I’d like to offer my most
sarcastic thanks to the people on my flight to LAX last night (to a conference)
who decided, after we had already been idling on the tarmac for about three
hours due to some weather (including a trip back to the gate to refuel) that
they needed the plane to go back to the gate again so they could deplane,
delaying our takeoff by two more hours.
Some Lisa Simpson a few
rows ahead pointed out that after three hours, passengers legally have the
right to ask to deplane and he’s filing a complaint against the pilot blah
blah. This was apparently true and he planted the seed in other passengers to
disembark. So we had to turn back to the gate for the second time. One flight
attendant said something about people getting violent up front and if that’s
true, I guess they did want to defuse a potential situation. I didn’t want us
to be on the news.
The thing is that when we
had to go back to the gate a second time, our plane was 12th in line
to take off. If these people would have waited another half hour or so, we
could have all left faster. People were yelling this in the hopes of convincing
people they were inconveniencing everyone by getting off. But no, we had to go
back to the gate. I’m all for travelers exercising their rights but what
purpose did it serve to deplane when we were so close to takeoff? Did they just
want a chance to yell at a manager? All the PHL flights were delayed so we got there quicker just staying on board.
Luckily, the pilots still were able to work the extra hours and the attendants
volunteered to stay, which was a concern because of union rules and such. A
non-sarcastic thanks to them.
I’d like to point out that
there were children in the rows in front and behind me and I didn’t hear a peep
of complaint from them about the delay. It was the adults who were asking to
deplane.
A flight that was supposed
to take off at 4:38 p.m. left a little before 9. We cheered when we were
finally in the air. After four hours of hearing the engine spring to life and
then die out, were were finally gone. It’s strange flying west on the summer
solstice because it’s already the longest day of the year and just gets longer
because you’re chasing the sun. Twilight lingered very long. Anyway, I got to
the hotel after 1 a.m. and got four hours of sleep and now have a full day of
work ahead. Great work, everybody.
They gave us all free
sandwiches. That was really all I wanted at that point: to eat before 3 a.m.
I once took a flight out of PHL scheduled for 4:30p.m. that took off at 11:45pm, because there was a tornado 2 miles away from the airport last June. It was a really scared storm and was glad we were not flying in it, but really, a 6 hour delay for a 2 hour flight, was a bit insane...
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