A Noreaster Is Coming Are We Ready?

[Colby]

Welcome Home Bob,

Glad to see ATA got ya back home even with irregular Ops....

Did you really think no one would notice your your comment about how to treat Customers during irregular Ops...

Hmmm guess even with all the Knitting and Reading in the jumpseat U's F/A's probably are making the amount of money they deserve...... It's called EXPERIENCE !!!! Especially dealing with The Philly Phactor and East Coast Attitudes !!!!

 

[Art at ISP]

Mark My Words,

Please understand that my ONLY frustration was with the amount of time it took to make a decision. Of course I realize that safety comes first. In this case, the replacement airplane eventually used was right next to ours, and was scheduled to be the NEXT flight to LGA. Had the decision been made in 10 min instead of an hour plus we would have gotten into LGA before the weather went down.

The roads in PA were fine, but NJ and NY were getting SOCKED. I believe the folks made it to LGA by bus, but I was not comfortable in taking that route. As it turns out I should have. The rest of the story gets worse.

For what it's worth, after 6, countem 6 involuntary reroutes, I got into LGA at 3PM and used the Ground Voucher to get to ISP. I got home at around 5PM and am supposed to leave first thing in the morning.

I will post the full story of TODAY's nightmare in a new topic to be called
THE NIGHTMARE THAT IS PHL Part 2. Let's just say that I endured 2 more cancellations, one because they couldn't find a flight attendant!

Oh well. To be fair my thanks go to the vast majority of U who were nothing other than stellar during this crisis. My praise will be sung on your behalf--I took names too There will be some unfortunate individuals at Express, however, who will not be happy with what I have to say.

My best to you all.

 

[Singleflyer]

By Sunday night the problems in PHL are gone. My flight from MHT actually landed early, sometimes that doesn't happen in good weather. My express flight to BGM is still showing on time, but only time will tell. Bust most fights seems to be on time. I hope many people did not have art's problems over the weekend. But I was glad to find out today, the flight from MHT to PIT that I wanted to switch to, that was sold out was running late out of MHT, so beleive it or not PHL was the better choice, for a change.

 

[Colby]

Bob,

You are so much fun to talk to. The 20 years of experience do equate to the 1 year of repitition..... You don't realize what those f/a's have been through... If you have ever been "online" you Sir (I think your name is BOB) would know that they can handle East Coast "DRAMA" from their 1st "Irregular Ops".... Believe it or not We learn QUICKLY !!!!

 

[DCD]

Well it was IN THE CABIN! :blink:

The two flights are off and one arriving at 154pm to MCO and the other at 241pm to TPA. These were both from the FIRST BANK OF THE DAY in PHL and they are getting in 3 or 4 hours late on the FIRST FLIGHTS FROM PHL of the day showing deicing delays. Did we have a deicing problem? If so what was it? No one to deice? A deicer not working? What, other than a blizzard, would cause the first bank of the day to leave the crown jewel over 3-4 hours late? Someone please let us know what the problem was. If it was truly the weather was that bad, then we're stuck with it, but how did other carriers manage to get out without 3-4 hour delays? Enquiring minds want to know.

As a 5 year team member of the PHL de-icing team I would like to shed some light on the de-icing situation in PHL. The city of PHL ownes the de-icing pad and all related equiptment with the exception of the de-icing trucks. The de-icing pad includes 6 de-icing slots with 2 booms each and 3 slots without booms where a/c are ment to be de-iced with trucks. The pad was designed and built under the control of the city owned airport authority with some input from Usairways. As expected with a project of this size and complexity there were problems along the way. The facility was expected to open at the beginning of the 2001 de-icing season but was not fully opened until the start of the 2002 de-icing season. Originally slots #2 and #3 were to have four booms per slot to expedite the de-icing of wide body a/c. Because of cost constraints the city only installed two booms per those slots. Two booms are no faster than two trucks and in the past four trucks would normally be used on wide body a/c. PHL accepted the completed facility with many problems, who knows why? - maybe they were given assurances. Some of the problems have been fixed, many have not. Here is an example of some of the problems: The booms have been unreliable since installed. Last year there were countless hydraulic filter housing failures that left booms disabled for hours if not days at a time often trapping operators stranded fourty feet in the air and a/c half finished until the booms could be lowered with emergency controls and trucks dispatched to finish the de-icing. Boom to Ice House (de-icing control tower) communication systems were constantly inop and this problem is still an issue. The valves and computers that are responcible for automatically maintaining glycol/water mixtures were constantly inacurate and required constant attention and repair to ensure FAA compliance. Water tanks and glycol pumps needed to fill Usairways trucks at this new facility were/are continually leaking and failing. This years opperational problems were compounded by Usairways lack of interest in bidding for the contract to opperate the facility. A contract was signed by Usairways and the City 20 hours prior to Fridays snow event. We had no access to the facility ( literally no keys) until the contract was signed. And since there was no contract to opperate, Usairways had signed no contract to have the equipment maintained by outside contractors since last April when last years contracts expired. On top of this instead of the 22 trucks we opperated last year before the inevitable 25% failure rate during the average snow event, Usairways sent 8 trucks to DCA at the same time we were given the added responsibility of de-icing several additional airlines. In short considering these opsticals the usairways employees who braved the winter elements and countless hours Friday and Saturday to get not only the Usairways a/c but countless other airlines a/c and passengers out of PHL safely with minimal delay deserve the respect and congradulations of many, but foremost Our CEO and BOD.

 

[tadjr]

Thanks for shedding some light on the problem. Does anyone know if we are ACTIVELY pursuing the needed fixes or are we hoping it doesnt snow again soon?

 

[MarkMyWords]

Agreed DCD - Thanks for the insight and information. My gripe lies more with the lack of planning in the sense of reducing flight activity. Knowing that even on a good day it is tough tot get in/out of PHL, none the less when we are decing and expecting heavy snow falls. Same goes for LGA and BOS. We continue to wait until the last second and then it is utter Chaos. Customers are stranded all over the system, versus being in the comfort of their own homes speaking with reservations agents to rebook / reschedule their travel.

Thanks for doing your part to keep them flying safely.

 

[DCD]

Thanks for shedding some light on the problem. Does anyone know if we are ACTIVELY pursuing the needed fixes or are we hoping it doesnt snow again soon?

Some additional info: PHL used several vendors and contractors to build the new de-icing pad therefore identifying who is responsible to make repairs or improvements is next to impossible. Each blame each other for problems and as just users of the system and not owners you can imagine how hard it has been for us as low level usairways employees ie. mech, lead, supervisor to get the powers to be to pressure whoever to make the repair/changes necessary. The higher-ups seem to want only to cover thier own a$$. As we have a new Usairways maintenance manager in philly, now maybe things will get better. At least this one, who happened to be in attendance for most of the first event seems to show sincere interest. Only time will tell. My only fear is that outsiders to the deicing opperation will forget that we like you as other Usairways employees most of the time do our best for the company and our customers regaurdless of the resources or lack there of provided by CCY.

 

[tadjr]

My only fear is that outsiders to the deicing opperation will forget that we like you as other Usairways employees most of the time do our best for the company and our customers regaurdless of the resources or lack there of provided by CCY.

I think most of us on the front line know what its like trying to work with some of the equipment we have and commend you guys for getting any planes deiced if things were as bad as you mentioned.
This is part of why I mentioned this to begin with. Someone needs to step up and make sure that this very important part of the system is going to get fixed and soon. It does no good for US to sit and fret about why it isnt done now that we know it isnt working and there is absolutely nothing that front line mechanics or leads can do to get things going on this project. Someone needs to make sure it IS done asap no matter who has to do it so the operation can run more smoothly the next time PHL gets hit. This isnt something that can be swept under the rug and yesmanned, since its obvious that it didnt work. Now I'd like to ask again and maybe someone from CCY can respond. ARE WE READY in PHL?

 

[N628AU]

This is not unique to PHL or US Airways. A friend of mine works for a thrid party contractor that handles work primarily for international carriers. JFK was such a mess, that he was called yesterday from CLT to get to JFK ASAP, along with other managers from around the company to get ops back in line.