Go Back  FlyerTalk Forums > Miles&Points > Airlines and Mileage Programs > United Airlines | MileagePlus
Reload this Page >

UA 179 (EWR-HKG) 19 Jan 2019 diverted YYR , passengers stuck on board for 13 hours

UA 179 (EWR-HKG) 19 Jan 2019 diverted YYR , passengers stuck on board for 13 hours

Old Jan 21, 2019, 4:55 pm
  #121  
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Houston
Programs: UA LT GS 4.2 MM, AA Gold 1MM, HH Lifetime Diamond, Marriott Lifetime Gold
Posts: 392
Originally Posted by narvik
So this actually has me wondering: how WOULD this scenario affect the pay of the United crew? Do they get paid original block-time? Door closed?
This might also be pretty horrible for the crew, I guess. Hadn't considered that before.
one of the FA's told me their duty time would end when the last passenger left the plane. I would presume they close to 22 hrs of pay
Originally Posted by j2simpso

My guess is $200 eMCO and possibly a one time pass to the UC for use in EWR. Hopefully there was a FTer on the flight who will post this to the compensation thread. The big inconvenience is arriving there at least a day after original scheduled arrival and thats assuming when they land in EWR they dont have to clear immigration re-check bags and await a new flight to get them to HKG.

-James
i got a call from UA today. My compensation is a $500 travel certificate and a full refund.

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Jan 21, 2019 at 5:58 pm Reason: merging consecutive posts by same member
IAHMCI is offline  
Old Jan 21, 2019, 5:06 pm
  #122  
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Programs: UA 1K 2MM
Posts: 85
Mechanics were sent on the replacement plane? No confidence in fixing the problem then.
LimeySD is offline  
Old Jan 21, 2019, 5:17 pm
  #123  
 
Join Date: May 2015
Programs: All the programs!
Posts: 1,004
It looks like they fixed the door and N76010 flew back to EWR this afternoon.

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/a...76010#1f3f98b8
Mountain Explorer likes this.
oopl is offline  
Old Jan 21, 2019, 5:21 pm
  #124  
 
Join Date: Sep 2015
Posts: 840
Originally Posted by jp12687


this was not an emergency situation. The emergency was the medical emergency. Was it annoying? I’m sure. But not an emergency.

they were on a plane with food and facilities for that number of people for 16+ hours. The airport was not set up for that many people.

reports on the plane was it wasn’t freezing, bathrooms worked, food was available...

it got handled. They will comp everyone which will be cheaper than putting facilities at the airport forever waiting another 5yrs for this to happen again.

i fly this route 7-8 times a year. 16 hours is how long the flight is. I’ve had 3 hour ground delays in hkg before on top of that.

dont think uA did anything wrong here
A aircraft on the ground in minus 30 temps would be considered a emergency by every flight ops department I know of. APU’s are finicky and burn oil. They often autoshutdown. Delta recently diverted a aircraft to Shemya where the temp was 32F at the time. They pulled a aircraft and crews from revenue flights and arrived in Shemya 6 hours after the aircraft landed. Shemya is 2300 miles from SEA. YYR is 950 miles from EWR.
KRSW and narvik like this.
Jeff767 is online now  
Old Jan 21, 2019, 5:23 pm
  #125  
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: SFO
Programs: *G^2, Bonvoyed, NEXUS
Posts: 3,497
Originally Posted by narvik
Only because no one has had the gumption to set this up. From the pictures I have seen, accommodating 250 persons in a secure area for exactly this type of event should be a fairly easy thing to accomplish....IME.
There would be room in the terminal, but is a domestic terminal and not designed for this type of situation. Given the timeline for the events, this is hard to accommodate that quickly.

Originally Posted by mellon
UGH, as a Canadian why did we bother with "customs" just let the people off the plane! I guess there was probably a lack of transport to hotels and probably no hotels to go to. However why did we need customs, nobody was going to run away in -30. And even if some passenger did want to stay in Canada at -30 they would change their mind in a hurry
It's not about 'customs', it's about immigration clearance. This event is far from an emergency which would require those formalities to be suspended IMO.
D582 is offline  
Old Jan 21, 2019, 5:35 pm
  #126  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: May 2000
Location: TPA for now. Hopefully LIS for retirement
Posts: 13,634
Originally Posted by Jeff767
That can’t be the issue. YYR is a 2 hour flight from EWR. EWR is awash with aircraft, pilots and flight attendants.
I am not sure of the exact timing of all of this, but wasn't EWR in a winter storm / severe weather waiver situation over the weekend around when all of this was happening? If so, that could definitely have impacted the availability and coordination of aircraft and crew to deal with this.
Bear96 is online now  
Old Jan 21, 2019, 5:46 pm
  #127  
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Bellingham/Gainesville
Programs: UA-G MM, Priority Club Platinum, Avis First, Hertz 5*, Red Lion
Posts: 2,808
Originally Posted by Jeff767


That cant be the issue. YYR is a 2 hour flight from EWR. EWR is awash with aircraft, pilots and flight attendants. In a emergency which a aircraft on the ground in minus 30 temps certainly is you simply cancel a revenue flight or two depending on what is available and dispatch those aircraft to YYR. Sounds like someone at UAL made a decision not to disrupt revenue flights. That would be a very poor choice.
Well that is exactly what happened. It appears that UA ops chose to keep delaying the rescue flight instead of sending one of the early morning EWR flights up there and rescheduling a revenue flight. So when you choose to fly UA and get diverted this is how you will be treated by ops I guess. Godspeed
KRSW likes this.
prestonh is offline  
Old Jan 21, 2019, 5:54 pm
  #128  
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
 
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: PHX
Programs: AS 75K; UA 1MM; Hyatt Globalist; Marriott LTP; Hilton Diamond (Aspire)
Posts: 56,291
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the similar occurrence back in 2015. United Strands Hundreds in Remote Goose Bay for 20+ Hours That time, they did offload the pax into unheated barracks. But it took UA an inexplicably long time to come and get them that time, too.
Originally Posted by prestonh
It appears that UA ops chose to keep delaying the rescue flight instead of sending one of the early morning EWR flights up there and rescheduling a revenue flight.
Originally Posted by Jeff767
Delta recently diverted a aircraft to Shemya where the temp was 32F at the time. They pulled a aircraft and crews from revenue flights and arrived in Shemya 6 hours after the aircraft landed. Shemya is 2300 miles from SEA. YYR is 950 miles from EWR.
MSPeconomist likes this.
Kacee is offline  
Old Jan 21, 2019, 6:38 pm
  #129  
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Bellingham/Gainesville
Programs: UA-G MM, Priority Club Platinum, Avis First, Hertz 5*, Red Lion
Posts: 2,808
Originally Posted by Kacee
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the similar occurrence back in 2015. United Strands Hundreds in Remote Goose Bay for 20+ Hours That time, they did offload the pax into unheated barracks. But it took UA an inexplicably long time to come and get them that time, too.
good catch. I think they have the same people in charge of ops. And there's this oldie but goody: Passengers Abandoned in Cheyenne
MSPeconomist likes this.
prestonh is offline  
Old Jan 21, 2019, 6:55 pm
  #130  
KCK
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 314
Originally Posted by DCP2016
What is it with US airlines and trouble completing trans-Pacific flights lately?

I'll be sure to take a foreign carrier for sure on routes to Asia.
Don't know how trans-Pacific flights entered the discussion. The route of the plane in question did not include the Pacific Ocean.
KCK is offline  
Old Jan 21, 2019, 7:21 pm
  #131  
 
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: BNA
Programs: HH Gold. (Former) UA PP, DL PM, PC Plat
Posts: 8,138
Originally Posted by prestonh
I believe it took nearly 6 hours for the replacement crew to get to EWR.
I don't know how the F/A reserve system works. For the pilots, you have field standby, short-call, and long-call reserves.

For a long-call assignment you BEGIN your 10hr rest AFTER you have been assigned the trip. You have 11:30 hours to report for a Global flight but that ensures that you are starting fresh with a full duty period available. That lead time won't work for a rescue flight so long-calls weren't available in this case.

Short-call has a report time of 2:30 then time to flight plan and preflight. The duty time limits are more complicated, though, since you're already on the hook for a phone call from the beginning of the short-call period which counts against your ultimate duty-day limit (though not 1:1). So, you may have pilots on short-call reserve who could report quickly but wouldn't have available duty time to make the round trip. You need to use short-calls who have only just started their short-call availability period. That's would be why pilots could time out while waiting for F/As.

Field standy is on-duty at the airport but also have the duty day limitations and they are staged to cover specific ultra long-haul flights where the a relatively short delay can cause the original crews to time out (such as EWR-HKG) so, by the time the need for the recovery was known the field standby's were either gone or didn't have enough duty time available for the round trip.

It wasn't just the pilots and F/As that were needed. They sent mechanics to fix the airplane, ramp workers to handle the passengers and ground ops, blankets, hot beverages, and food. That all had to be collected and loaded.

None of this starts happening until you know that you need a recovery flight. Initially, you think you'll fuel and go. Then you have a maintenance problem and call out the contract mechanics. If it's not business hours the contract mechanics may have to come from home which takes time. Then the mechanics evaluate the problem and attempt to fix in. In this case, the initial problem was not the door being frozen shut. That happened while they were working on the initial problem.

Immigration must approve passenger deplaning and will monitor to ensure that uncleared passengers don't enter the country. From news reports, that didn't occur until the next morning and, at that time, passengers were allowed to deplane in groups of about 20 passengers at a time.

Originally Posted by LimeySD
Mechanics were sent on the replacement plane? No confidence in fixing the problem then.
Contract maintenance would be the first mechanics to look at the problem. If it is something that they can't handle then the airline will send company mechanics, tools, and parts.
rmadisonwi, KRSW, wrp96 and 1 others like this.
LarryJ is offline  
Old Jan 21, 2019, 7:38 pm
  #132  
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
 
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: PHX
Programs: AS 75K; UA 1MM; Hyatt Globalist; Marriott LTP; Hilton Diamond (Aspire)
Posts: 56,291
Originally Posted by KCK
Don't know how trans-Pacific flights entered the discussion. The route of the plane in question did not include the Pacific Ocean.
NYC-HKG is considered a TPAC route, even when it crosses east of the Pole.
enviroian likes this.
Kacee is offline  
Old Jan 21, 2019, 8:32 pm
  #133  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: SJC/YUL
Programs: DL PM, Marriott Gold
Posts: 3,868
Originally Posted by IAHMCI
i got a call from UA today. My compensation is a $500 travel certificate and a full refund.
I'm guessing that means you decided to cancel your trip? Or did you get a full refund plus a free flight to HKG?
Mountain Explorer is offline  
Old Jan 21, 2019, 8:45 pm
  #134  
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Minneapolis: DL DM charter 2.3MM
Programs: A3*Gold, SPG Plat, HyattDiamond, MarriottPP, LHW exAccess, ICI, Raffles Amb, NW PE MM, TWA Gold MM
Posts: 100,326
Originally Posted by Jeff767


Due to the length of the flight the crew would have timed out very quickly once the door could not be closed. Just the divert alone on flights of those lengths will often time out the pilots. The flight became critical the moment the door would not close and plans for a rescue flight should have began at that point.
Shouldn't a flight of this length have a double crew?
MSPeconomist is offline  
Old Jan 21, 2019, 8:52 pm
  #135  
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Minneapolis: DL DM charter 2.3MM
Programs: A3*Gold, SPG Plat, HyattDiamond, MarriottPP, LHW exAccess, ICI, Raffles Amb, NW PE MM, TWA Gold MM
Posts: 100,326
Originally Posted by Kacee
NYC-HKG is considered a TPAC route, even when it crosses east of the Pole.
And for the full refund (assuming to the original means of payment) was it for the entire RT ticket or just the segment or one way portion (fare component)?
MSPeconomist is offline  

Thread Tools
Search this Thread

Contact Us - Manage Preferences - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service -

This site is owned, operated, and maintained by MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Designated trademarks are the property of their respective owners.