It says it was 111 degrees, but presumably that’s the outside temperature, right? What would the temperature inside the plane be? It must have been pretty hot given that people were starting to pass out.
I had a nightmare flight recently - 48 hours to fly 6 hours. Direct flight canceled, overnight in hotel, missed connections, total nightmare. My assistant tried for an entire day to get reimbursed by various airlines for the problems and we got half the money back but somehow United stonewalled us. Don’t even know how to complain.
Bottom line is - not going to travel for at least a year, and told my family to research places we can drive to. Flying is an absolute mess and I’m not going to do it anymore.
The worst part about this type of thing is it's not like there's a particular person you can be mad at. You can only be mad at the entire system while it tells you "your call is very important to us".
I called United recently with a question about a $1200 flight credit that was evidently unusable, seemingly due to an apparent failure in one of their systems. I called the customer service line and guffawed out loud when the automated voice told me the wait time was over two hours.
2 hours and 45 minutes later, I gave up. You win, United. Enjoy the $1200 from my Covid flight cancellation. I guess I figured I’d at least get to use it given that whole $50 billion bailout, but I guess you needed the money more than I did.
For future cases, the best strategy here is to call them the instant their phone lines open up. For a west coast person this can sometimes mean calling at 5am or something.
This is unconventional, but what about writing them a letter? Address it to the CEO and mention that you're also sending a copy to the FTC. I presume someone is going to open that mail, and while this isn't going to resolve anything quickly, the advantage is you don't have to wait on the phone for hours...
> told my family to research places we can drive to
If you're on the east coast, consider a train instead. At least between DC and Boston, train schedules are more reliable than plane schedules, and are more comfortable than driving. (And if you're not in the US at all, I probably don't need to remind you that trains exist.)
This is hilarious - I flew United recently for the first time in 2-3 years. And good lord, I thought it had been bad before, but somehow the potential was there for it to become worse than I ever could have imagined. Surly crew, comically dreary cabin, unimaginably terrible “food,” and approximately one drink service per three hours of flight. The only saving grace was that recline seemed to be broken on many of the seats, so at least the legroom wasn’t terrible.
I never had a, uh, opportunity to fly Aeroflot, but this is a lot what I imagine it must have been like.
I hate the Southwest cattle call, but it’s a no-BS consistent experience… if they happen to fly where you want to go without having to make two connections and a non-plane-change extra landing. And Delta still somehow seems to be a generally nice experience, though that only really works for me if I’m flying to one of their hubs.
You’re right I was lucky enough to avoid that one!
Edit: But also I’ve read about that incident and I feel bad joking about it.
I maintain my original statement with regard to flight amenities, and I’ve never felt unsafe flying on a commercial airline, but I’m going to leave it at that.
Southwest Airlines has more flights in a day than Aeroflot but 0 fatalities. I don't think many airlines can compete with Aeroflot when it comes to deaths caused by inebriated pilots
My second biggest complaint about American airline operations is the lack of food service. Even the cheap domestic flights in China have food service. The closest thing to food I've ever experienced on an domestic American operation is the fancy bag of various things Southwest gives out on flights to Hawaii.
United offered “chicken and quinoa” and “tofu and pasta” on a nine-hour flight. I assume they thought the choices sounded sophisticated or something. The chicken was literally frozen (up to and including the time that it was served to the end user).
I recently flew international for the first time since 2019. Boston to Taipei, which normally takes 25 to 30 hours, door-to-door, and cost between $1200 and $1500 pre-Covid, took 83 hours after multiple delays. This was a $2000 ticket too.
The worst part was rebooking at JFK for an international airline with insufficient local capacity and ground staff. And then getting the runaround on hotel reimbursements.
Hrm. Wonder if the high temps were because the plane was only running its APU (auxiliary power unit - a small, non-thrust-producing turbine) (to conserve fuel, presumably), and so was unable to provide HVAC to the main cabin.
FlightAware says Delta 555 is usually served by a B757-200, not sure how the HVAC is laid out there, but given the power draw of HVAC systems, seems unlikely that just an APU can provide enough power to deal with 111°F (and likely higher, since the plane was on a nice hot tarmac, with heat reflection not helping matters any).
It would be interesting to know if the pilots were aware of the conditions, requested guidance from the company, and were told to conserve fuel. (This os pure speculation on my part).
My assumption has been that planes mostly don't have air conditioning. I was stuck on the ground due to technical issues once and so they brought in an air conditioning truck to keep things comfortable (this was in South Texas). I thought they brought in bleed air from somewhere in the engine which would be pretty cool at altitude. I'm sure someone who actually knows about airplanes could chime in and correct me.
I'm no pilot, but my understanding is that airplane HVAC is driven by pressurized air from compressor bleed (running through a device that manipulates pressure and thus temperature, through various heat exchangers, to produce heat or cooling as needed), and doesn't run at all from the APU.
Cool air on the ground is from a duct under the jetway. Once they push back, they're basically unconditioned until the main engines are at power.
I don’t know if my bias is affected by the last half dozen or so flights I’ve been on during this unseasonably hot last few months, but it seems to me like temperature regulation on planes on the ground is way more unpleasant than it used to be.
My recollection is that, occasionally, there’d be a problem keeping the plane cool, and they’d ask you to power the shades and open the A/C vent (and this was generally in places like Phoenix or Vegas, so, understandable). Now I feel like this is the case on every hot weather flight, regardless of airline, even in fairly temperate climates.
I don’t know if this is a cost cutting thing, a function of modern aircraft design, or something I’ve hallucinated, but my strong impression is that the airlines have somehow managed to make sitting on the ground in a plane even more unpleasant than it used to be.
This is such an easy problem to solve. Just pass a law that any delay longer than X minutes automatically entitles all passengers to MAX(Y, Z% x Ticket Price) paid in cash to the passengers.
Once there’s a quantifiable cost that cannot be escaped, airlines will be forced to solve the problem.
I was recently stuck on the tarmac for nearly 3 hours over night. It was an awful experience (especially since they were unable to give us a real estimate, we kept hearing 15-30 mins for the entire duration). I would have much rather they simply cancel the flight than have to go through that.
The issue is that all these airlines are running things with much lower tolerance for variance in the system than they used to. They just don't have the resources to support that any more. Rather than lose money by being honest about what they can handle, they'll let passengers suffer. The reason is obvious: no matter how awful my experience so far, I'll continue to keep flying.
I suspect air travel will get worse until the limit case that it's so awful people start refusing to fly altogether.
If you have Internet connectivity you can go to LiveATC.net and listen to communications between your pilots and the airport ground controllers. That will sometimes give you more accurate information about what's really happening.
USDOT has some rules re tarmac delays "For flights departing from a U.S. airport, airlines are required to begin to move the airplane to a location where passengers can safely get off before 3 hours for domestic flights and 4 hours for international flights." from https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer... but it looks like they fell within the 3 hour cap, plus there's probably no monetary penalty to passengers as you propose.
I know that Canada (where I live) has introduced the Air Passenger Protection Regulations[1] in 2019 (and making it better since then), which does have "tarmac delays" clauses[2]. IIRC, we modelled it after EU regulations.
We already do have that. If your flight is canceled, you can be reimbursed. This doesn't matter because they don't have to pay it unless you sue them for it and get a judgement allowing you to seize it. Airlines do this and far worse. Law is and always has been a recommendation, the actual powers at play have to be involved for anything to be done.
Man you read these airline "stuck on the tarmac for hours" stories and it makes you want to explode in rage. Even if it's only 50% true, this one is next level; can't remember a story remotely resembling this situation.
And what can you do? I can and do write 'dem letters to my Reps and Senators. But the feeling of hopelessness can be intense with these things. Corporate priorities stressing us out and leaving us in the lurch, over and over, again and again.
My wife was returning home from Dallas on a flight delayed for thunderstorms. The plane was completely full. They sat on the tarmac for 2 hours before takeoff and to conserve fuels turned off the air conditioner “to avoid refueling” the pilot said. The elderly woman sitting next to my wife vomited then passed out, and they had to taxi back to a gate and drop her off to get medical attention. My wife said it was maybe 80 degrees on the plane. I can imagine higher temperatures would create more issues.
My understanding is that's the cause of the additional turbulence you see these days, since they glide into land rather than stepping down to avoid turbulence. I think they also have planes more tightly packed now subjecting you to more wind vortex from the other planes.
That isn't what causes turbulence. Turbulence is caused primarily by natural winds, especially near storms or mountains. There can also be momentary turbulence when passing through the wake of a large aircraft, but rules on separation haven't changed significant in years.
Commercial airlines don't shut off their engines and glide to land. ATC usually directs them to step down their altitude from cruise in increments until they intercept a cleared approach. Then they make a smooth, continuous descent with minor variations in power to stay on the assigned slope.
My understanding from someone who knows about this (please forgive my lack of knowledge as I am attempting to relay what they told me) was that they used to step down when going to land at fixed points to avoid turbulence and hold those levels.
The levels were picked to provide the customers a comfortable ride, based on reports from other planes and whatever other sources they have.
They have since been told to save on fuel and so don't do this, not "gliding" but lowering the thrust to save fuel when descending which exposes people to the rougher air for longer periods of time.
Please correct my understanding if this is not the case.
Disclaimer, I'm not a pilot so it's very possible I'm wrong. But I think you might want to ask your friend to clarify this as I'm having a hard time understanding.
That said I think there's some terminology mix up. The path of the aircraft is taking when making a landing (the slope the poster is talking about) is called the glidepath. It's got nothing to do with the engines or the aircraft type.
The stepping down might be the pattern used as the plane is being maneuvered to line up with the runway but AFAIK those are just to setup for landing rather then being a part of the actually landing itself once the controller clears the pilot land.
This didn't seem right to me as intuitively thinner air would require much more power to move the same volume to propel you forward. My intuition fell apart based on the altitude which aircraft typically fly. Below typical cruise altitudes, the air resistance seems to overcome the additional thrust produced by the engines leading to lower fuel economy. It's not until you get above typical cruise altitudes that the are gets too thin to be effectively pushed by jet engines. In retrospect it makes sense because of course airlines are going to try to operate at the altitude which costs them the least amount of fuel. Go much higher or lower than those cruise altitudes and your fuel efficiency drops pretty quickly.
Having recently flown with toddler and preschooler, I cannot imagine how miserable the kids on this plane would have been. Babies can overheat easily and do permanent brain damage.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 117 ms ] threadBottom line is - not going to travel for at least a year, and told my family to research places we can drive to. Flying is an absolute mess and I’m not going to do it anymore.
2 hours and 45 minutes later, I gave up. You win, United. Enjoy the $1200 from my Covid flight cancellation. I guess I figured I’d at least get to use it given that whole $50 billion bailout, but I guess you needed the money more than I did.
If you're on the east coast, consider a train instead. At least between DC and Boston, train schedules are more reliable than plane schedules, and are more comfortable than driving. (And if you're not in the US at all, I probably don't need to remind you that trains exist.)
I never had a, uh, opportunity to fly Aeroflot, but this is a lot what I imagine it must have been like.
I hate the Southwest cattle call, but it’s a no-BS consistent experience… if they happen to fly where you want to go without having to make two connections and a non-plane-change extra landing. And Delta still somehow seems to be a generally nice experience, though that only really works for me if I’m flying to one of their hubs.
Edit: But also I’ve read about that incident and I feel bad joking about it.
I maintain my original statement with regard to flight amenities, and I’ve never felt unsafe flying on a commercial airline, but I’m going to leave it at that.
Wait American airline operators still serve food?
My second biggest complaint about American airline operations is the lack of food service. Even the cheap domestic flights in China have food service. The closest thing to food I've ever experienced on an domestic American operation is the fancy bag of various things Southwest gives out on flights to Hawaii.
The worst part was rebooking at JFK for an international airline with insufficient local capacity and ground staff. And then getting the runaround on hotel reimbursements.
FlightAware says Delta 555 is usually served by a B757-200, not sure how the HVAC is laid out there, but given the power draw of HVAC systems, seems unlikely that just an APU can provide enough power to deal with 111°F (and likely higher, since the plane was on a nice hot tarmac, with heat reflection not helping matters any).
It would be interesting to know if the pilots were aware of the conditions, requested guidance from the company, and were told to conserve fuel. (This os pure speculation on my part).
Cool air on the ground is from a duct under the jetway. Once they push back, they're basically unconditioned until the main engines are at power.
My recollection is that, occasionally, there’d be a problem keeping the plane cool, and they’d ask you to power the shades and open the A/C vent (and this was generally in places like Phoenix or Vegas, so, understandable). Now I feel like this is the case on every hot weather flight, regardless of airline, even in fairly temperate climates.
I don’t know if this is a cost cutting thing, a function of modern aircraft design, or something I’ve hallucinated, but my strong impression is that the airlines have somehow managed to make sitting on the ground in a plane even more unpleasant than it used to be.
Once there’s a quantifiable cost that cannot be escaped, airlines will be forced to solve the problem.
Of course they don’t have control over the weather but they do control how they react to it.
A route that regularly has multi hour delays on the tarmac due to congestion at terminal should not exist.
If the service is being offered it better be capable of being rendered.
The issue is that all these airlines are running things with much lower tolerance for variance in the system than they used to. They just don't have the resources to support that any more. Rather than lose money by being honest about what they can handle, they'll let passengers suffer. The reason is obvious: no matter how awful my experience so far, I'll continue to keep flying.
I suspect air travel will get worse until the limit case that it's so awful people start refusing to fly altogether.
[1] https://rppa-appr.ca/eng
[2] https://rppa-appr.ca/eng/right/tarmac-delays
Incidentally, I find flying in the EU to be far more pleasant than in the USA. Perhaps it is related.
And what can you do? I can and do write 'dem letters to my Reps and Senators. But the feeling of hopelessness can be intense with these things. Corporate priorities stressing us out and leaving us in the lurch, over and over, again and again.
You could take personal responsibility for having a medical emergency when stuck on tarmac with no air conditioning.
My understanding is that's the cause of the additional turbulence you see these days, since they glide into land rather than stepping down to avoid turbulence. I think they also have planes more tightly packed now subjecting you to more wind vortex from the other planes.
Commercial airlines don't shut off their engines and glide to land. ATC usually directs them to step down their altitude from cruise in increments until they intercept a cleared approach. Then they make a smooth, continuous descent with minor variations in power to stay on the assigned slope.
The levels were picked to provide the customers a comfortable ride, based on reports from other planes and whatever other sources they have.
They have since been told to save on fuel and so don't do this, not "gliding" but lowering the thrust to save fuel when descending which exposes people to the rougher air for longer periods of time.
Please correct my understanding if this is not the case.
That said I think there's some terminology mix up. The path of the aircraft is taking when making a landing (the slope the poster is talking about) is called the glidepath. It's got nothing to do with the engines or the aircraft type.
The stepping down might be the pattern used as the plane is being maneuvered to line up with the runway but AFAIK those are just to setup for landing rather then being a part of the actually landing itself once the controller clears the pilot land.
Which is called a "glide path" or "glide slope": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system_glid...
This does not sound coherent. Airliners consume more fuel lower down than higher up. And they definietly don’t “glide” them in the aviation sense.
This is just inhumane.