While most travelers know that airlines are complex operations, I don’t think many can appreciate how difficult it is to actually put one back together after it has been shut down. I talked about airline operations during Hurricane Sandy last week, but today I wanted to take a closer look into how the recovery works. Let’s look at how Delta got JFK up and running again.

On Sunday, October 28, the last passenger-carrying flights landed at JFK before a two-day shut down. Unlike after September 11, 2001, however, airplanes weren’t just frozen where they stood. With the hurricane coming, the airlines knew that they could actually prepare for this well in advance.

While some airlines left a small handful of airplanes at New York airports, most took the early warning to get those airplanes out of town. High winds and flooding have a way of damaging airplanes, and airlines didn’t want to take a chance.

Deserting JFK
Most airlines got their airplanes out of JFK Sunday night, though some departures did occur as late as early Monday. I believe the last one I saw was a Virgin Atlantic flight to London early Monday morning.

For Delta, the last arrival was flight 52 which got in just after 10p on Sunday night from LA. But did it stay? No. It turned right around as the last departure from JFK for the airline. Flight 383 left for Georgetown, Guyana at 101a early Monday morning. When that aircraft left, Delta’s JFK operation went dark for two long days.

The recovery from the shutdown had been planned as well as possible, but there are always variables that can’t be predicted. While most Delta and Delta Connection aircraft sat in far away airports waiting for the weather to clear, the Delta team was anxiously putting together plans to get things moving again. The biggest problem? They didn’t know when they could start.

As the storm progressed and the airport itself was officially shut down, it became clear that flights would not be operating at all on Monday or Tuesday. For JFK, however, the flooding and damage was minimal compared to what was happening at LaGuardia. So the hope was that JFK could reopen on Wednesday.

Of course, with no airplanes in town and crews scattered all over, there was no way that Delta could just start up its operation on Wednesday as if it had never stopped, even if the airport did reopen. There were plenty of issues in the way.

Recovery Day
So when JFK reopened Wednesday, Delta used that as a day to get things back on track. Most scheduled flights did not operate while Delta scrambled to get everything back into place. Instead, Wednesday was a day full of ferry flights to get things into place.

Oh sure, some commercial flights operated. Delta 1162, for example, left LA very early Wednesday morning as a delayed redeye from the night before. But before noon, the few arrivals were ferried aircraft that carried no passengers. Delta 9871 was a 767-400 that arrived from Atlanta just after 10a on Wednesday. That was followed closely by Delta 9878, a 767-300 from Atlanta as well.

While those airplanes were to be used for scheduled flights later in the day, they also served a greater purpose. They brought in a bunch of flight crews to be in place to take airplanes out of town when they started arriving back in New York from wherever they were parked. They also brought some people into town to help on the ground.

Ground operations were a huge concern, primarily because with a lot of people relying on public transit to get to work, they were going to have trouble getting there. The subways remained shut down and buses were packed. Just getting people to the airport was a challenge, so Delta sprung for hotel rooms to keep employees near the airport. That was all they could do to make sure people could actually get there to operate flights.

Throughout the day, airplanes kept coming in. Delta 9860, a 737-800, came from Atlanta around noon. Delta 9862 was a 757 that came from Salt Lake just after. Interestingly, that flight turned around shortly as 9863 and went to Atlanta. Clearly it had just dropped some crews off and gone on its way.

Another 757, Delta 9870 came in from Minneapolis at the same time. At 3p, a pair of 737-800s came from Atlanta as Delta 9877 and 9873. At 7p, a 757 came from Vegas as Delta 9876. In an interesting twist, Delta 1958 came in from Orlando on a scheduled flight, but then it was ferried straight down to Atlanta and back to JFK around 9p. I assume that was an effort to bring up resources from Atlanta.

The Operation Resumes
By early afternoon, Delta had enough airplanes in town that it could start operating scheduled flights out. The first was Delta 2068. It had come in from San Antonio that afternoon and continued on to Boston just after 2p. But most flights that day were reserved from the biggest markets

Delta had been able to route its 747 on the Tel Aviv flight into Detroit instead of New York. I assume that’s because the customs and immigration operation probably wasn’t up and running again yet, but I’m not sure. Regardless, they went to Detroit and then flew the aircraft over to JFK. The airplane operated the flight to Tokyo just a couple hours late.

After noon, Delta flights were coming in quickly, but there was still one piece missing. Delta Connection regional flights still weren’t operating. It looks like the very first regional flights came in around 6p from Delta hubs. Pinnacle brought a flight in from Detroit and another from Cincinnati. A couple other regional flights came in that night, but for the most part, they waited until Thursday morning.

For the regionals, many were sitting at the last place they flew from JFK. They would just wait until Thursday morning when they could operate a flight into JFK as scheduled.

The end result was that by Thursday morning, Delta’s JFK operation was back in gear. Sure, there were some residual cancellations but the operation was well on the road to normalcy in a pretty short period of time.

[Original photo via redlegsfan21/CC-SA 2.0]

Hurricane Sandy Causes Flight Cancellations—What Airlines Are Doing Right and Wrong – Conde Nast Daily Traveler
When it came to hurricane policies last week, United had the best one. Surprising, right? But there was still some room for improvement.

‘Eye of the storm’ for traveler help firm – Marketwatch Radio
I did an early morning interview about how we were helping people through the hurricane and you can listen to the whole thing here. The deep voice? Yeah, that’s what happens when they wake you right out of bed.

Sandy Shuts Down Nine Airports Along East Coast – NPR All Things Considered
I was interviewed by NPR about my Conde Nast post. They were interested in why I thought United’s policies were the best.

Few flights leaving JFK, Newark; damaged LaGuardia closed – NBCNews.com
Another day, more talk about the hurricane. This one focused more on the recovery, which is now well underway.

In the Trenches: Refining the Sales Pitch – Intuit Small Business Blog
Just thinking about how we handle people who come to us for urgent assistance and if we could do a better job of getting them to sign up.

Air travelers scrambling to get home – CNN
Tired of hurricane coverage yet? Here’s another one they asked me to comment on.

I’m happy to announce that I will now be contributing to the new Conde Nast Traveler site on a weekly basis. Go to cntraveler.com to see some great contributions from around the travel world. My first two are below.

Nerve-racking ‘go-arounds’ routine for pilots – CNN Out of the Office
A lot of people think go-arounds are a scary thing, but there’s nothing to be scared about.

In the Trenches: Should There Be More? – Intuit Small Business Blog
It’s time to step back and do a little strategic work.

What to Do When a Hurricane Threatens Your Trip – Conde Nast – The Daily Traveler
I know, I’ve beaten this topic to death, but this is the last one, I promise.

Woman Stuck in Airport for Baggage Fee Could’ve Used Our Tips – Conde Nast – The Daily Traveler
A woman sat for 8 days at SFO because she couldn’t afford the bag fees. Here are some tips to help, um, avoid the same situation.

Last week just downright sucked. I was supposed to be traveling with my family on US Airways to a wedding outside of Cancun. Yes, the same Cancun that was hit by a hurricane/tropical storm/big weather thing. We watched the storm draw closer to Cancun all week, and while US Airways had canceled all other flights to Cancun on Thursday, ours didn’t cancel until a mere four hours before departure.

That was frustrating, of course, and it got me thinking about ways to improve the customer experience in weather disruptions. (I’m not talking about onboard delays, though that was on the news this past weekend.) Most of my ideas would never fly, but there was one that I think makes sense: the retroactive refund.

I don’t want to single out US Airways, because they all have similar policies. When a weather event like this becomes a possibility, airlines issue a weather waiver, which is basically a one-size-fits-all policy that is just about worthless for a large chunk of travelers. The weather waiver nearly always says the same thing.

• If you are scheduled to travel on a day that is expected to be impacted by bad weather, you can change your flight without penalty to a day or two before or after your scheduled flight as long as you keep the same departure and arrival cities.
• If your flight is canceled (as with any flight that’s canceled), you can get a refund.

Some airlines extend the change period up to a couple weeks at times, but the problem is the same. This is completely useless for people who are either attending a specific event or people who don’t have a flexible schedule. For them, they either go as planned or they don’t go at all, so the waiver never applies.

It gets really tricky when there are other aspects to the trip involved. Maybe the hotel has a 2 day cancellation policy. Maybe you need to give more notice to people you’re meeting with. Maybe you need to make alternate plans with adequate notice. There is a lot at stake, and when the airlines grind you down to the last minute, it can be a real problem.

For some people, it becomes a gambling issue. If it looks like the weather is going to scuttle your flight but the airline hasn’t canceled it yet, you have to make a decision. Do you cancel the hotel to avoid a penalty and then just eat the $150 change fee on the plane ticket? Or do you wait until the flight cancels and hope the hotel will be forgiving? Some might say that people should just wait because they don’t know if the flight will even cancel at all. That makes sense in a vacuum but with so many moving parts, it can often make sense in a situation like this to just scrap the existing plan and make alternate arrangements.

But for people on a budget, it’s worth trying to see if the flight will cancel in order to get a refund instead of throwing $150 down the drain. That means they sit on seats they don’t plan on using, just hoping to get their money back. Can the airlines improve on this?

We all know how the airlines think. It’s all about revenue. The airlines don’t want to give up any revenue that they already have, so they aren’t going to let people off easy. They’ve created a system that effectively traps travelers until the flight is canceled, and I can’t really blame them for doing it. I do, however, think the retroactive refund would help.

This doesn’t solve every problem, but it’s the only way I can see to make things better for travelers without having a largely negative impact on the airline’s revenue. (And we know that if it’s revenue-negative, the airlines won’t even consider it, even if it makes good sense from a customer service perspective.) Here’s how I envision it working.

• When a major weather event is predicted, airlines continue to issue a weather waiver as they do today. If people do have flexible travel plans and can take advantage of the offer to change by a couple of days, then that’s great.
• For those who aren’t helped by that, they can still just walk away and pay the $150 change fee BUT if the flight does cancel at a later date because of that weather issue, then the airline will give them the refund that they would have had if they had waited.

The customer benefit is obvious. If the customer sees a hurricane bearing down on his destination, he can cancel his ticket knowing that if the flight does cancel, he’ll still get that refund that he would have just waited around for nervously all week. If the hurricane goes a different way and the flight operates, well, then it’s a gamble that lost and the traveler is out $150. But that’s ok because it still gave him the flexibility to make the decision earlier on his own time without leaving anything on the table.

Now, the harder part to quantify is the benefit for the airline. Only those with access to airline data could really figure out how this looks from a dollar perspective, but there are very clear potential benefits.

Those people who would have paid the $150 fee to make a change might now get a refund instead, and that’s a loss. But there is also a potential for gain. Those who sat around waiting for the flight to cancel are probably squatting on seats they might not use anyway. They just don’t want to pay the change fee so they hope it cancels. These people would now cancel early, freeing up a seat that can be re-sold or used to reaccommodate passengers if the flight operates. If it doesn’t operate, then at least the person will already be removed from the system. One less person who needs immediate help when the reservations group is probably feeling overloaded.

This doesn’t solve every problem but it would help. Any other ideas out there on how to make this process better for travelers?

I’m taking Monday off, so I’ll be back on Tuesday. (Yes, it’s Labor Day, but it’s also the day after my birthday and I’d like to relax a little this weekend.)

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Opinion: Airline overreaction a smart move – CNN Out of the Office
In the aftermath, it looks like more flights were canceled by the airlines than necessary, but don’t blame them. There were a lot of reasons why what they did was the right thing.

In the Trenches: Taking the Cloud for a Spin – Intuit Small Business Blog
I once again forgot to post this last week. I’ve converted to using accounting software online, and I like it. It hasn’t been without problems, but I like it.

Power to the People – APEX Magazine September 2011
I’m now writing for APEX magazine from time to time, and this is my first feature on providing power onboard. It starts on page 82, and really, the whole magazine is worth a read. I’ll warn you, however, it requires registration.

In the Trenches: Getting Connected Overseas – Intuit Small Business Blog
I absolutely hate how the mobile companies charge absurd amounts of money for data abroad. I need to find a better solution.