everyone move forward)?

Because Amazon is dropping off 300 packages at a time vs 1, and the resources allocated to processing that 1 package are probably the same as the 300?

diburning

Could it have been this?

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...1K/story.html#

x2y

Intriguing mystery, to be sure.

Maybe a horse or other valuable animal that had to be flown somewhere for emergency medical treatment? In the ordinary course of things, I imagine a valuable racehorse would be flown on "Air Horse One," but if there were an emergency maybe there was no choice.

My other guess would also be medical, namely some critical medical equipment that had to be transported urgently. But I have no idea what that would comprise.

Or maybe it's something mundane which we'll never know. Probably not, because it's certainly unusual to be be booting out passengers and luggage en masse, but whatever it was, we might never know.

MSPeconomist

If that's the real picture, it looks like the plane landed in the middle of the day. Also, a casket and body shouldn't weigh more than 500 pound at the extreme for a soldier, so that by itself wouldn't explain the offloading of so much weight.

x2y

Interesting idea.

I took your info and tried to figure out from where Cpl. Richard's remains were flown to Boston.

One article noted that the remains had been identified by the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL), which is based in Dover, Delaware.

Sorry, at the moment I don't recall where OP's flight originated so I don't know if the theory fits.

UPDATE: OP's flight was from SLC.

BiggAW

With overnight, it's there the next morning anyway, when business opens tomorrow.

The prices are so high to drive individual customers away. They know that the 95% of individuals are going to go to USPS when they are charging such outrageous prices. They don't want to deal with a one-off here and there apparently. So they mostly ship for the big bulk shippers who have negotiated contracts, and try to drive everyone else away. Apparently they've figured that they make more money that way, or avoid having to spend capital to expand their operations, and bleed off the business they don't want to the USPS.

Interesting idea, but every piece of medical equipment known to man probably already exists somewhere in the NYC-BOS area, and wouldn't need to be urgently air shipped.

fpmurphy

DL2443 ALT-LAX returned to the gate yesterday PM just before takeoff for what the pilot stated on the PA was for "missing catering equipment which was legally required". Got the the gate and the GA called 5 people by name and asked they to come forward. After brief discussion in the jetway, these 5 collected their belongings and deplaned. Cabin door shut and off the LAX we went.

Lefleur

So...gold bars it is? Just kidding.

To answer some questions -- no, they did not reseat us or reshuffle us at all on the plane itself. That said, we were all pretty evenly spread out and folks took advantage of the empty seats for room (lots of rows where the middle seat was empty).

The strangest part of the whole situation is that the BOS baggage office had *no idea* what had happened (I don't mean that they knew whatever the cargo was, but more to expect a rush of people). You would have thought that if Delta has called (left VM), texted, and emailed so many people when they landed @ 1 AM to go to the baggage office, that someone would have informed the baggage office to be prepared? Nope.

If Delta had given me notice that my bag was offloaded, I would have lept at the $800 to get off the plane! I guess that's why they don't inform you .

Widgets

Standard bag is 30 lbs.
Heavy bag is 60 lbs.

1 occupied seat is 180 lbs. (I think) which includes passenger and all carry-on items.

This system is why FAs would say that a weight-restricted flight cannot accommodate any gate-checked bags. Each gate-checked bag adds 30 lbs to the flight.

MSPeconomist

Organs? However, they're small and light, except for being packed in ice or whatever.

zsmith2

All these wild imaginations....can we close this before anymore conspiracy theories are made up?

justhere

Amazon doesn't drop off anything. Actually it's the other way around. An individual customer is more likely to drop something off than have it picked up because they would have to pay a pickup fee and Amazon doesn't. Also it either takes a lot more resources to process 300 vs. 1 package or a lot more time for the same resources.
That's not how it works. Also, depending on a number of factors UPS and FedEx pricing can be as good or better than the USPS.

DLERT

Aircraft pictured is a 757 - that type of aircraft would have no problem
handling a full load of passengers cargo and FUEL to weather the enroute
storm - but no room for horses.