4 ms·

Waiting in SLC terminal. Crew has to be off the clock in an hour. Not likely getting home tonight.

teej 10y ago
I got stuck in SLC two Sundays ago. Hotel tonight should have decent options. If you end up in town, the place will be dead. Bourbon House is decent and serves food late.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  Isn't Sundance going on now? That might overflow into SLC?
freehunter 10y ago
I love flying and getting to experience some of the weird issues that crop up. I was on a flight in December when there was only one ground crew working at my mid-sized airport. I was really hoping to beat the winter storm coming in, as I live pretty far from the airport. If there was a delay, I'd be stuck driving home in a blizzard. They were prioritizing getting planes to gates based on if the plane was picking up passengers and heading out again. Mine was the last flight of the day for my plane, so we were at the back of the line. After 30 minutes, we finally had an opening and were moving... until another flight crew reminded the tower that they were reaching their FAA allowed hours and needed to be parked immediately. They took our spot, and then more planes came in that had to leave. Of course I know all of this because our pilot was pissed and would relay all of the info to us with a very sarcastic voice. He was supposed to be home by now too. We ended up getting into our gate almost two hours after we landed. I normally live 30 minutes from the airport, and it took me another hour and a half to get home with the weather. The only reason we got in when we did is because the weather forced a shutdown of the airport, so we were literally the last flight to get parked at a gate, and only because there were no new flights coming in. It's fun (after the fact) to think about these edge cases, how to keep the entire airspace running smoothly when one airport only has a single ground crew working, how to maximize efficiency to make sure the fewest number of people are delayed. Sucks to live through it though.
- guard-of-terra 10y ago
  The solution here to have more crews & gates. Will create some jobs along the way, and surely will cost less than the delays you described.
  - dingo_bat 10y ago
    How will hiring more crews and gates be cheaper than one flight getting abnormally delayed? I mean maybe it will be cheaper, but there is no surety about it.
    - guard-of-terra 10y ago
      You said there was always a line of planes. All those planes were delayed, weren't they? This is even before we factor in all the time lost by passengers of these planes, after which it would be a no-brainer.
    - Gravityloss 10y ago
      If the airlines have to pay passengers for delays...
  - freehunter 10y ago
    You misunderstand. It's not normal to only have one ground crew, this was a very unusual situation. My guess is a bunch of people called in due to the impending weather, or the airport expected to be shut down sooner than they were. Like I said, this was an edge case. I've flown once a month for almost three years now and this was the first time I've experienced this.
tyingq 10y ago
>Crew has to be off the clock in an hour That's a good observation. Often, the original issue, if it's not fixed in an hour or two...starts creating cascading problems. Say just the boarding pass / checkin function is down. If you don't fix it quickly... - Crews (pilots and/or fa's) become illegal to fly due to various rules around crew work, hours, rest periods, etc. - They can't be replaced by other crews that need to be flown in, because the gates are occupied by the planes that can't leave - Downstream flight connections no longer match up, so a massive process to change the current tail numbers <--> flight numbers plan has to happen, followed by matching crews and passengers to the new plan. Especially fun if you have a mixed fleet where only certain crews can fly certain models, and the models have different passenger capacities. Basically, once you go past an hour or so, a giant shitshow starts...and gets worse as time goes on.

teej 10y ago

I got stuck in SLC two Sundays ago. Hotel tonight should have decent options. If you end up in town, the place will be dead. Bourbon House is decent and serves food late.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
seanmcdirmid 10y ago
Isn't Sundance going on now? That might overflow into SLC?

freehunter 10y ago

I love flying and getting to experience some of the weird issues that crop up. I was on a flight in December when there was only one ground crew working at my mid-sized airport. I was really hoping to beat the winter storm coming in, as I live pretty far from the airport. If there was a delay, I'd be stuck driving home in a blizzard. They were prioritizing getting planes to gates based on if the plane was picking up passengers and heading out again. Mine was the last flight of the day for my plane, so we were at the back of the line. After 30 minutes, we finally had an opening and were moving... until another flight crew reminded the tower that they were reaching their FAA allowed hours and needed to be parked immediately. They took our spot, and then more planes came in that had to leave. Of course I know all of this because our pilot was pissed and would relay all of the info to us with a very sarcastic voice. He was supposed to be home by now too. We ended up getting into our gate almost two hours after we landed. I normally live 30 minutes from the airport, and it took me another hour and a half to get home with the weather. The only reason we got in when we did is because the weather forced a shutdown of the airport, so we were literally the last flight to get parked at a gate, and only because there were no new flights coming in. It's fun (after the fact) to think about these edge cases, how to keep the entire airspace running smoothly when one airport only has a single ground crew working, how to maximize efficiency to make sure the fewest number of people are delayed. Sucks to live through it though.

guard-of-terra 10y ago
The solution here to have more crews & gates. Will create some jobs along the way, and surely will cost less than the delays you described.
- dingo_bat 10y ago
  How will hiring more crews and gates be cheaper than one flight getting abnormally delayed? I mean maybe it will be cheaper, but there is no surety about it.
  - guard-of-terra 10y ago
    You said there was always a line of planes. All those planes were delayed, weren't they? This is even before we factor in all the time lost by passengers of these planes, after which it would be a no-brainer.
  - Gravityloss 10y ago
    If the airlines have to pay passengers for delays...
- freehunter 10y ago
  You misunderstand. It's not normal to only have one ground crew, this was a very unusual situation. My guess is a bunch of people called in due to the impending weather, or the airport expected to be shut down sooner than they were. Like I said, this was an edge case. I've flown once a month for almost three years now and this was the first time I've experienced this.

tyingq 10y ago

>Crew has to be off the clock in an hour That's a good observation. Often, the original issue, if it's not fixed in an hour or two...starts creating cascading problems. Say just the boarding pass / checkin function is down. If you don't fix it quickly... - Crews (pilots and/or fa's) become illegal to fly due to various rules around crew work, hours, rest periods, etc. - They can't be replaced by other crews that need to be flown in, because the gates are occupied by the planes that can't leave - Downstream flight connections no longer match up, so a massive process to change the current tail numbers <--> flight numbers plan has to happen, followed by matching crews and passengers to the new plan. Especially fun if you have a mixed fleet where only certain crews can fly certain models, and the models have different passenger capacities. Basically, once you go past an hour or so, a giant shitshow starts...and gets worse as time goes on.