This is happening too often. What I want to know is, why did they wait so long?
Right There on the Tarmac, the Inmates Revolt
ON July 29, Continental Flight 1669, a 737-700 with about 120 passengers aboard, was bound for Newark from Caracas, Venezuela, when bad weather caused the plane to be diverted to Baltimore. It sat there for about five hours with passengers on board as food and water ran low and toilets became filthy.
[…]
But what made the Continental flight somewhat different was that passengers organized and protested by clapping in rhythm and drumming on overhead bins. Finally, the pilot, worried about mayhem, called the police.
I especially liked the part where they were treated like criminals after being taken off instead of the airline.
For the legal experts: can’t the airline be charged with kidnapping or similar?
I may never fly again at this rate.
From one who flies a lot, the indifference and attitudes sound like just another day at an airport. It used to be that the airlines treated passengers with respect and at least acted like they appreciated people flying on their planes. No more: fancy cattle cars with passengers treated the same.
I know if a taxi cab driver refused to let you out of the cab for five hours even after you paid him it’d be considering kidnapping. Absolutely no question about it.
How the airlines get around this is beyond me. Oh wait, they’re controlled by the feds. And I guess that’s your answer.
Well it’s about damned time the passengers started organizing and objecting.
Yeah, I bet FAA regulations trump local kidnapping or wrongful imprisonment laws, although if it went on long enough, I would be on the cell phone to the local, telling them that strangely-dressed people were refusing to let me leave …
force me to stay on a plane thats sitting still for that long and I’d get off, in handcuffs or allowed off…i’d get off that damn plane one way or the other
And how many INTERNATIONAL airports are there??
5 hours? really? HOLY COW! I would think they would go back to the terminal after 60 minutes for fuel and a bathroom break…
I would sue. or prosecute for something, how about “mental distress?”
and the fact that you can never fly again.
I’m not. and guess what? I may not have to.
8^)
Just goes to show what happens when an industry is “deregulated”. Except for the smoking prohibition, the airline industry has gone steadily into the crapper since the Airline Deregulation Act fo 1978.
God bless the “free market”.
And hey….how about those cell phones? How’s that working for ya?
I hate flying, its always feels like I been imprisoned as soon as I get in to terminal.
You have to go through intake part, where you will be search for weapons/drugs/liquids for your own good. just like jail If you get out of the security area and try to get back in they screen with extra care.
I usually have about 4 shots of Johnny before I get on the plane.
And it’s called the “hospitality industry”.
Sorry, but I’m going to be the devil’s advocate here. Since the flight was INTERNATIONAL and got diverted to an airport other than its intended destination, it would have been ILLEGAL for them to disembark the passengers anywhere other than their intended destination without customs clearing it. I know it sucks, but it’s a big issue/deal with the homeland security rules. It’s not an FAA issue at all. The FAA allows you to disembark when you divert for weather/fuel – but you can’t get back on.
Newark has such a heavy traffic load that it doesn’t take much to back that place up for hours. It would have been nice for customs to allow the jet to be serviced/catered, but I think that is a customs violation as well. You can darn well bet that the crew were just as miserable as the passengers sitting on the tarmac for 5 hours, if not more so – they didn’t get the opportunity to rest for any of the flight enroute.
13. “it would have been ILLEGAL for them to disembark the passengers anywhere other than their intended destination without customs clearing it.”
Please show us this law. Because you’re saying that if I fly from France to New York but my plane crashes in Florida I’m unable to leave the plane?! Under the law I cannot leave the plane until it’s fixed, because for some asinine reason I can only check in with one customs office in the entire fricken continental United States?!
I don’t know if you’ve ever flown a plane before but occasionally they get diverted which means you simply have to check in with customs at your new location.
“It would have been nice for customs to allow the jet to be serviced/catered, but I think that is a customs violation as well.”
Show us that law too. I’m sure the FAA took the time to draft a regulation forbidding planes from feeding kidnapped people.
“You can darn well bet that the crew were just as miserable as the passengers sitting on the tarmac for 5 hours, if not more so – they didn’t get the opportunity to rest for any of the flight enroute.”
Who gives a rats ass?! As far as I’m concerned they each should have been arrested for not opening up the doors and letting the paying customers off who wanted to get off.
Chad, they better come up with something because this is just the first of the revolts.
Well, I was “kidnapped” aboard a plane when I came back from Mexico 5 years ago. There was too much fog at the destination airport and we got rerouted to somewhere without customs. We sat on the tarmac for 3 hours before we took off again to go to Chicago just to get off the damn plane, get some food and stretch a little
Of course it was hell for the pilots/flight attendants as well. At least they said, “We’ve been at work for over 24 hours. We were offered replacements but we want to see you all home.” WTF, get some fresh pilots aboard. I can’t think straight after 12 hours. How the hell can you fly a plane through fog after 24+ hours.
So theres some personal experience for you. Somehow I made it. I was stinky, but I made it.
I would protest as well. This is business law combined with Federal regulations (which can trump normal law quite often), so it will be a fun ride for those who choose to sue. But, they have the legal right to do so and many do, but the cases are usually settled out of court with confidentiality clauses.
One of the problems, I think, is that if there isn’t any customs, the airlines can disembark passengers to a closed area for food and water, but cannot reboard the same plane for further travel…. something to do with FAA regs on hours and crews and maintenance.
In the UK, your suit would be dismissed almost immediately as they have some of the worst consumer laws in the world.
#2 Too Right – Try a Chinese Airline once
#5 .“..although if it went on long enough, I would be on the cell phone to the local, telling them that strangely-dressed people were refusing to let me leave …”
LOL That would be fun! LOL!
#9 God bless the “free market”. The free market only works if the consumer makes a concerted effort in effecting the Market. No one does so then business do what they like – like the govenment.
So if ALL airlines do this an organized boycott of just one airline for a couple of weeks while using all the others would send a clear message. It would never happen so there you go. Don’t blame the system blame the people who use it.
#17 …airlines can disembark passengers to a closed area for food and water, but cannot reboard the same plane for further travel…. something to do with FAA regs on hours and crews and maintenance.
I think you are right.
Wait until someone has a heart attack from the stress…bombs away!
Cheers
BEFORE 9-11, too many airline personnel acted imperiously with NO FEAR OF RETRIBUTION. Since 9-11, these a-holes have gotten worse.
WHO SHOULD COMPLAIN? Corporations (and celebs like Dvorak) WHO HAVE A BIZILLION FF MILES. Those with much fewer are considered low-grade cattle.
THANK THE BUSH ADMIN FOR CORPORATE GREED AND CUSTOMER MISTREATMENT.
YOU IDIOTS WHO VOTED REPUBLICAN — GOT EXACTLY WHAT YOU DESERVE!!!
#9 – MM,
100% correct. In case anyone hadn’t noticed, after the deregulation, the average age of a plane went from 15 years to 30 years. And, it is no longer safer to fly than to drive.
I got on the wrong airplane (like a dumb ass, but they did look at my boarding pass) and they taxied out to the runway. When I realized I was on the wrong plane they took me back to the gate immediately and let me off. There is no reason to sit for hours on the tarmac. I blame the airline. No gate? Drag a mobile stairway over and get the people off.
>>The free market only works if the consumer makes a concerted
>>effort in effecting the Market.
>>
>>So if ALL airlines do this an organized boycott of just one airline for
>>a couple of weeks while using all the others would send a
>>clear message.
In the absence of some kind of “travelers’ union”, this has no likelihood of ever happening. Most people aren’t willing to spend time in lockup being treated like José Padilla when an airline fucks them over. And because of the “free-market” “deregulated” air travel system, unless you’re travelling from LAX to SFO or ORD, you often only have ONE choice of airline. You think business travelers are going to just say to their boss “Oh, I don’t like that airline; they don’t treat their passengers with respect, so I’m not going”??
The airline overlords are just like our new government overlords. Unless you’re willing to be a martyr for the cause, you’re pretty much shit out of luck. You sit on the tarmac for 10 hours, watching rivers of human excrement flow by you from the overflowing toilets, and grind your teeth. If you don’t like it, take a cab.
#21 – . And, it is no longer safer to fly than to drive.
That is absolutely not true. It is still far safer to fly.
Airports & airways are suffering from the tragedy of the commons. All the airlines, because of competition, are forced to cram as much volume through those government assets as possible, regardless of the consequences. Since the consequences to any one airline are more or less random (when due to weather or air traffic control), they all suffer equally or at least randomly. There is no competitive advantage to any one airline trying to fix the problem.
So, this is really about how to manage government assets correctly and for the benefit of the common good. If the government said it would control airports & airways based on minimizing passenger delays and converted some gates for use by passengers who are delayed more than X hours, then things might get better. However, that could be at the cost of travel convenience/flight frequency and price.