Quantifying the cost of a diversion
 

Here we finally have a quantified cost of a diversion to the airline -- $188,000 (albeit for an air rage incident rather than a terrorism false alarm). Obviously this is just one very specific incident, but it gives you an idea of the approximate costs involved.

Can we ever hope that the airlines will try to recoup such costs from paranoid FAs, pilots, and/or FAMs when they force a diversion over a bottle of water?

Keep in mind that not one single "security" diversion since 9/11 has turned out to be an actual threat, IIRC. Every single one has been a false alarm. Multiply that by $188,000 and you have to ask, why do the airlines and passengers have to pay for the inconvenience and real financial costs rather than the airline employees and government employees who are repetedly crying wolf?

Is it really "better to be safe than smart"?

Would you rather be dead because some penny pincher decided NOT to divert?

No, I'd rather cockpit and cabin crews show enough intelligence to know that neither the word "bob" being written on a barf bag nor the presence of a passenger drinking from a bottle of water, nor a Japanese businessman (non-native english speaker) being confused about the precise definition of "suicide bomber" in a news article about the middle east are grounds for diverting an aircraft.

Emergency procedures and first-responders' valuable time should be saved for actual emergencies.

By that logic we'd never leave our homes. Of course, there are dangers at home too...

How many lives could be saved if the money wasted on diverted flights during the past year was used for road traffic safety?

Do you know most accidents happen within 5 miles of your home?

Stay away from your home and you'll be safer. ;)

IMO, Air Rage is an actual emergency and if the passenger is that out of control, a diversion is warranted. I have experienced a passenger going bezerk and it's frightening. He was difficult to subdue and assaulted two FAs and four passengers before we got him strapped into the seat.

Further, it appeared that he was having a bad reaction to whatever medication he was on, and I think that diverting to get him medical attention would have been a reasonable course of action.

188K is only a fraction of the cost -- landing fees and additional fuel. Here are some other costs that pop into my head:
- Costs of additional cops and other "security" costs to meet the terror threat upon landing -- 10's of thousands
- Additional cost for UK customs & immigration support to handle a flight they didn't expect for people they had already cleared to leave the country -- 10's of thousands
- UK MOD additional support for a diverted flight containing a "threat passenger" (could include tracking and analysis from air defense radars not normally used for commercial aviation) -- 100's of thousands
- Change in alert status of RAF interceptor aircraft -- 10's to 100's of thousands (if fighters actually launched or were on ramp alert)
- Additional cost of ground support equipment, crews, and consumables in Glascow not covered by landing fees -- 10's of thousands
- Cost of a planeload of missed connections -- 10's of thousands
- Additional operational costs such as: preflight briefings, crew rest requirements, accelerated scheduled maintenance on the aircraft, an additional flight plan creation & filing, etc -- 10's of thousands
- "Daisy chain" cost impacts resulting from a diverted aircraft and crew -- 10's of thousands

Intangibles:

- Increased risk to passengers & crew resulting from an unnecessary takeoff and landing at what presumably was an unfamiliar airfield. Can't put a pricetag on this other than the risks associated with this were certainly greater than being blown up by a terrorist on that flight.
- Disruption costs to other operations at Glasgow airport.

My rough guess is that this needless diversion cost at least a half million dollars.

I'll go out on a limb and assert that there's not a single FTer in the history of FT would would object for a nanosecond to a diversion caused by a real medical emergency.

I agree with you. If its a medical emergency, it better be diverted, but
not because someone had a bottle of WMD... err I mean water

Just to be clear -- I wasn't commenting on whether the diversion in the OP was appropriate or not. I was just pulling the $188,000 figure from it so we have a rough idea of how much a generic diversion costs.

Air rage (when the person cannot be adequately subdued) and medical emergencies sound like very legitimate reasons for diversions. Bottled water smuggled onboard by a passenger, a bathroom that none of the FAs can remember which of them locked, Middle Eastern guys playing around with their cellphones, and the dozens of other diversions we've had since 8/10 are a very, very different story.

Great list. Don't forget having to dump fuel, which happens in some cases like the Northwest AMS-India flight.

Agreed on most of the above.

But...

Legitimate cases where diverts must occur due to air rage or medical conditions that occur because, for example, the passenger somehow got blind drunk or high on drugs (in other words, their fault), those passengers should be slapped with a bill for the ENTIRE thing, and not be allowed to hide behind bankruptcy laws.

I hate to make it sound like an institution of a 'debtor's prison' of sorts, but when will people learn to take and accept responsibility for their own actions?

It should not fall on the airline, passengers, or taxpayers to have to pay for the idiotic and usually completely avoidable actions of a few idiots who should not be allowed to fly in airplanes anyway.

Sorry to sound like a rant, but I feel pretty strongly about this.

The decision not to divert does not mean that death would be a result for any passenger.

You missed the point.

The person(s) making the decision is on the plane. Therefore, if the threat is real, their lives are at risk. Nobody is going to trade their life for $188,000. What my proposal would do is to shift the current mentality that every single miniscule thing that happens out of the ordinary on a flight--no matter how obviously innocuous--necessitates a diversion. If the person truly thinks they're going to die, they will certainly still divert, so safety is not harmed in any way.

I am not suggesting that a "penny pincher" at the airline headquarters make the decision, since they don't stand to lose their life if they make a mistake.

We urgently need a way to make FAs, pilots, and FAMs consider the costs to the airline and passengers when they force unnecessary diversions. I think my suggestion of asking them to bear the cost is pretty reasonable. Perhaps this cost could be mitigated via an insurance mechanism, where these employees would purchase insurance policies that would cover their expenses if they force a false diversion. That way nobody is going to be bankrupted financially because of excess paranoia, but they'll at least know their insurance policy cost will be bumped up a bit each time they call a false diversion. (Kind of like your car insurance rate goes up a bit each time you get in an accident.)

What the airline would do, however, is pass the cost of this 'insurance premium' right along to the customer in a declared or undeclared fee. The airline could easy do this since "It's for your safety". Maybe some airlines would be better than others, but it seems to me like it would be just another scam for an insurance company to get richer and richer.

Also, if the employees had to pay, they would probably sue the airline or the offending passenger, since they felt in good faith that they were 'doing their job'. Or get their unions to force a pay raise to cover the policy. Airline in turn raises fars to cover the raises. Et cetera...

Sigh. You're probably right.

and it doesn't mean that death may not result.

Nope. And neither does just flying the plane to its destination.

When someone presents a false choice argument like "should the plane divert or do you want everyone to die?" I'm going to call them on it.

How do you know? Are you omnipotent, or just guessing? I have over 10,000 military hours and 15 years of heavy commercial air travel, I have seen people die on acft. It is not pretty. I have a number of friends flying for most of the majors today and the airlines have strict SOP for certain incidents and types of actions, they DON'T have an option of continuing to the destination in many of those. Even in the military, with only flight crew aboard who are fully trained, SOP will more often than not dictate landing the acft to resolve the problem.

Justageek, I didn't miss the point at all- You do not understand aircraft/airline operations. To solve your dilemma, we could just make all airlines like El Al, when the cockpit door is closed, the back of the bus ceases to exist as far as the pilots are concerned, that way you get no diverts and no "problems". Or let a situation get out of hand and bring the acft down, then you are looking at $100's of millions of dollars in lawsuits... So to me, even at $500k vs. many millions, the diverts make sense.

Of course the REAL answer is to make people accountable for their own actions, e.g. arrest, confinement, and realistic sentences.

Divert, shmivert. When your route is HNL-LAX, there's no diverting, just a mid-way point. Diverting's not all it's cracked up to be! "Stay the course!".

There is always Midway if you're flying the A route... :D

Sorry, but diversions for BOB on a bag, water bottles and cosmetics are just plain insane and no one is going to die as a result of not diverting in these situations. It's not rocket science ;) and one doesn't have to be omnipotent to realize that.

No thanks, that's a classical over-solution to a non-problem. There is no need to shoot anyone or blast planes out of the sky for water. This country really needs to get a grip on itself and what is really a threat and what is not.

I agree completely. Let's begin with the TSA "leadership". Let's also include any airline employee who falsely cites or makes up a "security" directive and attempts to enforce it. Let's add screeners who steal, damage property, violate the ADA or touch passengers inappropriately.

Agreed! Also add the TSA employees who make up security requirements... :mad: I travel with weapons quite a bit, and am now to the point that I carry a folder with all the current CFR and TSA regs (the few that I can find), just to lessen my problems. Since I fly out of IAD the most, I have gotten to know some of the UA heavies there, and have on more than one occasion noted GA's and CSR's performance to them (Good and Bad).

How many have you seen die because of a bottle of water, Muslims playing with their cellphones, an accidentally locked lavatory door, or any of the other miscellaneous absurd reasons that flights have been diverted just in the past few weeks? I'm guessing zero.

I think accoutability goes both ways. If you present a true risk to a flight (say, Richard Reid, or a violent and un-subduable passenger), then you should go to jail. But the whole point of my OP is that FAs/pilots/FAMs should also be accountable for their actions. When they divert for something that turns out not to be a threat, they should be held financially responsible for the decision in terms of impact on the airline and passengers. They'll still divert sometimes, because they are on the plane and don't want to die if they perceive a genuine threat. But at least there will be some "pushback" against the purely delusion/hysteria-driven diversions that have been happening left and right during the past month. So they'll only divert when they truly feel their life is in danger, instead of the ridiculousness that is going on now.

Anyway, this whole discussion is pretty moot for the various reasons etch5895 mentioned. I guess the status quo remains: when you get on a flight, there is essentially zero chance that a terrorist will affect your flight, but a nontrivial chance that an overzealous FA/pilot/FAM will.