ND76

An anguished CRC member was on the phone to DL, relating his latest tale of woe involving a Skywest GA denying him and his daughter boarding on the last flight of the night from SLC to Sun Valley, Idaho, despite the plane sitting at the gate for 15 minutes thereafter before pushing back, and apparently not giving them a hotel voucher or doing anything else for them. According to him, the GA told him that it was Skywest's policy not to hold flights for connecting passengers past the scheduled departure time. He reported that he had paid $685.00 for an RT PDX-SLC-Sun Valley, and that he has been doing this weekly for the past few months. He seemed to be choking back tears as he was speaking. He told the DL employee at the other end of the phone that most flyers in the Sun Valley market are upset with DL/Skywest, and would leave for another airline immediately if there was another choice. I really felt bad for this gentleman.

Why can't DL/Skywest exercise some common sense on "last flight of the night", particularly to small airports like Sun Valley? Clearly, they have ways of knowing whether their passengers are connecting through SLC or originating. Why can't they wait a couple of minutes if they have determined that their passengers are en route to the connection? Why can't the GA make a page? Assuming the veracity of the man's story, the Skywest GA's actions smack of meanness.

I had an opposite experience on DL/Skywest yesterday. Because of horrific traffic on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, the normal 30 minute trip from downtown DC to BWI took 90 minutes, and I got to the DL counter 28 minutes before departure, which meant that DL would have been within their rights to cancel my reservation. The kind DL agent gave me a BP and checked my bag, which was the fifth one off the belt in OAK. I had a great flight on DL1771 (BWI-SLC), and, despite a weather-induced delay for my inbound connecting flight (DL 4015, BHM-SLC-OAK) and ended up with an almost 3 hour layover in SLC (CRC bar has 14 beers in bottles and 4 more on draft, and 5 different wines), got nice treatment by a male FA on DL 4015, which ended up reaching OAK on the stroke of midnight.

MikeyZBT

It's horrible some of the decisions DL makes when it comes to "last flight of the night". My wife and I, a few years back, were scheduled LGA-ATL-PBI on Dec. 24th. We were connecting to the last flight of the night on ATL-PBI. We arrived about an hour late and we initially had a 1 hour connection. Apparently, the ATL-PBI flight, pushed back from the gate at the exact minute our LGA-ATL arrived.

1. There were 50 people from the LGA-ATL connecting to our ATL-PBI flight.
2. It was Christmas Eve!!!!
3. We had to spend a night in a hotel (that we had to pay for).... ON CHRISTMAS EVE!!!

We NEVER fly on the last flight of the night anymore, or we leave on the 23rd to go to Florida via ATL.

It was terrible.

jeffreyt

There is a strong possibility that the father and daughter's seats no longer existed on the last flight of the night, so the plane could remain 2 hours at the gate, and they still wouldn't get on. They're seats were most likely given to standbys.

SLC777RES

A spout of weather issues and lots of stranded pax the last couple of nights

But Standby's both Revenue and especially Non-revenue are cleared for seats very late in the boarding process on Skywest flights. And even later are seats belonging to late connecting passengers, which are surrendered only after the final boarding call.

Was this last nights flight?

SLC777RES

Last flight from SLC to SUN was DL3398 and it was delayed almost an hour last night. The flight went out with 13 empty seats and no non-revenues on board

sxf24

It may have been weight restricted as well.

SLC777RES

There was a long line of flights taking off very late from SLC last night around 10PM. There was also massive Electrical storm along northern Utah and Southern Idaho, maybe the captain thought that he should make a clean break while he still had a green light

RobertS975

The reason that these "last" flights are often cannot be held for late connecting passengers is usually a simple logistical one... if there is any substantial delay in arriving at the outstation, then there may well be pilot rest issues that prevent an ontime departure for the following morning's flight back to the hub. So the next morning's departures get delayed, and those passengers miss their connections.

So it is not just simply waiting a half hour for late connecting passengers. It is done when the plane is not going to turn around at its destination or when crew duty/rest issues do not come into the equation.

Pharaoh

Delta used to.

Back when they had the Orlando minihub they would always hold the dozen or so last of the day flights to the 'nearby' Florida airports for a reasonable time so that all passengers connecting on the incoming wave would get home. About 30-45 minutes was the longest delay.

And nobody complained because the next time it could be them... Screwed up Delta's on time stats but reasonably so.

MikeMpls

Why are we assuming that they didn't in this case? Maybe DL could have cut him some slack, maybe his seat was no longer available.

Unless I missed it, there was no indication that his inbound flight had arrived late, only that he perhaps had dawdled and reached his outbound gate too late.

If the passenger "choking back tears" flies this every week, he needs to learn to roll with the punches. Some of the stuff that was overheard in the CRC gives me the impression of a high-maintenance individual.

If this happened yesterday (Friday, 8/17), delta.com is showing no evening itins for PDX-SUN that would result in misconnects.

Sun Valley is also served by Horizon (AS), so he does have options.

zsmith2

Vent on:
The GA did nothing wrong point blank. It's weird how the GA is always the bad guy when following the rules about getting the plane out on time (or ETD whatever the case). I find that people tend to use "jerk" a lot when I tell them the flight is closed and you have to pay a SDC fee. Do people actually act that way in public.....is DL actually the worst airline and you "won't" fly them again.....or what are you giving me since "I" missed the flight????
:Vent off

MikeyZBT

Well, the GA took the responsibility of representing the airline AT THE GATE.

MikeyZBT

At what point is it the captain's decision on when to leave the gate?

Akulashark

Yet another place for inconsistancy. I have been on flights and they have announced "we are holding a few more minutes to accomodate connecting passengers, if it was you I am sure you would appreciate it"

and I have heard "sorry Akula, we don't hold flights for connections, we can get you there next tuesday!"

the questions is, why didn't they know this guy was running behind, they know his schedule. and, how long should they wait beyond the departure time?

majorwibi

That flight went out E last night. I'm not sure how he could have known when it was pushing back since there is nothing outside in Terminal E that could have told him anything about which plane was his.

Also the GA gets hammered big time if that plane goes out late for a reason that is their fault (and anything related to the PAX ends up being their fault) so I dont blame the GA for sticking by the policy rules to a T.