mduell

When does whom lack access to emergency medical services or supplies?

Mike Jacoubowsky

If you're suggesting you're not really far from help when on a plane stuck on the tarmac because they can drive a stair truck out to the plane and get you off, sure, that's generally true. Or are you saying something else? I'm having as tough a time parsing your message (yet it's likely clearer than many of mine).

JBord

I agree with you. You won't get me pushing for the government to get involved. Let the market correct itself. I was just pointing out that those already meeting some reasonable minimal standard wouldn't necessarily be affected if there is an amendment to the Passenger Bill of Rights. In fact, they may want to use another airline like DL as the model if they do.

fastair

And I can from a 1st person point of view describe when an alliance partners plane diverted to ORD after their staff had left, their crew bolted, and myself and co workers picked up the slack until hours later, when their staff could come to the airport. Same for a large non-networked carrier with huge MDW prescience diversion to ORD that My airlines staff absorbed the ground handling/communications until the that carrier folk got to ORD from MDW (3 hours later-Siri says that's 15 miles away.)

It's nice when your plane diverts to an airport staffed by your own crew, it's ok when it diverts to an airport where a partner, or even competitor helps out, it stinks when you divert to a place where that kind of support is lacking.

Both of these were mechanical diversions with emergency vehicles standing by.

blueman2

I guess all we can do at this point is to wait and see what happens in terms of increased regulatory pressure from all these 12hr+ unplanned layovers. I agree with you in terms of logic and what makes sense. My point is that logic falls by the wayside when news agencies smell an opportunity to make money (i.e. create a sensationalist story) and politicians see an opportunity to get a vote (by passing legislation to 'protect' us from the 'evil' big corporate airlines).

It shouldn't happen. But it too often does. Sadly, I predict it will here.

jabbered

Seems a bit unnecessary and unlikely to happen.


I'd be asking for a much larger salary for Goose Bay than most other places based on the location.

I'd guess they would want someone on a contract basis, paid only when needed, but what happens when something happens in the middle of that person's full time job. I'm not jeopardizing my regular job by leaving in the middle of a shift to respond to something that will rarely happen.

KRSW

Just a follow-up: I booked four (4) more international flights, 2 of which are F (execs), on a carrier other than UA today.

Given this past weekends' UA Belfast Blunder, I'm feeling more and more confident in my company's decision to stop using UA. That's 12 flights so far that we've booked on other airlines due to UA's incompetence/apathy/hatred(?) of self-loading cargo.

Sometime in the next two weeks I have to book 16 more flights, including some international, some F/J. UA won't be getting a piece of those either.

UAL shareholders, are you listening? UA certainly isn't.

chrisl137

It was precipitated largely by this incident: "Seven Hours of Sitting and Waiting Leaves Northwest Passengers Near Breaking Point"
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB92524603719136029 It's behind a paywall, but if you use google to search for the headline you can likely read the full article by clicking the google link. My mom was good friends with one of the people on that plane, and the parents of some other close family friends were on another of the planes that were stuck.

And that sort of thing wasn't that unusual- a few years before that I sat on a NWA plane in MSP for four hours before we finally took off because there were thunderstorms and by the time they blew over we had to go back for more fuel and get back in line.

TT-Jones

And I don't doubt that even the slightest bit!

What I am trying to point out is that (at least in this case!) LH had a functioning fallback scenario that set the wheels in motion for a replacement aircraft to be flown in very timely, thus ruling out wild overnight adventures for the passengers. Will the passengers be joyful because of that? Certainly not. But LH came through and did whatever they could to fix it, and that translates into the absence of a total PR desaster like the one UA now (rightfully so) received yet again.

Im some counts the UA958 case was a similar situation : Plane diverted to an airport roughly 2 hours away from a major hub of the airline, and the plane was in no condition to continue. LH was able to mitigate the impact to the utmost extent possible, UA seems to be in no such position these days.

And please don't get me wrong: I am well aware that there are many great folks at UA who DO care, but as a total, UA is nowhere near it needed to be from a customer's perspective. And this is not just my opinion, but this unfortunately gets proven over and over again every day.

luckypierre

In trying to understand the corporate drivers behind these fiascoes, I have concluded there is a rational element in their decision making=what is the least expensive direct cost to the airline? Obviously, passenger support and brand identity are two immediate casualties of this cheapskate optimization approach.

Aventine

I'm surprised too. Those things are almost priceless and they just take the road of least cost.

boss315

Unless you are purely a "bean counter" and then those things have little value because they are not palpable, immediate revenue generators. With UA, " every dog has his day," and theirs is coming !

KRSW

You over-estimate the intelligence of people. The modern Kettle is a whore -- they'll do anything for money, esp. the appearance of saving money. Look at Spirit, RyanAir, EasyJet, Allegiant, etc. I don't pay attention to these carriers much as we won't fly them, BUT there are obviously people who will fly on anything to save $50. Delays, cancellations, safety, skill, and maintenance don't factor into the equation -- they're saving $50!

transportprof

El Jeffy must be a graduate of the H.L. Mencken School of Management. Mencken's business philosophy was summed up by this quote: "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."

NewportGuy

Only because they don't know better. Let the family of 5 experience ONE diversion like Goose Bay or Belfast, where no assistance is rendered and you and your hungry and tired kids are kept prisoner for 20+ hours. Then I guarantee the next time they buy tickets they will remember. But for now they fly so little they don't know the realities.