skierbri10

No, we dont.

BrokesiliaFlyer

While you are at it, can you have them look into what the anti-trust immunity did to the Hawaiian travelers.. and how much your fares went up, and how their schedules sure did look very similar, etc...

I just sat on the ground for 2 hours they other day in Philly and wasn't offered didly squat, not even water!!! Maybe they should do a spread on that one too.

cblaisd

Sorry to hear that. Very frustrating. Not sure why, though, that would be something for the Hilo newspaper?

UAPremierExec

I have friends all over the business and happened to ask one of them, who is a director at Mesa, and she knew nothing of this, and her department WOULD know something about this.

Me thinks this has been exaggerated a bit.

For people to NOT get bags, means there were no rampers, as an airplane requries a marshaller to park - per the op specs of each airline, as well as a ramper present to deplane the passengers and walk them in.

Even the Mesa pilots, if this were the case, would have parked at the FBO and even unloaded the bags themselves. While people like to make Mesa out to be this "gawd aweful" company their employees do care about the passengers.

I really think this is purely a rumor about having to come back the next day for bags. I can understand if their bags didn't arrive and had to file a claim, but in my 10 years working in/around the airline business, I can tell you for a FACT that an airplane just can't park itself and offload the passengers --- this violates more than a few rules.

DanTravels

Ever landed in Hilo at 00:30?

Given the option of parking the plane and offloading the pax without the proper staff there (since you're 2.5 hours late and the airport has been closed for 2 hours) or... what, turning around and flying everyone back to Honolulu? ... what would you do?

Now, I don't know for sure whether Go!'s ground staff in Hilo might have actually stuck around that late or not... just saying it's a distinct possibility. Hilo is very empty after hours... there aren't even cargo flights for a big chunk of the night.

I'd be interested in hearing a more official account of what happened, though, definitely. Skier, can you help us out?

UAPremierExec

Then they don't operate. A few airlines have done this.

I see this info also hit the "anti-go" myspace page --- which is expected... these guys will jump on any flaw Mesa has yet ignore their own flaws (such as Aloha cancelling a ton of flights cause a plane was unavailable due to maintenance). A Pacific Wings employee showed the swissport guys pushing a tug --- I guess LW has never had a ground equipment failure or a plane break down.

I still think that the newspapers in Hawaii need to do a story on how the local carriers have screwed the kama'aina for years instead of doing a story on ONE go! flight that ran a few hours late (at least it operated!).

gemac

1. It isn't surprising that this is also on Myspace. At times, the Flyertalk Hawaii Miles and Points forum becomes the Auxilliary Myspace "anti-go" forum. When we are told
it is pretty easy to guess where that information was heard.
2. Warnings about getting in to a neighbor island late, and finding everything closed up, have been around on this forum for a while before Mesa even proposed flying interisland. When this has happened to me, I always call the car rental desk at my destination airport (not the 800 number for central reservations in North Dakota or wherever) to let them know I am coming in late, and someone has always stayed for me, but I guess it is possible that people who don't call have been stranded in the past. True or not, it certainly has assumed "urban legend" status here, so I guess it isn't surprising that it was picked up and used here against Mesa, despite the total lack of attribution or confirmation.

cblaisd

Getting such confirmation (or confirmation that what was posted was not the case, or not exactly the case, or whatever) is exactly why I suggested to the Hilo newspaper that they might want to look into it.

donnyb

As the starter of this thread, let me clarify:
I have nothing against Mesa / Go. I am thrilled they are here.
As the first thread states, I was just asking if anyone could add info about this very inconvenient event.

The source of the info was a co-worker of my wife, who sat at the airport for over 2 hours waiting to pick up a relative arriving. I did not get anything off "myspace".

The checked baggage was not available for claim after the flight. So even if you had transport, you still didn't have clothes etc.

Your idea of calling the local car rental office is a good one. What about the locals who had cars parked in the pay parking lot, no attendant. I suppose you could break the gate off...

So for what its worth, this is not an anti-go! post. But it sure looks like they screwed up.

BrokesiliaFlyer

I'd email [email protected] about this one. It just sounds too far fetched & off the wall. Like one of the other posters said, I'm not sure a plane can even park without rampers. And with the larger carry-ons in the back, all someone would have to do is pop the hatch open and hop in and throw the bags out. I've seen this done on a few Northwest Airlink flights to smaller stations in the Midwest when their ground equipment broke down (yeah, someone needs to tell that PW employee on MySpace that tugs DO break down, not just go!'s equipment).

cblaisd

Given her excellent ^ column
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...&postcount=199 I've also emailed Lee Cataluna at the Honolulu Advertiser suggesting she might want to look into this too.

donnyb

Plane did not pull up to the gate, parked away from the jetway & passengers had to use outdoor stairs.

DanTravels

That's SOP, though, isn't it? CRJ's aren't that high off the ground; I thought Go! did that at all stations, similar to Island Air?

skierbri10

I asked around and nobody seemed to know about it. So whether it happened or not I don't know. It is possible, but without being there I just can't say it did or didn't happen.

As for parking, technically it is possible to park an A/C without a person marshalling it in. We do contract our ground crew from either United or Swiss Port. In HNL it is Swissport and Maui and Kauai it is United. I haven't been to the Big Island yet so I am not sure who does it there. I am told that they do not leave the airport until the last flight comes in. I know what we have people marshalling in our planes all night since we have been doing reposition flights from KOA, ITO to HNL. I am sorry I couldn't be of anymore info. That is all I know.

Now in light of all this, our crew doesn't leave until all passengers and baggage is off the aircraft. Then the cleaners come in and the crew leaves. So if there was a problem I have no doubt in my mind that the crew would go up in to the cargo bay and pull all of the bags out and take them to the claim area. I wouldn't mind talking to someone who was actually there, just to find out what actually happend straight from a Pax point of view.

gemac

I am not doubting the veracity of your wife's co-worker's relative, but we all played the game where children form a circle and whisper a message to the next one, and pass it around the circle. Stuff changes unintentionally in the retelling. I too would like to hear from someone who was there or in a position to know. I guess something like what you heard might happen in a start-up situation, but it doesn't seem likely, for some of the reasons that have been pointed out above.

Sorry that I confused you with the Myspace crowd. They were on here loudly predicting constant problems as soon as this flight schedule was announced, and then the first time the flight was late, you posted that you "heard" (from, at that time, sources unknown) that there were ground problems, it just sounded like them. But I should have known better, because you didn't say that Ornstein is the devil.

Or, you could call a friend to come get you. It isn't the end of the world.

That the parking lot was closed is the easiest thing to believe, but we haven't heard that it was, just "what if it was". The obvious solution, of course, is to leave the gate up, for anyone coming in on the delayed flight, and put it down again when the first person shows up in the morning, but that much logical thought is a lot to expect from the parking lot folks.