American strands passengers for 8 hrs on jet

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For more than eight hours Friday, passengers on American Airlines Flight 1348, rerouted from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport during Friday's storms, sat on the tarmac at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport – with no food, dirty toilets and frustration levels rising.

They watched out their windows as planes landed and took off.

The flight from San Francisco was supposed to land at D/FW at 11:35 a.m. But the storms in the Dallas area Friday forced the plane to reroute to Austin. In all, American canceled 428 flights Friday, with 222 out of D/FW. Of the 87 diverted, 20 were later canceled officials said. In addition, the airline canceled about 100 flights for Saturday.

Andy Backover, a spokesman for American Airlines, said the 87 diversions were double the usual number during a weather event. And they came at the busiest time of the year for travel.

"You know, we've got kids here. My 5-year-old daughter has been on here for 11 hours," Tom Dickson, 44, of Los Altos, Calif., said by cellphone from the grounded plane. "And there's younger kids on here than her."

He was headed for Belize with his wife and daughter.

"I fly a lot domestically and internationally, and I've never seen anything like this," he added. "We've been told several things, and none of it has happened. Even when they tell us something, we can't have any faith in it."

Mr. Backover said American was "trying its best to get [the passengers] to their destination."

But he could not say whether the airline has a policy for the amount of time that passengers can spend on grounded airplanes.

The American Airlines pilot, who declined to give his name, said Friday's incident was a first for him.

He said three other planes were also grounded because all the gates at Bergstrom were full. Slides, he said, can be used only for emergencies, and the Transportation Safety Administration has strict guidelines about the use of stairs.

He declined to comment further but told passengers: "If I had a place to physically put the plane, I would do it."

A spokesman for Austin's airport said he could not comment on individual airlines. But he did verify that four flights from California were stranded on the tarmac from about 1 p.m. until late evening.

In 2001, Northwest Airlines agreed to pay $7.1 million to more than 7,000 passengers forced to wait for hours on grounded airplanes at the Detroit airport during a storm in 1999. The airline admitted no wrongdoing in settling the class-action lawsuit.

Some passengers waited 11 hours on board with no food and in some cases were subjected to overflowing toilets. After the incident, Northwest changed some of its emergency procedures. It now has a policy that says passengers must not be stuck on grounded planes for more than three hours.

More than a dozen Northwest planes were stranded as the storm pounded the Midwest on Jan. 3, 1999.

On Flight 1348 Friday, passengers tried to stay calm, but confusion reigned.

"The bathrooms have gone from a gas station to, 'What's the last concert you've been to?' " said Andy Welch, 53, of Linn Creek, Mo. "Think about that. It's probably about that."

Jeff Hunt, 33, who grew up in Fort Worth and was coming to see his family, said many passengers didn't even have breakfast.

"The flight was early to begin with," he said, taking off from California at 9:30 a.m. Dallas time. "Everyone got little sleep last night ... few of us had breakfast."

At about 8:15 p.m. the pilot took it upon himself to taxi the plane toward the terminal. Passengers were able to deplane at 9:04 p.m. – after nearly 12 hours on the plane.

American has about 2,200 flights a day.

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It's hard to believe that AA has no policy as to a time limit on this kind of thing. Do we really need a repeat of the Northwest fiasco before some standard industry procedure is developed to get people off of an aircraft that clearly isn't going to go anywhere in a reasonable period of time? Yes, it may involve having to spend some money in the name of treating the customer right, which is a foreign concept to most airline execs today, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. I know that if I was on a flight in this situation, where it was clear that something more could be done if the company had been willing to spend some money, I would certainly not fly that airline again.

NW now has a policy now, 3 hrs max. AA should put that policy into place. There is no excuse for any airline stranding passengers like that.

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He said three other planes were also grounded because all the gates at Bergstrom were full. Slides, he said, can be used only for emergencies, and the Transportation Safety Administration has strict guidelines about the use of stairs.

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Such bull!! If you use stairs you need to make sure you escort the passengers into the terminal. Just common sense not a strict guideline.

Surprised people did not open the damn doors themselves, eventually common sense has to come into play & get the people out of the plane....

Couldn't American at least get a food truck out there, and a "Blue Juice Machine" so that they have food, drink, and a place to use the bathroom?

I mentioned this in the Airliners.Net thread about this topic so I thought I should mention it here to.

Back in August an SAS A330-300 from CPH going to EWR diverted to SWF along with a Continental 757-200 from BCN, 2 ATA 737-800s from MDW, an Evergreen 747-200 from JFK, and a jet Blue A320 from LGB.

The planes landed around 14:00 during a period of time when a large storm hit LGA/EWR/JFK and cause many diversions. For the domestic flights the passengers deplaned and where bussed to the city and around 16:00 the Continental 757-200 took off to EWR still with its passengers onboard since they where not allowed to deplane since they don't have customs at SWF.

However the SAS ended up being stuck at SWF from 14:00 to 21:00 since the crew of the flight clocked up and a replacment crew had to be flown up from EWR.

That is 8 hours in the air from CPH and 8 hours on the ground. I'm sure the surcumstances where different on the A330-300 then on the American jet since they had IFE but still.

Plus they had food, drink, and plenty of (excuse the term) "toilet room"

Runway-Bound:
A Holiday Flight
Becomes Ugly
Fetid Toilets, Crying,
And Diaper Shortages;
The Cost of Cutting
January 6, 2007; Page A1
After hours of sitting on the runway, the toilets on the American Airlines jet were overflowing. There was no water to be found and no food except for a box of pretzel bags. A pregnant woman sat crying; an unaccompanied teen sobbed. The captain walked up and down the aisle of the MD-80, trying to calm angry passengers. At one point, families with children lined up to be bused to the terminal, but a bus never came.

Flight 1348, a San Francisco-Dallas run, had been diverted to Austin, Texas, because of thunderstorms. It was the Friday before New Year's Day and the jet was parked on the tarmac beside other stray flights. Planes came and went, but Flight 1348 was left waiting, American confirms.

• The Situation: Storms and staff shortages left passengers stranded for hours on a series of American Airlines flights in late December.

• The Background: Airline service has been deteriorating for several years amid staff cutbacks, congested skies and security hassles.

• The Bottom Line: Better take a good book next time you fly.

After more than eight hours on the ground, and 12 hours after the plane had left San Francisco, the captain told passengers he was going to an empty gate, even though he didn't have permission.

"He said, 'Enough is enough. I should have done this a long time ago,'" recalls passenger Cindy Welch, who was trying to get home to Missouri. American won't identify the captain.

Flight 1348 was one of 85 flights American diverted from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport that day. Some turned into true travel nightmares, the likes of which haven't been seen since January 1999, when passengers on a Northwest Airlines flight were trapped for seven hours on a parked plane that had landed nearly a day late.

American's Flight 1682 from Oklahoma City to Dallas pushed back at 2:07 p.m. on Dec. 29, then waited eight hours and two minutes before canceling and going back to the terminal, according to data compiled by FlightStats Inc.

Flight 37 from Zurich, Switzerland, to Dallas was diverted to Tulsa, Okla., where it sat for 10 hours. Pilots couldn't take off because they reached federal limits on duty time, American says. Tulsa doesn't have a Customs and Immigration facility so no one could get off. By the time the plane reached Dallas, landing at 1:33 a.m., according to Federal Aviation Administration data, passengers had been on board more 22 hours.

How does this happen? After years of cutting staff, carriers are less capable of handling crises -- from not having enough telephone reservationists to handle calls, or extra bodies to empty toilet tanks or spare pilots and flight attendants to help out when delays stack up. Congestion in the air and at airports exacerbates the messes caused when storms hit.

Delays have increased steadily over the past five years, approaching levels not seen since 1999 and 2000. The rate of mishandled bags is 68% higher than in 2002 -- that year was a recent low -- and consumer complaints have increased in each of the past four years.

AMR Corp.'s American, the world's biggest airline, says it was reluctant to cancel flights on Dec. 29 because planes were packed with holiday travelers. Instead, when storms were forecast at its Dallas hub, it opted to delay flights. As it happens, Dallas got whacked with by an unseasonably strong thunderstorm that didn't move out of the area for hours. Landings slowed to a crawl and lightning forced ground workers indoors several times. Planes on the ground waited, thinking skies would clear, but they didn't.

The carrier says it is re-evaluating its flight-diversion strategy. It also is studying whether it should adopt a harder time limit on how long planes can sit and wait.

In the case of Flight 1348, according to interviews with four passengers plus officials at American, the problems were compounded by a lack of staff, the result of cost-cutting and holiday vacations, and some bad decisions.

American's Austin operations were overwhelmed when 14 planes landed unexpectedly, American says. The airline delivered some snacks and drinks to airplanes, but quickly ran out. A worker tried to service toilets when he could get time, but was held back by lightning. American tried to call in more staff with little success due to the holiday weekend. "We got caught short-handed," says American spokesman John Hotard.

American also made a pivotal decision: According to airline officials, Austin managers decided to focus on handling regular flights to other cities, such as Chicago and St. Louis, hoping they could stay on schedule. They let the diverted Dallas planes sit.

And sit.

WALL STREET JOURNAL VIDEO


3
See radar images of the storm4 that developed over Dallas Dec. 29Flight 1348 was snake-bit from the start. The plane was an hour late leaving San Francisco because of mechanical problems that forced a switch of airplanes. The flight left the gate at 7:10 a.m., instead of its 6:05 scheduled departure, and the delay proved critical. An on-time arrival would have beaten the bad weather.

When Flight 1348 reached west Texas, storms were moving in. American says the pilot was told to divert to Austin where he could refuel and wait for a break in the weather for the short hop to Dallas.

After landing, American allowed about 20 local Austin and San Antonio passengers to get off rather than wait to fly to Dallas only to hop on a connection back to Austin. Their luggage, however, remained on board, say passengers and American.

American expected the storms to hit between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., and then move out of the area. Instead, they started earlier and lingered into the night. For hours, the crew thought they'd ultimately be able to fly to Dallas, only to have hopes dashed. Worse, the storm had moved into Austin, too.

Whether to keep waiting or give up is one of the most difficult decisions for airlines, taxing both operations and finances. Often travelers and airlines prefer to wait as long as possible for the chance to reach their destinations. Moving a plane to a gate for a bathroom break could cost a flight its place in line among the hundreds trying to leave. It could also mean the crew might run into federal time limits that regulate the work day. Unless new pilots and flight attendants are available, continuing the trip would have to wait until the next day.

"If we take you to the gate, and it's a holiday period, we may not get you out of there for three days," says Mr. Hotard.

For Flight 1348, conditions in the 11-foot-wide MD-80 cabin quickly deteriorated -- toilets overflowed, families ran out of baby diapers, one man exclaimed he was down to his last piece of Nicorette gum, passengers recall. "It was pathetic. The toilets had gone from gas station to a Carlos Santana concert," said Andy Welch, husband of Cindy Welch.

American says a worker did empty toilet tanks on Flight 1348, but not until the plane had been on the ground for five hours or more. Even then, the stench typically lingers on an aircraft that isn't moving, one airline official says.

The captain told passengers he was calling everyone he could think of to get permission to use a gate. He told them he talked to two American chief pilots as well as the manager of the Austin operations. The airline confirms the Austin manager was in contact with the pilots.


Many people at American were aware of Flight 1348. A mother whose son was on the plane called a company spokesman, one passenger called a Dallas television station, another called a friend who was a free-lance writer, who wrote a story that day for the Dallas Morning News.

Instead of opening a gate for Flight 1348, American's four gates were used to operate the airline's regular schedule, including a few flights to Dallas that did depart. "The pilot kept telling us they would not give us a gate," says Katie Dickson, who was trying to get to Belize with her husband and five-year-old daughter. "At one point he said, 'I am so embarrassed for American Airlines.' "

Several passengers got increasingly angry and yelled at the crew, but the captain, Mrs. Dickson recalls, kept calm. "It was a little scary to have that many people in such a closed space," she says.

Passengers rallied -- some mothers digging out granola bars for a young man who was famished, some people translating for a couple who didn't speak English. A few passengers were allowed down the staircase in the plane's tail to the tarmac to walk dogs that had been in the cargo hold. Mrs. Dickson says she found the ordeal "unbelievable, just mind-boggling."

At 9 p.m., Flight 1348's passengers finally got inside the Austin terminal, where they couldn't find anyone from American to help them with flights or hotels. Passengers say the scene was chaotic. Only about half the luggage made it off the flight. American says its baggage system in Austin was overwhelmed by the volume.

The Dicksons rented a car and drove to Dallas, and were able to get a flight to Belize the next day for their shortened vacation. The Welches waited in a line at the ticket counter, which was staffed by just two employees, they recall. They stood in line three hours. When they reached the counter, Mrs. Welch asked for a hotel voucher. The agent declined, Mrs. Welch says, saying the problem was caused by weather and American wasn't responsible.

Mrs. Welch began crying. She argued that the flight wouldn't have been in Austin if not for the original delay in San Francisco. The ticket agent relented and gave her a voucher for a hotel stay and breakfast.

"The most maddening thing was no one from American Airlines ever approached us and apologized," she says. Adds Mrs. Dickson: "I still don't understand what happened. If I had an explanation from American, I'd feel better."

American's Mr. Hotard says the airline is truly sorry for the mess. He says one reason the airline may not have contacted customers to apologize is that its Fort Worth headquarters, where customer-service specialists work, was closed for four days over New Year's.

What would you have done on that plane?

They suffered for 8 hours.

I wonder what would happen if someone played chicken, feigning terrorist, in ordr to get off the plane. Maybe even feign a psychotic episode in a way of clearingout of that plane.

It was an insane situation and I'm sure some of those pax might have gone insane and done some crazy stuff. AA sure is lucky nothing like that happened. Twas as scenario where a mutiny was indicated but strangely enough, avoided.