TEBraniff

Our grandaughters are flying from LGA to HOU this evening and are now stuck 5 1/2 hours into delay with no explanation other than their aircraft is diverted in Pittsburgh. The inbound from Atlanta diverted to Pittsburg and won't depart for another two or so hours. I told them to ask the counter person at what time does the flight crew time out. The person says he has no idea. I suspect the proposed departure at 4:20pm will be right at midnight. He must have some idea about crew and possibly told not to share that information. That's pitiful as I can't tell the girls whether or not to go on a book a hotel, hoping their flight goes sometime tonight. This is SW 2820.

PS..She said it is a very nice new terminal with mice running under their seats in the gate area.

LegalTender

It's infuriating, but GAs aren't prone to handicap scenarios with crew and equipment in flux. The moment they do, dispatchers overwrite the playbook. The goal is not to keep everyone in the dark or bluff a happy outcome. They're trained to tranquilize anxieties, but we're pretty good at spotting a lost cause. Candor generally wins.

PHXflier

Only 7 h late, but they swapped planes (it is now the one that went DEN-ELP-DAL-LGA and arrived at 10:45 pm or so) and they are boarding, so that typically means there is a crew and a plane, so that is hopeful.

TEBraniff

Thank you. I just got the text they are boarding. Thankful.

TEBraniff

The girls got into their house at 4am this morning. The real sufferers yesterday turned out to be those unlucky enough to be on the ATL to LGA flight that was scheduled to leave ATL at 1:45pm. They left 3 hours later at 4:28pm but were diverted to PIT and sat on the ground for 4 more hours in PIT before finally arriving at their destination of LGA at 1am this morning. OUCH!

jjbiv

Thank goodness it was a Saturday with relatively reduced traffic compared to other days of the week. Gotta love it when weather rolls through the Northeast. It's a guaranteed mess.

salut0

They’re in good company. Current discussion going on about mice in the British Airways lounges in London:

Uninvited Guests Pilfering in T5 South Lounge

alggag

I was up late last night and heard their plane fly over while making the approach into HOU and checked out FlightAware to see where it was coming from. I wasn't sure whether to be surprised or impressed that the flight was still running despite being almost 8 hours behind schedule.

Regarding the mice at LGA there was some recent video of rats having an all you can eat buffet at a Panda Express at IAH.

TEBraniff

Anyone have an idea what those poor souls did during their 4 hour divert wait in Pittsburgh? Were they allowed off the plane or forced to sit it out inside the tube?

jjbiv

They were at a gate in PIT so should have been allowed off the aircraft.

dblumenhoff

Glad that all ended well. It's entirely possible that knowing about the delay sufficiently early, if this was her crew's first flight of the day, crew scheduling might have been able to reach the crew before they left the hotel so that their duty day hadn't started yet. If the duty day hasn't started, they won't time out.