Another day, another long delay. The good news is that this one was actually handled well, despite what you might be hearing elsewhere.. Let’s talk about Virgin America flight 404 and its 16 hour odyssey getting from LA to New York.

You probably know that the weather in New York was simply horrendous last week. It was shockingly bad to the point where JFK stopped operating for awhile when wind gusts reach more than 70 kts. Now, a ton of flights were canceled, but Virgin America 404 wasn’t one of them.

The plane took off from LAX at 734a and diverted to New York’s Stewart/Newburgh Airport when it couldn’t land at JFK. The plane landed at 515p, meaning it was in the air for nearly 7 hours. What you’ll see in other news outlets is that the people were trapped on the plane for hours and hours, getting verbally abused by the crew. Now let’s get the full story.

The plane had already been circling New York for awhile, hoping for a gap in the weather to open up. That didn’t happen and they were running low on fuel, so they went to Stewart and passengers sat there for 4.5 hours. Upon landing, there were no gates available; they were filled by JetBlue diversions. So, the plane went to what’s called a hardstand. Basically, that’s an empty spot where they could park.

Thirty five minutes after parking, they rolled up airstairs and gave people the option to get off. Some got off right then. Another couple groups left over the next couple hours totaling twenty people in all. Passengers were quickly served water and more was brought to the plane when they ran low. The lavs were working the whole time. About halfway through the sit, they ran out of food, though people could have gone in to the airport if they wanted.

Through the ground sit, Virgin America kept monitoring the weather and hoping that they would be allowed to takeoff again. Things kept changing rapidly but they got worse instead of better as originally expected. Four hours into the ground sit, Virgin America decided to cancel the flight and bus people to JFK instead. The plane did eventually take off without passengers and went back to New York to position it for its next flight.

So what really went wrong here? It sounds like the crew had a meltdown of sorts. There are reports of crewmembers snapping at the passengers and getting angry. You can watch some snippets of what seems like good cockpit communication here, but I guess the fireworks happened later. That was probably the only thing that really should have been done differently.

Let’s go down the checklist.

• Were passengers trapped on a plane for more than 3 hours without being allowed to leave? No.
• Did the lavs work? Yes.
• Were passengers provided food and water? Yes, until they ran out of food, but people could have gone into the terminal.
• Did the crew give constant updates? It seemed like the pilot did a good job.

So as far as handling goes, things went somewhat by the book. And the three hour rule wouldn’t have applied here. But regarding the long wait on the plane, well, the quickly changing weather was the culprit. There was no mass conspiracy to keep people on a plane. They honestly thought they were going to be able to get out of there.

Still, the flight attendants losing their cool is a huge problem, and whether it’s their fault or whether it came due to lack of support from the airline itself doesn’t matter. The airline is responsible, and they owned up to it quite nicely. The CEO of social media site Kontain was onboard and updating frequently (link posted above), and Virgin America saw it. CEO David Cush immediately reached out and offered a personal apology. He sent a written apology to each passenger, gave them full refunds, and gave a credit for a future flight.

Things go wrong, we know that. In this case, the weather didn’t cooperate and the flight attendants seemed to have trouble handling the situation. But the airline recovered nicely. Overall, a nasty situation was handled quite well. Had the flight attendants handled things better, we probably wouldn’t have even heard about this.

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/spine/ / CC BY 2.0]

The three-hour ramp delay rules will go into effect next month, and we’re starting to hear the grumbling from around the industry get louder about what it’s going to mean. New Continental CEO Jeff Smisek has kicked off the love fest by saying that these new rules will mean more flight cancellations. JetBlue and Delta have already applied for exemptions because of the runway work being done at JFK, and I fully expect this to be the tip of iceberg. It’s going to get ugly.

Regular readers of the blog know that I’m not a fan of the Passenger Bill of Rights. On the other side, we have Kate Hanni who thinks it’s absolutely necessary. When I saw this quote from Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org and stranded passenger back in 2006, I just had to talk to her.

Passenger advocates say that airlines don’t need to cancel flights to prevent tarmac delays. “This is solvable” without excess cancellations, said Kate Hanni, who founded Flyersrights.org after a flight she was on in 2006 was stranded.

Oh, really? I had to learn what her solution was here since nobody else seems to know it, so I called her up. Here’s the first part of our conversation. Part Two will go live tomorrow.

Cranky: Hello Kate. I saw you quoted as saying that this new rule shouldn’t be a big issue and that it won’t cause more cancellations, so I’m hoping you can explain how that’s the case.
Kate: They’re trying to convince the American people to be very afraid. See, they should have canceled flights already. They should have depeaked their schedules in New York, Atlanta, Dallas, and all the other airports where they schedule too many flights at one time but they haven’t done it. No measures have worked to get them to reduce their schedules. Are you aware of what the schedules look like at JFK? Are you aware that in the best of all conditions, the airlines can only have 81 flights per hour? Airlines overschedule in the morning. If they were to wait until 9 or 10am, this wouldn’t be a problem.

Cranky: Well, the problem is that people don’t want to fly at those times.
Kate: A lot of people would want to be flying at those times. The airlines drum up demand, get flights but they don’t have room. I know that if I could get a cheaper flight at 10am than 7am, I would.

Cranky: Leisure travelers yeah but business travelers not so much.
Kate: I’m a business traveler and I know. I have to fly from San Francisco to New York all the time. My husband is a business traveler as well and we would both fly at different times.

Cranky: But delays aren’t always the airlines’ fault. There are others responsible for these issues as well.
Kate: The airlines entirely control from the pushback of the plane out until the penalty box.

Cranky: But if they don’t push back, they don’t get in line for takeoff.
Kate: Trust me that I know exactly what’s going on. I have maps of the no-movement areas versus the movement areas. I’ve sat down with MIT professors and air traffic controllers and they say this is the way it is. It’s one of their own [airline] employees that’s telling that jet to push back from the gate and sit. Air traffic control has nothing to do with the movement of that jet.

Cranky: Wait, how often do you see an airplane push back but they don’t want to take off?
Kate: Approximately 10 times a day. Mostly in New York. We see it happen a lot at Reagan, even at Dallas. A lot at Chicago.

Cranky: But hold on. Why would an airline push this plane back and sit there for no reason?
Kate: Money. If they let you off the plane, if they leave you in the terminal, you have choices. You could migrate to a different airline. Migrate to a rental car, migrate to a train. You might say that I’ll try a different carrier.

Cranky: But no airline wants to push back and just sit there. Why would they push back if they weren’t trying to take off?
Kate: Because they’re clearing gates so incoming jets can clear gates. But the second reason is that they don’t want you leaving.

Cranky: Let me try to explain my question better. You say that the airlines are at fault for keeping airplanes sitting on the ground and it’s not air traffic control’s fault. Airlines want to get airplanes moving so they can pick up their next planeload of paying passengers, so why would they just push back and not take off if it’s not air traffic control causing the hold ups?
Kate: They do want to take off but they can’t because there are too many flights scheduled. Every morning at many many airports there is overscheduling in the best of all conditions and those planes are not going to take off. [The airlines] are going to grab revenue and then keep it.

Tomorrow, we’ll pick up where we left off. As you can see, Kate has basically boiled this down to, in her eyes, a simple issue of overscheduling. If the airlines would simply change their flights to go at off-peak times, everything would be solved. But there is a problem. Despite what Kate and her husband are willing to do, most business travelers, the bread and butter of most airlines, aren’t going to be that flexible. This is especially true on the short haul flights because people want to be able to do day trips. It’s even worse in New York because of all the competition.

Let’s forget that the afternoons are the worst times in New York and not the mornings and use Kate’s example. Right now, US Airways has its first flight to LaGuardia at 748a and its second at 1021a. If US Airways gets rid of that 748a flight, all those business travelers looking for a day trip will head over to Newark to take the 805a on Continental. US Airways is not going to do that.

If overscheduling truly is the biggest issue and not anything else (which is somewhat debatable), then the question should be why the government hasn’t instituted more strict slot controls instead of this rule. That would more directly address the problem instead of this rule, which will have far more unintended consequences for travelers. It will, of course, not help when weather goes bad and airport capacity gets reduced, so there’s no magic bullet.

These are the questions that I ask in Part Two, which will be posted tomorrow.

New York Snowstorm Sees Delta Start Canceling Earlier Than JetBlue, American – BNET
You may have been stranded but from an operational perspective, the airlines did pretty well at JFK during this major snowstorm.

US Airways and Continental See Different Fortunes with United at Washington/Dulles – BNET
As Continental ramps up Dulles, US Airways cuts back. Clearly they’re each seeing different opportunities with United.

Three Reasons Why Delta Slashed First Class Fares Between New York and the West Coast – BNET
Delta made some pretty steep cuts to First Class fares between New York and LA/SF last week. Here’s why I think they did it.

Airlines find coach travelers willing to pay extra for perks – Chicago Sun Times
This week, the Sun Times took on the issue of fees, and I was asked to comment.

Yesterday, the DOT decided to issue a final ruling that will effectively require airlines to have a passenger bill of rights. This includes a 3 hour limit on the amount of time you spend on the ground on a domestic flight. While I’m sure that Kate Hanni and friends are thrilled, I am not.

You can read the full 81 page ruling (PDF) if you’d like, but there is one particular piece I want to focus on today. It’s the requirement that US-based airlines create contingency plans for mid- to large-sized airport operations.

The rule says that every US-based airline that operates planes with more than 30 seats (if those airlines also have smaller planes, those count too) has to create contingency plans that effectively restrict the airlines to the eventual detriment of the passengers. This plan must have the following in it:

• Domestic flights cannot remain on the ramp for more than 3 hours unless there is a safety or security reason or if it “significantly disrupt airport operations.”
• International flights have the same restriction but the time limit is “a set number of hours as determined by the carrier.”
• After two hours, the airline must provide food and potable water.
• Lavatories must work and medical attention must be provide if needed.

What happens if they don’t do this? It will be considered an “unfair and deceptive practice” and that means, according to 49 U.S.C. 41712 that “the Secretary shall order the air carrier, foreign air carrier, or ticket agent to stop the practice or method.” In practice, I’m not entirely clear what this means. Some news outlets are reporting the fine will be $27,500 PER PASSENGER, but to me it seems like it’s $27,500 PER FLIGHT. Obviously there’s a big difference there.

Long tarmac delays suck, right? So why am I against this plan? Let me explain.

Much of this came out of the severe delays that airlines experienced a couple years ago. Kate Hanni was on a thunderstorm-diverted American flight in Texas and the JetBlue Valentine’s Day problems were legendary. Since that time, the airlines have made changes, though it’s going to be nearly impossible to be perfect in this regard when you’re actually thinking about the customer.

This past weekend, we saw a massive storm hit the east coast, and how did the airlines do? Well Delta and JetBlue both informed me that they had no domestic airplanes stuck on the tarmac for more than 3 hours the entire time. (American never responded.) There was one JetBlue flight from St Maarten that actually sat on the ground at JFK for 3 hours and 49 minutes, but that is international so this rule probably wouldn’t have hit it. More importantly, why did that happen?

It’s all because of gate issues. JetBlue and other airlines started pre-canceling a lot of flights, as I noted on BNET yesterday. Obviously the more flights you pre-cancel, the better chance the remaining flights will operate, but it means that there are a lot of airplanes around and shuffling them to make gates available during a blizzard is a tricky thing. You never want to see a plane sitting around for more than 3 hours, but if it’s only one (and JetBlue compensated the passengers), then that’s not too bad for the storm of the decade.

But all this pre-canceling comes at a price. That means there are a lot more people who aren’t getting home for Christmas because so many flights were canceled.

There’s no question that airlines would have had to cancel a lot of flights, but were they more conservative because of public backlash on delays? That’s my guess. Would you rather sit on an airplane for 4 hours or just have your flight canceled? I imagine that some would be happy to sit around for 4 hours if it meant they’d get out of town. Now they find themselves stuck.

But that’s not the only potential problem. Here’s another one. Let’s say that there’s a bad thunderstorm that snarls traffic for the day and your airplane has been inching along the taxiway for about 2 hours and 45 minutes. If that plane won’t be airborne by 3 hours, they have to turn around. It doesn’t matter if they were #1 for departure. Under this rule, the airline will be obligated to turn around and head back to the gate. Now we have a ton of problems – they have to let the passenger off, get the bag out and then get right back in the line at the very end. There is no place-holding allowed. Oh, and there’s a good chance the crew will have had too many hours at that point so they’ll need to find someone else to fly the plane. Now you’ll have a lot of unhappy customers.

“But look at what happened with Continental Express in Minnesota,” you might say. We need to prevent that, right? As I’ve argued before, this won’t do a thing to fix that problem. They tried to get people off the plane, but there were a lot of dumb moves that prevented that from happening. You think that a government law is going to magically change that? It’s not.

Oh, and that two hour rule for providing food and drink? Give me a friggin’ break. Airplanes are allowed to fly all day long without having food, so why do you need to provide food for a 2 hour delay? Water? Yeah, I get that. But food is a whole different beast, and it’s not necessary. Bring your own onboard.

There are a lot of other things in this ruling here as well, but most of those are worthless. Airlines have to disclose on time performance when you book. Ok. That info is readily available to anyone who wants it now. They also have to create a Customer Service Plan with 12 specific points. They already did – about 10 years ago with the Customers First plan. Yawn. I guess this just makes the things they already do into law.

So congratulations, DOT. You’ve created a rule that will do very little good. At least you’ll get some good press for it.

A timely topic, no? The winter storm that just nailed DC, Philly, and New York over the weekend has certainly left its mark. Some of the airports actually shut down completely because the snow removal equipment couldn’t keep the runways clear. And now, there’s talk of a potential blizzard running through the middle of the country this week. It looks like the quiet fall is roaring into an active winter. Here are some tips that I used with Cranky Concierge this weekend that can help make sure you get out of town in time for the holidays.

#1 Tip: Have Patience
Forget about all the strategy tips for a second and remember this. Have patience. When a monster storm rolls through like this, it’s not the airline’s fault. The people you encounter are working tirelessly to get you out of that airport – believe me, there’s nothing they’d like more since you’re what stands in the way of them getting to go home. So while you naturally may take your frustrations out on the first person you interact with, that’s a mistake. Just go into the day with patience and realize that you probably won’t get there any time soon. If things go well, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. If not, at least you’re mentally prepared.

Travel with a Laptop
If you have a laptop, it’s a good idea to bring it with you. If things go wrong, you can log on and try to get yourself out of this mess while you wait in that 3 hour long line to see an agent.

If You See a Storm Coming, Get Out Early
If a big storm is coming, airlines will nearly always let you change your flight for free. If you can leave early, do it. Things always go better if you can get out of town early. I had a Concierge client this weekend who was flying from JFK to London Saturday night. He signed up on Friday and I suggested he get the airline to send him to Chicago on the first flight Saturday morning so he would miss the storm. It may have been out of the way, but it would have avoided problems.

Sign Up for Flight Alerts
It’s always a good idea to sign up for flight alerts directly from your airline. While they aren’t always accurate (I saw airline flight info not being updated very quickly this weekend), it can’t ever hurt to sign up.

Have a Flight Schedule handy
Just about every airline puts out an electronic version of its schedule. Keep it with you. You can always try to connect the dots and look for other options if you get stuck.

Get a Hotel
If things are going downhill, there’s a guarantee that hotels will fill up quickly. I know, for example, there was nothing near JFK Saturday night if you got stuck. So book one in advance if bad weather is coming. If you pay a slightly higher rate, you can still hold it until 6p day of arrival without penalty. If you need it, great. If not, well, get a refund.

Bring Snacks
This may sound funny, but you’ll thank me later. As was the case with this storm, some airplanes pushed back, deiced and headed toward the runway only to have to come back when conditions deteriorated. Only one problem, airplanes were landing and taking up gates so there weren’t enough to go around. That happens a lot when conditions shift, and it means that you may spend a long time on the plane. The airlines don’t want to keep you there and neither does the airport, but it’s not always possible to get you out quickly. Snacks will help – and they’ll make you popular onboard. (Think of it like prison – you can trade for cigarettes or nudie magazines as well.)

Be Flexible
A lot of flights will have been canceled, so there will be a lot of people in the same boat as you. If it’s a busy time (as it is right now), there just won’t be enough seats to get everyone out on time. I had a call yesterday morning from a couple flying JFK to Detroit who now wouldn’t be able to go until Thursday. I found options connecting in some pretty odd places that would get them there sooner. They weren’t flexible – only wanted to go nonstop from their airport – so there wasn’t much I could do.

Again, Have Patience
Seriously, there is nothing better for your sanity than this. Set your expectations low, take some deep breaths, and do some meditating. That will serve you better than anything else.

What other tips do you guys have out there?