Another Day In Paradise?

[Dont call me Shirley]

Most customers understand weather delays (one exception being a rather obnoxious and loud woman shouting in French on her mobile and in English to anyone and everyone in boarding lounge on my flight last night).

It was a dark and stormy night but except for the afforementioned woman, everyone was patient and the obviosly tired gate agents were doing a fine job keeping everyone updated. The aircraft finally appeared and boarding followed soon after the last inbound passenger had deplaned. The captain explained the inbound delay in some detail and apoligized.

Everyone was onboard. Then we sat. And sat some more. Our Skipper (brave and sure) then came on the PA again and said that we ready to go. Except there was no one on the ramp to load the bags. A look out the window revealed three carts of bags. Including a dog in a large crate...fortunately in a covered cart so the dog was shielded from the rain, if not the noise. We sat some more. Skipper said that he was sorry but there were lots more planes on the ground than usual for this time of night. Some 45 minutes after we had boarded, the captain came on the horn again. Our destination airport had a curfew that night due to runway work. A curfew that we would now miss. He was very sorry. but our flight had now cancelled.



Weather and ATC are one thing. The "Philly Phactor" is something else entirely.

 

[WestCoastGuy]

Weather and ATC are one thing. The "Philly Phactor" is something else entirely.

Wonderful Philadelphia....remember, it's the "Crown Jewel" of our system.


Whatta joke.

 

[mweiss]

Just a little reminder to our passengers that frequent this forum...

Chances are slim that the people frequenting this forum are the same ones complaining to you. I, for one, sympathize greatly with the agents, and often let them know.

Interestingly enough, many of them remember me on subsequent visits, since I keep a somewhat regular schedule these days.

 

[Dont call me Shirley]

Another fun day in the Northeast!
From www.fly.faa.gov:

Due to WX:ENRTE TSTMS and WEATHER, ENRTE TSTMS, there is a Traffic Management Program in effect for traffic arriving Philadelphia International Airport, Philadelphia, PA (PHL). This is causing some arriving flights to be delayed an average of 2 hours and 45 minutes. To see if you may be affected, select your departure airport and check "Delays by Destination".



Due to WEATHER, TSTMS, there is a Traffic Management Program in effect for traffic arriving Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Washington, DC (DCA). To see if you may be affected, select your departure airport and check "Delays by Destination".
Delays by Destination:

* Due to WX:ENRTE TSTMS, departure traffic destined to General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport, Boston, MA (BOS) is currently experiencing delays averaging 1 hour and 9 minutes.
* Due to WX:ENRTE TSTMS, departure traffic destined to Newark International Airport, Newark, NJ (EWR) is currently experiencing delays averaging 3 hours and 12 minutes.
* Due to WEATHER, TSTMS, departure traffic destined to Washington Dulles International Airport, Washington, DC (IAD) is currently experiencing delays averaging 1 hour and 53 minutes.
* Due to WX:ENRTE TSTMS, departure traffic destined to John F Kennedy International Airport, New York, NY (JFK) is currently experiencing delays averaging 58 minutes.
* Due to WX:ENRTE TSTMS, departure traffic destined to La Guardia Airport, New York, NY (LGA) is currently experiencing delays averaging 3 hours and 38 minutes.
* Due to WEATHER, WIND, departure traffic destined to Chicago OHare International

 

[Hope777]

Yes today looks like ANOTHER great day in the Northeast.........


DELAY INFO

ARPT AD DD TIME REASON
ATL +15 2023 ENROUTE TSTMS
BOS +30 1955 ENRTE TSTMS
DCA +60 2015 ENROUTE TSTMS
EWR +330 2037 WX/TSTMS
HPN +90 1938 ENRTE TSTMS
IAD +45 2015 ENROUTE TSTMS
LGA -120 2018 WX:TSTMS
PHL +60 2010 ENROUTE TSTMS
TEB -165 2015 WX, TSTMS
AIRPORT CLOSURES

Source......
http://www.fly.faa.gov/ois/

 

[WestCoastGuy]

Just curious...is there ever a "Nice" day in the northeast? Winter and spring have snow and ice..summer and fall have thurnderstorms.

 

[youngblood]

Just curious...is there ever a "Nice" day in the northeast? Winter and spring have snow and ice..summer and fall have thurnderstorms.

Plenty of nice days in the NE but when it rains it pours. No pun intended.


On another note, yes, everyone experiences bad weather; however, U is a floundering airline running with a skeleton crew in every area of the company except CCY.

 

[USHenry]

Here in ORF I have never remembered a day when we have had knock-your-socks-off thunderstorms every single day for a week at least...there's flash flooding with pictures of cars floating down the streets on the cover of the local papers. On Monday a thunderstorm sat directly on top of the airport for over an hour.

 

[mbmbbost]

I was sort of excited to hear that new point to point flying (from BOS in particular) might help me avoid the PHL mess some of the time in the future. I still haven't seen any indication that this might really happen though, searching schedules in the future. Shouldn't routes start appearing in the fall schedule sometime soon? Wouldn't this dramatically improve the overall situation when there's bad weather at certain places on the east coast?

 

[tadjr]

Yes yesterday was another bang up weather day in PHL. 245 and 430 flight both pushed off the gate about 745 and sat for another hour before leaving. 700 flight cancelled. Management decided not to cover overtime until the stuff hit the fan and it was late in the day and couldnt get anyone to come in at that point. Most of the afternoon we had 4 agents on the counter rerouting and 1 agent per flight was the norm at the gate. Goodie, when they get me a gate reader, at least I'll have some help!

 

[jimntx]

For the outlying stations who just came on the air, let me repeat...

You could not pay me enough money to be a gate agent with anyone's airline. You guys have the hardest job in the airline business! My sympathies. (I know that doesn't help with the short staffing, but...)

 

[ktflyhome]

It is not only Philly. Yesterday our flt from PVD-PIT at 9:15 am was put on ground hold, due air traffic and weather. They were delaying us for at least 1hour 45 min. We moved from the gate, because the gate was needed. We went out and sat.

Several F/C US1's and 2's finally said that they would really like to go back to the gate and get off, as they were going to miss their connection and planned meetings and there was really no need for them to go at that point. All, they would be doing is flying to Pit then turn around to fly back to PVD if they could.

We went back to the gate. Well, over half of our customers wanted off by this point, because their connections were lost. Next flight to Pit was 3:15. WE let those customers off, went back out to sit and wait for a release and then had a mechanical. We went back to the gate.

The Agent there was absolutely wonderful. Working all by himself. He was bombarded both times with the customers trying to rebook. He called for assistance, but none came. He held is composure and calm to the utmost professionality.

Unfortunately, what was really sad to me, were the several elderly/wheel chair customers travelling alone to meet their children. There was no one to assist these people. I wheeled 2 up myself, assisted taking one to the ladies room who was half blind and let her use my cell phone to call her daughter.

One elderly lady asked me if U still let their passengers make a "free call", because they let her make one back in 1979.

Our flight was totally cancelled. Our crew finally left at 6:10pm bound for Pit. I remember leaving the one little lady at the gate sitting all by herself for over 3 hours for the next 3:15 flight, hoping someone would be available to get her to the bathroom or something to eat or drink.

I know that the Agent really needed additional help. One agent taking care of over 100 people's agendas is a bit much, IMOHO.

 

[bobcat]

ktflyhome

AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That and everything else just makes me want to scream!!!!!!!