Is there a gate version of the Tarmac Rule?
 

My flight to SEA-EWR was diverted to CLE last night due to weather in EWR. We finally got to EWR 3 hours late. Fortunately (or, so I thought at the time), my connecting flight to MIA was similarly delayed. After a 30-minute visit to the ball park (EWR's version of ORD's penalty box), I disembarked and saw, on the screen, that my EWR-MIA flight was boarding.

So, I sprinted and arrived in time to board EWR-MIA just before midnight. The only thing missing was a captain. The first officer did his best to keep us informed, but the information he was given was overly optimistic. His frustration and skepticism about the info he passed on became more and more obvious. He timed out somewhere around 2am and bid us adieu. The last info he passed to us was fairly optimistic; he said there was an inbound flight due to land in 15 minutes and the captain and first officer had agreed to fly us to MIA. Even better, that inbound flight was going to be at the gate just across from us.

After our FO left, the purser took over the task of updating the pax. She told us that the inbound flight had landed, that the new crew was only waiting for their pax to disembark. Finally, she told us that the captain and the new FO were walking across the hall towards our aircraft.

They never made it. And there was no explanation.

At 3am, several pax became agitated, demanding to know who was in charge and when we would actually get a grew. Frankly, I was surprised that pax didn't become worked up much earlier.

The purser explained that she could only pass on the info she was given and that she was not allowed to get off the plane. She told the agitated pax that they were welcome to get off and talk to the gate agent. They did and moments later the flight was cancelled.

It was 3am. Most of the pax had been sitting on the plane for over 3 hours.

As we disembarked, 3 of New Jersey's finest showed up to keep things peaceful. A long line quickly queued up for rebooking and hotel vouchers. Even though I was near the front of the line, I had to wait 25 minutes to talk to one of the 3 agents. I had already been protected on a flight the next day (I took care of that when my earlier flight was diverted to CLE and it looked like I would miss my cx in EWR). All I needed was a hotel voucher. Amazingly, it took 20 minutes for my agent, who seemed to be the senior agent in the group, to coax his system into coughing up a voucher for me.

The voucher was for Comfort Suites. I was going to push for something that sounded nicer, but I didn't want to press my luck nor keep the many folks behind me waiting even longer. I was directed to take the Air Train to P4 and then use the phone bank there to call a shuttle to the hotel. Unfortunately, Comfort Suites was not among the hotels listed on the phone bank. So, I called another hotel and they were nice enough to google Comfort Suites for me; they even called and connected me to them. The Comfort Suites agent told me that they were sold out.

I ended up getting a room to the Newark Liberty Marriott--at 5am. I managed a couple of hours of sleep before I had to get up to catch my new fight to MIA. The Marriott was nice and it cost me $148 out of pocket, only $12 more than the $136 voucher UA had given me for the Comfort Suites.

The sad thing is I was one of the lucky ones. Waiting on the plane in F. Rebooked in F. Near the front of the line for the hotel vouchers (not that that did me any good). While working my way to the Marriott, I ran into some other folks from my cancelled flight who said they were told that all the hotels were sold out and that they were just out of luck. Total B.S.

Sounds like exactly what happened to my FIL when SFO-HKG diverted to ANC and returned to SFO a few weeks ago. Bad times on this airline.

Sorry to hear about the OP's story. I was originally booked on this SEA-EWR flight that diverted to CLE but last week I actually cancelled the ticket and wound up DL for other reasons.

My connection from EWR-xxx was actually cancelled last night and at least three flights from EWR-xxx were cancelled yesterday.

I got lucky by changing airlines and flights but it looks like EWR was a total disaster again yesterday.

-RM

The agent who struggled to get my hotel voucher told me that this was his third flight that day that had been cancelled due to lack of crew.

Is there a gate version of the Tarmac Rule?
 

SeattleFred,

Sorry for the experience. Sunday was a frustrating day for many because of the weather issues along the east coast. Can't speak to what happened regarding the new crew that was going to fly to MIA. Many things could have happened, including them going illegal as well given the time of day/night this was.

That being said, no there is no "gate version" of the tarmac rule. The 3-hour tarmac rule is in place because the door is closed and there is no ability to get off the plane away from the gate. Based on what you indicated, the plane was at the gate and passengers did have a means to get off if they desired to do so.