HA 466 PPG-HNL diverted back to PPG 18 April 2015
 

HA 466 PPG-HNL on 4/17 had to divert back to PPG due to a mechanical issue. We were almost 2 hours out of Pago Pago and had to turn around, landed back here around 3am. Currently scheduled to depart 345p arrive HNL 10p which would be a 16-17 hour delay. HA tried to find hotel rooms for the tourists on the flight, but most were booked due to it being Flag Day holiday here and when I left it looked like about 20 folks would not get a room. I was fortunate to get a room via a friend of mine here, although I will have to pay for it out of pocket at least initially.

I'll certainly be seeking reimbursement of my hotel and taxi costs from HA. Thoughts on what additional compensation would be appropriate? I suspect HA will offer folks a fairly small number of miles plus their additional overnight costs incurred here.

Compensation beyond hotel + meals + local transport as per COC = $0. Some customer service gesture in addition to compensation is likely. As you suggest, something smallish in the way of miles.

Don't expect much for the hotel. HA will likely reimburse you its local maximum for hotels which will be far far below market.

Best is just to submit the expenses to your travel insurance and let them slug it out with HA if they want.

Thanks - fortunately I did buy travel insurance for this trip since PPG is such an out of the way place. Delayed travel coverage has a $200 limit (policy bought through HA), but better than nothing. I would guess that could reimburse me for costs that HA won't cover at least.

Now they are saying we may be here until Sunday, repairs have not been successful thus far and they won't be able to get another aircraft here from HNL until then.

chrisj85 thanks for sharing your experience. What did HA say the issue was?

Here's the EF data dump:

HA has not told us what the issue was - just a mechanical that required PPG return. Latest info is that a ferry flight from HNL (which I think may be N592HA coming off an OAK-HNL flight) will be landing here at 5am SST Sunday with planned 7am departure. That would put us in HNL early Sunday afternoon with about a 32 hour delay.

N588HA is still sitting on the PPG ramp. I assume they are sending mechanics and parts down with the ferry flight tonight.

HA is fully covering hotel rooms (at least at the Sadie Thompson Inn where I'm staying) directly with the hotel management. So will just need to get reimbursed for food and taxis later. I think they are directly paying rooms at the Tradewinds as well.

The local HA office here in PPG has been doing a good job keeping everyone informed. They called every passenger tonight to inform of the Sunday morning plans. HA reservations and centralized info has been totally useless on the other hand.

Hi, my neice was supposed to be on that flight to come to Honolulu, and I have not been able to contact her at all about what Hawaiian airlines is saying about what is going on. So, I was wondering if you could try to inform me about when they are sending a backup flight, and when it will leave Pago? thank you so much, and any other information that could be of any assistance would be greatly appreciated as well.

Thanks for the update!

Sounds about right for these kinds of things.

Welcome to Flyertalk adolfbro- interesting way to find us- keep tabs on this thread as I'm sure we'll have more updates as this evolves.

I'm now back in Honolulu - sorry for not updating sooner. The relief aircraft ended up staying overnight at HNL (likely for repairs, it had previously diverted back to OAK on a SJC-HNL flight and flew empty OAK-HNL), then departed to PPG Sunday morning. Aircraft finally landed in Pago at 2p Sunday. We loaded up and departed around 4p, arrived HNL 1030p which was about a 41 hour delay. HA is offering everyone on the flight a $500 travel voucher, and as I mentioned previously they covered hotels in Pago. I'll be contacting the HA consumer affairs office to get some additional compensation for food (didn't recieve a voucher for Saturday), taxi fare in Pago, and additional parking cost at HNL airport.

Of course all items that are normally charged a fee in Y were free coming back to HNL. HA apparently had a considerable number of agents awaiting the flight here to assist with rebooking connections for those with onward travel.

The original aircraft departed PPG heading back to HNL just before 6a this morning, so whatever the problem was required some work before they could fly it even just as an empty ferry flight.

To close the loop on this, here is the final compensation I will be receiving from HA:

$250 partial ticket refund (in lieu of $500 travel voucher which was initially offered)
$24 for meals (initially received meal voucher for only 1 of the 2 days I was delayed)
$30 taxi
$30 additional parking at HNL
$30 additional cell phone cost (my actual charges incurred during the delay were over $200 - roaming on AT&T wireless in American Samoa is very expensive, but HA cited their CoC and refused to cover more than $30)

Additional 2 nights hotel in Pago Pago were already paid directly by HA.

Total reimbursement: $359

Thanks for the updates. Roaming does sound :eek: there- this was all time on hold w/ HA?

Nice of them to reduce the voucher eh? :o

Deja vu
 

A year later, HA 466 cancelled this time due to multiple bird strikes on landing at PPG of the inbound HA 465. Was able to get into the Tradewinds this time around and once again HA is paying for all the rooms. Won't bother calling HA reservations - the front desk here will know what's going on since the flight crew is here.

I didn't realize it was a year old thread until the last post. Hope you get home soon.

-David

That is some bad luck sir. The birds are always a problem in PPG!

The result of this was the first HA A330 visit to SJC due to lack of 767's being available.

Made it back to HNL at 2am Sunday morning (20 hour delay), which was better than the 41 hour delay last year. N592HA flew back to HNL on Sunday, then headed to PHX 24 hours later on Monday, so there must have not been too much bird damage. That same plane also hit birds during landing on April 4 (my inbound flight to Pago Pago) and was delayed there until Wednesday, so it had a rough week.

Received a $300 voucher, vs. the $500 voucher last year. As before, HA covered the hotel room and offered a $24 meal voucher.

Looks like the Monday night flight this week finally got back to normal.