Can I ask exactly what you expected them to do? The managers or gate staff or whoever?
I ask because delays when they happen are usually tied to federal regulations about who can fly, what can fly, in what condition, in what weather, etc. So if they found something to be mechanically wrong with your plane and not fixable in a way that is airworthy, generally that plane would be grounded and the airline would then have to scramble to find accommodation.
While I’ll grant you that airlines overbook pretty much every plane in the event that people don’t show up, and that’s a scummy practice, I also fully understand that this decision was definitely not made by some.manager actively at the airport. This was a decision from the executive suite of the company.
I don’t have good things to say about flying United, American, or Delta, even. I’m a bit biased about Southwest. But I haven’t really had any problems with them. Believe it or not, same with Alaska despite the recent bad press.
I have been delayed many a time. I recognise that it can be devastatingly inconvenient and problematic. It can cost customers significant amounts of money and time.
I’m not saying it’s unreasonable to be angry. I’m saying that the airport staff who likely would have related this information to you (pilot, flight attendants, gate staff) also aren’t responsible. Further, the person who tasked that AMT or those AMT’s to work on the plane you were on is likely doing their best to utilise staff efficiently and effectively to keep planes in the air because that’s their job, and that job becomes exponentially harder when planes are grounded.
Your ire seems to be directed towards the airline at large, and it seems like you had an expectation of what would and should happen that I feel is unreasonable given what I know.
You haven’t really made it clear what you expected except the things I have spoken to in previous comments in this thread. But even if you didn’t mean it that way, what you basically said is that the AMT wasn’t qualified (which isn’t true) to be working on the model of plane that they were servicing, and that caused a delay. Which is why I said you were blaming the AMT. The fact that the manager of that AMT is also probably an AMT as well is something you seem to have glossed over.
The other thing I want to point out is that the cost of keeping planes on standby in the case of mechanical issues grounding a different plane would be astronomical, and that cost would probably triple or quadruple the cost of your plane ticket. At an airlines hub airport that might be feasible. But airport hangar space is limited and the run on costs of doing so are so cost prohibitive to most customers (not to mention the lack of AMT’s available to make it happen), that I just don’t understand what you expect a better result to look like.
We’re not talking about shade tree mechanics on their garage tearing down an engine here. We’re talking about highly trained AMT’s who are part of a maintenance apparatus that is heavily heavily regulated by the federal government.
I expected them to have mechanics working on the planes that had proper training for them. This is based on what I was told by the gate attendants, which I’ll admit may not have been accurate.
That expectation is not levied at anyone in the local chain of command; it’s directed at the decision making at he executive level that would lead to maintenance crews working on engines they weren’t certified/trained on.
Part of it I will admit comes down to my frustration with watching the engine become progressively dissembled while waiting for hours and watching the clock run out on my rental, but I never blamed the people there. I’ve worked IT for a long time and know first hand that the people talking to you are usually just doing the best they can and often following policy that they have no flexibility in. Even local management often has their hands tied.
If I came across blaming the techs or the crew or management at the airport, which it sounds like I did at least to you, I’m sorry for that, it really wasn’t ever my intention. At the point the plane needed something fixed, the situation was already way too far gone to salvage, and whether it was because it was more serious than it first appeared or there simply wasn’t the right experience available, the damage was already done and nothing anyone there at that time would have salvaged it.
Waiting on the replacement plane was frustrating, but logistics are logistics and you can’t summon a plane or crew from thin air, crews can only fly so long without a break safely, and keeping additional extremely expensive planes sitting around gathering dust waiting to be needed at every airport just doesn’t make sense.
My expectation (which it sounds increasingly like to me was down to misunderstanding of what’s involved, which you’ve been trying to tell me) was that airlines will have maintenance crews that know the planes they’re working on. You’re saying this was probably outside the scope of what’s a typical maintenance crew is able to tackle in a short time, like a car mechanic checking a seemingly minor leak and ultimately finding out the engine needs to be rebuilt.
But again, never did blame anyone but upper management, who were nowhere near anyone at that airport during that, and I hope that’s now clear
Can I ask exactly what you expected them to do? The managers or gate staff or whoever?
I ask because delays when they happen are usually tied to federal regulations about who can fly, what can fly, in what condition, in what weather, etc. So if they found something to be mechanically wrong with your plane and not fixable in a way that is airworthy, generally that plane would be grounded and the airline would then have to scramble to find accommodation.
While I’ll grant you that airlines overbook pretty much every plane in the event that people don’t show up, and that’s a scummy practice, I also fully understand that this decision was definitely not made by some.manager actively at the airport. This was a decision from the executive suite of the company.
I don’t have good things to say about flying United, American, or Delta, even. I’m a bit biased about Southwest. But I haven’t really had any problems with them. Believe it or not, same with Alaska despite the recent bad press.
I have been delayed many a time. I recognise that it can be devastatingly inconvenient and problematic. It can cost customers significant amounts of money and time.
I’m not saying it’s unreasonable to be angry. I’m saying that the airport staff who likely would have related this information to you (pilot, flight attendants, gate staff) also aren’t responsible. Further, the person who tasked that AMT or those AMT’s to work on the plane you were on is likely doing their best to utilise staff efficiently and effectively to keep planes in the air because that’s their job, and that job becomes exponentially harder when planes are grounded.
Your ire seems to be directed towards the airline at large, and it seems like you had an expectation of what would and should happen that I feel is unreasonable given what I know.
You haven’t really made it clear what you expected except the things I have spoken to in previous comments in this thread. But even if you didn’t mean it that way, what you basically said is that the AMT wasn’t qualified (which isn’t true) to be working on the model of plane that they were servicing, and that caused a delay. Which is why I said you were blaming the AMT. The fact that the manager of that AMT is also probably an AMT as well is something you seem to have glossed over.
The other thing I want to point out is that the cost of keeping planes on standby in the case of mechanical issues grounding a different plane would be astronomical, and that cost would probably triple or quadruple the cost of your plane ticket. At an airlines hub airport that might be feasible. But airport hangar space is limited and the run on costs of doing so are so cost prohibitive to most customers (not to mention the lack of AMT’s available to make it happen), that I just don’t understand what you expect a better result to look like.
We’re not talking about shade tree mechanics on their garage tearing down an engine here. We’re talking about highly trained AMT’s who are part of a maintenance apparatus that is heavily heavily regulated by the federal government.
I expected them to have mechanics working on the planes that had proper training for them. This is based on what I was told by the gate attendants, which I’ll admit may not have been accurate.
That expectation is not levied at anyone in the local chain of command; it’s directed at the decision making at he executive level that would lead to maintenance crews working on engines they weren’t certified/trained on.
Part of it I will admit comes down to my frustration with watching the engine become progressively dissembled while waiting for hours and watching the clock run out on my rental, but I never blamed the people there. I’ve worked IT for a long time and know first hand that the people talking to you are usually just doing the best they can and often following policy that they have no flexibility in. Even local management often has their hands tied.
If I came across blaming the techs or the crew or management at the airport, which it sounds like I did at least to you, I’m sorry for that, it really wasn’t ever my intention. At the point the plane needed something fixed, the situation was already way too far gone to salvage, and whether it was because it was more serious than it first appeared or there simply wasn’t the right experience available, the damage was already done and nothing anyone there at that time would have salvaged it.
Waiting on the replacement plane was frustrating, but logistics are logistics and you can’t summon a plane or crew from thin air, crews can only fly so long without a break safely, and keeping additional extremely expensive planes sitting around gathering dust waiting to be needed at every airport just doesn’t make sense.
My expectation (which it sounds increasingly like to me was down to misunderstanding of what’s involved, which you’ve been trying to tell me) was that airlines will have maintenance crews that know the planes they’re working on. You’re saying this was probably outside the scope of what’s a typical maintenance crew is able to tackle in a short time, like a car mechanic checking a seemingly minor leak and ultimately finding out the engine needs to be rebuilt.
But again, never did blame anyone but upper management, who were nowhere near anyone at that airport during that, and I hope that’s now clear