svpii

Anyone on this flight last Friday? I wonder if any of us would have been allowed to choose to get off the plane?

This from the Washington Post

• Passengers on a weather-delayed United Airlines flight Friday afternoon from Washington to Chicago were fuming at Sen. Ben Nelson after the Nebraska Democrat asked to get off instead of wait, prompting the airline staff to order everyone else off, too, for another security check. Yesterday a United spokesman told us that Nelson's fellow passengers should have been allowed to stay aboard, and Nelson's communications director, David DiMartino, said his boss was unfairly singled out by United staff as the cause of everyone's inconvenience. "I think United owes the senator an apology," he said.

snake

United owes the senator an apology???? why shouldn't all the passengers get an apology, and why not one from the Senator too!

wharvey

AMAZING....

Let's hope he is apologized to by being voted out of office...

William

SFO 1K

I don't want to speculate on if they cabin HAD to be cleared, even if the spokesperson at UA said it didn't, but back in October I asked to deplane an A320 out of Denver which was held at the gate for mechanical reasons. I was told by ground staff that if they let me off, the whole plane would have had to deplane, and then be rescreened, as the cabin was "secure" for international connections. I think at that point it was in reference to positive bag matching.

The delay was going to be about 90 minutes, and we were antsy. The crew also was concerned as there were no meals on board, and with the time leading up to the delay, plus the delay and the flight time, pax were gonna be on that tube close to 5 hours.

The final resolution was to allow EVERYONE off and they were given lunch vouchers and a CS25 for their trouble.

I guess it all depends on whether this particular cabin with the Senator aboard was truly "secure" by the FAA/TSA definition.

Spiff

Another example of those knuckleheads in the TSA, hard at work inconveniencing passengers.

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"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry

Plato90s

Maybe I'm mistaken, but any passenger could ask to be let off the plane. Could the airline actually refuse to let a random person off if they didn't want to fly?

UAPremierExec

only before the door closes.

-nate

Sig

Letting someone off the plane defeats the whole purpose of bag matching. The whole point is to ensure that every bag on the plane is matched to a passenger on that same plane. You let a passenger off, you have to find his/her bag and remove it too. We can debate the logic of bag matching all day, however it is what the TSA has been ordered to do so it isn't really fair to call them "knuckleheads" for doing what the officials you elected are directing them to do.

Buster CT1K

But what if a passenger checked no bags?

Spiff

Then why make everyone else get off?

Totally Stupid Airheads...



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"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry

nwff

I was on this flight, it was UA619, Friday, June 14. For those who are interested, I will recount what I remember from that flight.

Due to a mix up of flight dates (don't ask), I was trying to get on UA619 standby. While hanging out near the desk during boarding a "backroom" UA employee came out to escort a short, well dressed gentleman onto the plane. He looks (a little) better in his website picture than in real life.

At some time during boarding an announcement was made that our departure would be delayed by 30' due to Chicago weather (1:30 departure becomes a 2:00 departure). I cleared the standby list (it was a good day to be 1K ) and boarded.

I was amongst the last to board, after settling into the "comfy" E- middleseat in the "kids section", one of the pilots announced that due to continuing weather/ATC delays our takeoff slot was now 2:40 (original departure was 1:30). In addition, we would have to push away from the gate to make room for the inbound ORD flight and park awaiting our slot. There was the usual muted groan from passengers. This was followed a minute or two later by some activity in the front cabin. A hurried announcement was then made that if anyone left, the entire plane would have to deplane. This was followed by an announcement that a passenger did leave, so we would have to deplane, taking our carryons with us.

As we were leaving the rumor that it was a congressman who had left was well-established. In talking to both a flight attendant, and a colleague in first class, it was clear that the exiting gentleman left after the announcement was made that the rest of the plane would have to follow him off.

Deboarding was done manually, names being checked off by a CSA at the jetway door. Being concerned that we would lose our 2:40 slot I called the 1K line to get protected on the 5:10 DUL-SEA flight. By the time I finished this, re-boarding had begun. Unenthusiastic about sloggin over to DUL in the Friday afternoon rain, I re-boarded with the rest. Despite the extra deplaning and boarding cyle, we still made the 2:40 departure slot. The trip to Chicago was uneventful.

My takes on this:
1. The UA staff at the gate did a good job handling this and keeping us up to date. Despite being a very busy Friday afternoon and having several plane loads of people in the corner gate area, the unboarding and reboarding process went smoothly.
2. I didn't see what was done to the plane while we were off. I assume under seats and overhead compartments were checked. I don't know if the good senator had any checked luggage. If "positive bag matching" for carryon is to be enforced, clearly if someone leaves, whether or not he leaves something behind needs to be determined. To me it doesn't matter if he is a congressman (see below). This is probably most effectively done by pax deboarding and taking their things with them (on a full flight) rather than trying to figure out what belongs to who in the overheads and under the seats.
3. I'm surprised the senator didn't handle this more smoothly. As he didn't leave until after the implications of his departure were announced, he knew he was potentially disrupting the travel plans of >100 people. Very poor PR. It would have been very easy for him to announce something to the effect: "I'm very sorry, but since we'll be arriving so late in Chicago (or wherever he was connecting to) I'm going to miss my meeting with widows and orphans. Instead I'm going to return to my Senate office to work on legislation for (fill in the blank with your most noble cause) ___________________." This, even though he was thinking: "Oh, sh*t, weather in Chicago, I'm never going to get together with my cronies in the back room tonight unless I fly through ATL, MEM, STL, etc. I'm outta here. Now where are the AA gates?"
4. Instead of berating UA, I would be interested in the senator's PR man telling us how Sen. Nelson spent the rest of his Friday afternoon and evening.
5. Episodes like this are very good for promoting bonding among passengers. I guess it is like having a common adversary. Even sitting in E- it was a fairly pleasant trip.
6. As mentioned in other posts, I think our congresspeople should fly without particular perks. (Do they really need someone to escort them into first class? I think UA only flies 320's on that route. So one only need to be able to count to three if you're traveling in first.) This way they can experience travel as their constituents do. (Yes, the ones they are representing.)

[This message has been edited by nwff (edited 06-28-2002).]

robvberg

I am unfortunate enough to have Nelson as one of my senators. The story he pushed and was quickly dropped here in Omaha was that he made another flight to get back to Omaha. His spokesman claims that he had the right to get off and the mistake was by UA for forcing everyone else off the plane. Additionally he said since the plane still left at the new planned time, no harm no foul. This is also the same Nelson who will potentially cost Nebraska over 100 mil. in a court judgement for intentionally blocking government clearences of a low level nuclear storage center as part of a 5 state compact.

Now the sad part is he will probably be reelected dispite these types of things. He is getting nervous though and asked the Defense dept which was lobbying him about the defense shield to allow him to make an important anouncement about Offut AB. It would normally have been made by the defense dept and all the members of the Congressional delegation would have been invited to participate.

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Robert

Kurt

I found his website:

http://bennelson.senate.gov

and told him what I think of this incident. It felt good. Too bad I can't vote in Nebraska!

Maybe other FT folk could do the same if this irks them like it did me.

Thanks, nwff, BTW, for the first-hand account. It makes a HUGE difference to have access to the "real" story sometimes.

NickP 1K

UA uses bag scanners which CAN go back into their baggage system and identify the loading number to OFFLOAD a bag quickly. For some reason this is NOT being done, hence the slow time it takes to pull a bag when a pax is a no show

Bag matching is useless here anyway as they just don't do it on connecting flights. Hence someone needs to book a connection via a hub city (ORD). Fly to the hub, and just no show the connection... The BAG still flies.